Lyn Goldfarb Productions, Inc.

Lyn Goldfarb Productions is an award-winning full service production company, creating documentaries and DVDs that challenge, entertain, educate and explore. We tailor our videos to the client, using our vision and creativity to enhance the viewing experience. We work with a variety of clients, ranging from primetime PBS and cable to museums, educational institutions and nonprofits.

LYN GOLDFARB, Director/Producer/Writer

I started my work as a documentary filmmaker as the historian and producer of WITH BABIES AND BANNERS. It was my first film, and it was nominated for an Academy Award. I was educated as a history major and had a Masters Degree in Women’s Studies, but film became my passion. Film has a unique ability to make history accessible by showing how ordinary people rise to extraordinary heights to challenge or change the circumstances around them.

WITH BABIES AND BANNERS offered an incredible opportunity to research, reconstruct and bring to life a story of women whose courage and conviction made a difference in their community and the nation. This pivotal documentary won multiple awards internationally, and was broadcast on television worldwide with a theatrical release.

This was the beginning of an incredible journey in film. I had the opportunity to work on two of the PBS documentary series that have defined the genre of social history documentaries. I worked as a Producer, Director and Writer on Henry Hampton’s team on THE GREAT DEPRESSION, and for KCET on THE GREAT WAR. Both series won major television awards.

I had the privilege to witness the opening of cultural relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1989, glasnost and perestroika had sparked a flurry of activities between American and Soviet filmmakers, and I was hired to document the Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles, where the top directors, writers and actors from the Soviet Union and United States met for the first time. We also documented a delegation of American filmmakers to the Soviet Union, and had the wonderful experience of accompanying Quincy Jones and filming his first visit to a Moscow jazz club.

Soon after, I received start-up funding for an independent feature, ODYSSEY, which would have been one of the first American-Soviet co-productions. Unfortunately, relations between our two countries turned cold, and we were not able to secure financing. Several years later, I did produce a documentary in Russia. It was A TASTE OF FREEDOM, produced for Roland Joffe, directed by Marina Goldovskaya and broadcast on TNT.

I am very proud that my documentaries have used evocative story telling, penetrating archival footage, and visually compelling cinematography to put a human face on historical events, and to reveal the enduring spirit in stories that still have an impact on our world today. Some of my films on contemporary issues include documentaries on disability for PBS’s PEOPLE IN MOTION and an expose on child labor in the U.S. for Lifetime, DANGER: KIDS AT WORK.

I believe that filmmaking is a collaborative process and I have worked in partnership with talented producers to design and produce new series for national primetime PBS: THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FIRST CENTURY, a four hour series with Margaret Koval and JAPAN: MEMOIRS OF A SECRET EMPIRE, a three hour series with Deborah DeSnoo, both in association with Devillier Donegan Enterprises and PBS. I joined forces with Jed Riffe, Paul Espinosa and Emiko Omori to produce the four hour series CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM, also for PBS.

CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM was broadcast nationally on PBS in April 2006; and THE NEW LOS ANGELES, the documentary I produced as part of the Series, opened with a gala Premiere at Paramount Pictures, co-hosted by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti and former LA First Lady Ethel Bradley, with strong support from LA Inc.. It was an incredible event, which brought together leaders from all walks of life in Los Angeles, and opened a dialogue on our past, present and future. The Premiere was followed by a community-wide screening at First AME Church.

Recently, I have expanded my filmmaking interests to produce and direct exhibition media for museums, educational and public interest institutions. This provides new and exciting challenges to develop short, interpretive documentaries that place the audience at the center of a cultural experience. In 2006, I produced the documentary for the major ICONS FROM SINAI exhibit at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The documentary was integrated into the exhibit as part of the immersive experience. I also created and produced 60,000 DVDs, which promoted and publicized the exhibit, and were inserted into LA Magazine prior to the opening.

My work has gone beyond traditional forms of media, and I was part of the team that produced PUBLIC BROADCASTING IN PUBLIC PLACES, a model for interactive kiosks funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In October, 2007, the kiosks won a Golden Plaque for best interactive “Visitor Center’s Presentation” in the Chicago International Film Festival’s INTERCOM Competition.

My experience also includes narrative filmmaking. I was awarded a fellowship to AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women where I directed my first short feature. I also was selected for AFI’s Enhanced Television Workshop for new media prototype for THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FIRST CENTURY.

My awards include: an Academy Award nomination, 2 Emmy Awards, 2 duPont-Columbia Awards, Peabody, Producers Guild of America Kodak Vision Award, IDA Distinguished Documentary Award, a Golden Mike, a CINE Golden Eagle, 2 Bronze Telly Awards, an IMAGEN nomination, and top awards from the American Film Festival, Mannheim International Film Festival, Festival du Cinema Portugal, London International Film Festival and Nyon International Film Festival.

MARISA MURGATROYD, New Media Producer

Marisa is an award-winning writer, photographer, and filmmaker. She is a versatile creative professional who applies her artistic, conceptual, and organizational skills to a wide variety of projects, including print media, documentaries, presentations, motion graphics, and websites. She has the abililty to bring energy and focus to successfully execute projects from the research and development stage through distribution and outreach.

Marisa believes in the transformative power of media and technology, and focuses her efforts on creating top-notch media that engages the audience. Ever since she got her first camera at the age of 13, she has traveled the world looking for images and stories with the power to educate and inspire. She has worked on projects about sustainable development, globalization, politics, religion, substance abuse, and technology. Her projects have included: a site-specific video installation at the Bath International Music Festival; a series of 200 artist’s books that explore Boston from the point of view of a wanderer; a large-scale multimedia exhibit that looks at how people interact with the built environment; a public art project about urban renewal in Providence; and several documentaries about contemporary issues.

Marisa received a Masters in Communication Art and Design from the Royal College of Art (London), and a Bachelor's from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media. Her creative work has won awards and prizes from many organizations, including the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts (award in Photography), the Faulkner Society (Best Short Story), and the British Standards Institute (Environmental Design Award).