SF Cutters is honored to present Janice Engel Tues Nov 19

Janice Engel is currently teaching at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and promoting "Raise Hell, the Life and Times of Molly Ivins"

About Director, Producer, Writer Editor Janice Engel

(excerpted from

Sundance 2019 Women Directors: Meet Janice Engel – “Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins”

read the full interview

https://womenandhollywood.com/sundance-2019-women-directors-meet-janice-engel-raise-hell-the-life-and-times-of-molly-ivins/

Janice Engel is an award-winning filmmaker and showrunner. Engel has made numerous documentaries, non-fiction television specials, and series including “Jackson Browne: Going Home,” “Ted Hawkins: Amazing Grace,” and “Addicted.” Under her own banner, she co-created “What We Carry,” an ongoing multi-media documentary series dedicated to preserving Holocaust survivors’ stories.

“Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins” premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on January 28. The film is currently in select theatres distributed by Magnolia Pictures and available for DVD/BluRay Pre-order

https://www.mollyivinsfilm.com

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

JE: My father Marty Engel, may he rest in peace ignited by passion for movies. When I was a little girl growing up on Long Island, New York, my dad would make a big deal of watching old studio classics on TV on rainy Sunday afternoons. It was called the “Million Dollar Movie” series.

I would sit nestled in his lap and the images from Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and Greta Garbo movies lit up my world, and I was hooked. I became obsessed throughout my adolescence into my teenage years, cutting school to take the Long Island railroad into New York City to see films at the Bleecker Street and Carnegie Hall cinemas.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

JE: There’s way too many, but one of my favorites that falls into best and worst is, “You need something to fall back on.” So I focused on editing, which is a great craft and probably one of the best positions to learn how to be a director and tell a story, especially in documentary filmmaking.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

JE: Be true to yourself, stand up for what you believe in, and don’t let some person in authority be dismissive or talk down to you. Call them on it in a professional manner if they do — because if you don’t, you’ll always feel like you were taken advantage of and didn’t get to speak your truth.

If someone is abusive—no matter how much you are being paid—it is not worth staying in a place that is toxic. Follow your gut: first choice, best choice. Stick to your guns and learn to read the room, but always stand by your gut instinct.

BIO excerpted from: https://www.colorado.edu/cwa/janice-engel

Janice Engel has made numerous documentaries, non-fiction TV specials and series including: Jackson Browne: Going Home, (Disney, Cable Ace-Award), Ted Hawkins Amazing Grace, (Geffen MCA Universal, Rose D’Or Special Jury Prize) and the provocative docu-series, Addicted, (TLC Discovery, 2011 Prism Award.) Under her own banner, Two Rivers Productions, she created What We Carry, an ongoing, multi-media documentary series dedicated to preserving Holocaust survivors’ stories. Premiered twice at The Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles (2012, 2017) and subsequently shown at The Sandler Center in Virginia and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, What We Carry has been viewed by some 50,000 people over the past five years.