Greta Schiller

I grew up in Michigan, and I heard that the City College of New York was the 'Harvard of the Proletariat.' I also knew that it had high standards and that there had been a student movement that led to a diversity in the campus that hadn't existed before. I was a women's studies and a film studies major, and there was an institute called the Picker Film Institute at CCNY. A professor in the English Department who taught film was helping film criticism, and he was helping me study film. He was helping select students for the Picker Film Institute, and he suggested that I apply to learn how to make films. I applied and the rest was history. I went on to make films, and I'm still making films. It was the foundation for my whole professional life. I make documentary films about people who have been written out of history, and I write them back into history.