Helen De Michiel

Helen De Michiel is a director, writer, and producer whose work includes film, television and video installations. Thirty Leaves, her production organization, focuses on producing, writing, and directing films and other media for educational purposes and on creating public awareness of independent media as a necessary and vital cultural movement. Our goal is to engage the public with our work, trigger as much dialogue as we possibly can, and work towards social transformation. Her 1995 feature film Tarantella, starring Mira Sorvino, has been shown, among others at the Seattle Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival, and won the Audience Award at the 1996 Torino International Woman’s Film Festival. After the theatrical release it was broadcast on public TV nationwide in 1997-98 through The Independent Television Service, and is currently available in home video and DVD. Her documentary, Turn Here Sweet Corn (1990) was seen nationally on the PBS series POV, and is in distribution to environmental organizations as an educational and organizing tool. It has received awards from Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Earthpeace International Film Festival and the American Film & Video Festival. Her films are included in the media art collection/archive of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Her video installation The Listening Project (1994), is part of Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center Permanent Collection and won the 1995 “Muse” Award in New Media & Technology from the American Museum Association. She has been the recipient of several NEA Awards and a Rockefeller Foundation Intercultural Film/Video Fellowship, among others. From 1996 to 2010, she has served as the National Director for NAMAC (The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture), the national arts service organization for the media arts field.