Filmmaker Bios

Menachem DaumMenachem Daum is co-producer and co-director, with Oren Rudavsky, of the Emmy® nominated A Life Apart: Hasidism in America. For years he has been conducting an oral history project among elderly survivors of the Holocaust and has written extensively on the subject. Also Research Director of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College for over 12 years, Daum produced and directed In Care Of, also Emmy® nominated, about the dilemmas facing families caring for the elderly, and Stay Tuned: The Challenge of Hearing Loss for the National Institute of Health. Early in life, Daum pursued Talmudic studies at Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem. He went on to receive a master's degree from Fairfield University and a PhD in Educational Psychology from Fordham University. He and his wife, Rifka, have lived in the Hasidic neighborhood of Boro Park, Brooklyn, for the past 36 years.

Oren RudavskyOren Rudavsky has been producing and directing films since 1980. His numerous credits include his first documentary, Dreams So Real, about three mentally ill men who created their own animated films; the autobiographical short A Film About My Home; Gloria: A Case of Alleged Police Brutality; Theater of the Palms: The World of Puppet Master Lee Tien Lu; and the award-winning Spark Among the Ashes: A Bar Mitzvah in Poland. He was also Director of Photography on The Amish: Not to Be Modern. Other Jewish themed works include At the Crossroads: Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Today, Ritual, The Last Klezmer and the original drama Saying Kaddish, which was nominated for an Emmy in Directing. Rudavsky is a graduate of Oberlin College. Rudavsky's first narrative feature film, The Treatment, based on the novel by Daniel Menaker, will be released in 2006.