Twitch and Shout

Laurel Chiten has been an independent filmmaker for over 12 years. In 1989, Chiten produced Living With Tourette Syndrome, a sample tape created to raise funds for a full documentary. It won Judges Merit at the 1992 New England Film and Video Festival, Second Place in the non-fiction category of the Visions of US Festival, and the Bronze Apple Award at the National Educational Film and Video Festival. Chiten also produced, directed and cowrote Two of Twenty, a five-episode dramatic series, completed in 1988, which has been screened nationally and internationally at film and video festivals, and is currently distributed in home video markets. She was honored with The Artist's Fellowship from the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities in 1987. Chiten is currently working on a new documentary based on the book The Jew in the Lotus, about a poet who rediscovers his Jewish identity in Buddhist India.