PROFILE
Kate Hearst is an historian and filmmaker. Currently, she is developing a documentary feature/ series highlighting cutting-edge conservation work of women wildlife scientists. See her website: www.womenwildlifewarriors.com. In 2022, Hearst travels to Tanzania to film wildlife scientist Dr. Laly Lichtenfeld and her conservation team, African People & Wildlife (APW), who have been in the forefront of developing projects and practices that significantly reduce human-lion conflicts.
Kate Hearst holds a Ph.D. in history and a M.F.A. in film, both from Columbia University. She can be seen in the CNN series, The Movies, presenting the decades’ most important directors and influential films. Since 2011, Kate Hearst has been teaching film and media studies at various New York-based colleges including: Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, Brooklyn College and the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. She regularly writes for Film International, an online scholarly publication, and advises the web-based series, Women Film Pioneers Project (WFPP), created by the Columbia University Libraries & Center for Digital Research & Scholarship. Hearst is one of the founding members of the Middlebury New Filmmakers’ Festival (MNFF) and serves each year as a juror and moderator. She can also be heard talking about women in film in the podcast, The Other 50%: A Herstory of Hollywood, episode 48. In 2014, she directed & produced a short documentary, Women’s History Today, for the Women’s History Graduate Program at Sarah Lawrence College. Prior to teaching, Hearst worked in film and television development at the Polone Company (an affiliate of Hearst Entertainment). She also worked for Barbara Kopple, two-time Academy-Award-winning documentary filmmaker. She is a member of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS), International Documentary Association (IDA), DOC/NYC, and Women Writing Women’s Lives (WWWL). She sits on the Advisory Board of the Center for Biodiversity & Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).
WRITING
“Becoming Cousteau (2021): An Interview with Liz Garbus, Film International, October 22, 2021. http://filmint.nu/liz-garbus-interview-becoming-cousteau-kate-hearst/
“When There Are No Good Answers”: Barbara Kopple’s Desert One (2019), Film International, December 16, 2019. http://filmint.nu/?p=28747
“Challenging the Canon: Women in Early Cinema - Review of Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, Kino Classics (2018),” in Film International, 17.2.
"Gender Agency in Harlan County USA, Shut Up & Sing: The Dixie Chicks, and This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous," in ReFocus: The Films of Barbara Kopple, edited by Jeff Jaeckle and Susan Kozloff, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019).
"Trauma, Healing and the Process of Documentary: An Interview with Barbara Kopple, Film International, 16.3.
“Origins of Contemporary Documentary: Harlan County, U.S.A., Forty Years Later.” Presentation of article at the Society of Cinema & Media Studies, March 2017, Chicago.
“Family and Transition: This Is Everything Gigi Gorgeous, “ Film International, February 9, 2017. http://filmint.nu/?p=20272.
“A Conquering Female Spirit in The Brand New Testament,” Film International, February 6, 2017. http://filmint.nu/?p=20220.
“Being 17: Sexual Awakening and Race in the Hautes-Pyrénées, Film International, November 11, 2016. http://filmint.nu/?p=19750.
“Miss Sharon Jones!: Success and Other Crises,” Film International, October 25, 2016. http://Filmint.nu/?=19618.
“A Multicultural Magnificent Seven for Our Times,” Film International, October 6, 2016. http://filmint.nu/?p=19527
“Review: Race, Gender, & Film Censorship in Virginia, 1922-1965,” Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Volume 123, No. 2 (Spring 2016), 179.
“Uncovering Phoebe Hearst’s Life,” Bancroftania, University of California, Berkeley, Fall 2006.
PODCASTS, PANELS & PRESENTATIONS
“Tribute to Agnès Varda,” with screening of Cléo from 5 to 7, Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, Middlebury, VT - August 2019.
Power, Politics & Gender in the Field of Representation Panel presentation at the Visible Evidence Conference, U.S.C., Los Angeles - July 2019.
Podcast for The Other 50%: A Herstory of Hollywood, Episode #48, June 2017.
“Origins of Contemporary Documentary: Harlan County, U.S.A., Forty Years Later.” Presentation at the Society of Cinema & Media Studies, March 2017, Chicago.
“New Currents in Documentary Filmmaking,” moderated panel of documentary filmmakers, including Barbara Kopple, Tony Stone, Todd & Jedd Wider, Amy Geller & Allie Humenuk, and John Stanton, Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, Middlebury, Vermont, August 2016.
“Women Film Pioneers,” Media Presentation & Discussion, Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, Middlebury, Vermont, August 2015.
“Avant-garde Film Pioneer: Maya Deren,” – Lecture & Presentation for “Experimental Filmmaking” course at Sarah Lawrence College (SLC), May 2015.
“Women in Film: A New Historical Perspective,” Media Presentation & Panel Discussion, Library Theater Association, Lincoln Center, NY, October 2014.
“Performing Gender” - Moderated panel of LGBT gender performance in media and film,” Sarah Lawrence College, March 2014.
“The Future of Independent Filmmaking,” Organized and moderated panel of Independent Filmmakers, including Damani Baker, Maggie Greenwald, Ron Jarrett, Chris Fleming & Melissa Strype, 1st Filmmaking Conference, SLC, April 2013.
SELECTED FILM & HISTORY COURSES
WOMEN/GENDER, RACE, CLASS & SEXUALITY IN FILM AND MEDIA: HISTORY & FILM THEORY.
This yearlong seminar analyzes gender, race, sexuality and class in American cinema from its origins to the present. Students develop critical understandings of cinema & media, not only as part of film history, but also as vehicles for activism and change. We study cinema & media and assess interpretations, often rooted in feminist & African-American criticism, multicultural & postcolonial theories. A variety of films & media are screened and discussed: early motion pictures, classical Hollywood, woman's films, early and contemporary African-American cinema, avant-garde, film noir, feminist cinema, documentary, queer cinema, action/ adventure, fantasy, global cinema, television & new media.
WORLD CINEMA, 1960-PRESENT.
This course analyzes the history of transnational cinema from the 1960s to the present. Critical moments of innovation and transformation of cinema are studied from around the world, including: the "New Waves" in France and Europe; new documentary and experimental filmmaking; the rise of Third Cinema in Latin America; re-inventions in Hollywood; the cinemas of India, China, New Zealand, Denmark and the Middle East; the expansion of independent filmmaking with new visions of race, gender, and sexuality; and finally, the advent of blockbuster co-productions and digital cinema. Cinematic transformation is addresses on multiple levels: formal/ aesthetic, technological, industrial and socio-political. Through close textual analyses of individual films, new formal and stylistic trends are examined. Students develop critical understandings of aesthetic trends and innovations, as well as changes in production, distribution and reception.
OTHER COURSES INCLUDE:
REMARKABLE DOCUMENTARIES OF 2021
JOURNEYS OF A LIFETIME ON FILM
HARD HITTING DOCUMENTARIES OF 2020
FILM GENRE: THE WESTERN, FILM NOIR & THE ROMANTIC COMEDY
CASABLANCA: EIGHTY YEARS LATER
MIND GAME FILMS AND THE UNIVERSE
ACTIVISM AND CHANGE IN THE CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S BIOGRAPHY
MEDIA
Film Historian, CNN Series: The History of the Movies, 1930s-Present – presenting the decades’ most important directors and influential films.