
Julie Cohen
Directing
Biography
Julie Cohen is the Academy Award® nominated, Emmy winning director and producer of RBG (2018) along with Betsy West. Also with West, she directed Julia (2021) and My Name is Pauli Murray (2021). Previous films include The Sturgeon Queens, American Veteran and I Live to Sing. Before making documentaries, Julie was a producer for NBC News.
Known For

Five years into performing as renowned filmmaker George Lucas in the cult comedy show "The George Lucas Talk Show", comedian Connor Ratliff questions the need for its continuation and his own drive for success and fulfillment in show business.
I'm "George Lucas": A Connor Ratliff Story

An intimately raw and magical journey through the life, mind, and heart of iconic artist Frida Kahlo. Told through her own words for the very first time — drawn from her diary, revealing letters, essays, and print interviews — and brought vividly to life by lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork.
Frida

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
RBG

Three intersex individuals overcame shame, secrecy and unauthorized surgery throughout their childhoods to enjoy successful adulthoods, choosing to ignore medical advice to conceal their bodies and coming out as who they truly are.
Every Body

Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.
Julia

Overlooked by history, Pauli Murray was a legal trailblazer whose ideas influenced RBG's fight for gender equality and Thurgood Marshall's landmark civil rights arguments. Featuring never-before-seen footage and audio recordings, a portrait of Murray's impact as a non-binary Black luminary: lawyer, activist, poet, and priest who transformed our world.
My Name Is Pauli Murray

Punk music icons, Lunachicks, reunite after 20 years in an unfiltered, hilarious, and electric documentary. Packed with rare archival footage, the film traces their rise from gritty NYC teens to feminist trailblazers of the 90s grunge era. Fans and newcomers alike will thrill as the band recounts old antics, rekindles bonds, and embarks on their long-awaited journey back to the stage.
Pretty Ugly: The Story of the Lunachicks

“Remembering RBG: A Nation Ugly Cries with Desi Lydic” follows Lydic on a journey through the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and… what's the opposite of the acceptance? —as she comes to terms with the passing of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and where to go from here.
Remembering RBG: A Nation Ugly Cries

The extraordinary story of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords: her relentless fight to recover following an assassination attempt in 2011, and her new life as one of the most effective activists in the battle against gun violence.
Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down

Four generations of a Jewish immigrant family create Russ and Daughters, a Lower East Side lox and herring emporium that survives and thrives. Produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the store, this documentary features an extensive interview with two of the original daughters for whom the store was named, now 100 and 92 years old, and interviews with prominent enthusiasts of the store including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, chef Mario Batali, New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, and 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. Rather than a conventional narrator, the filmmakers bring together six colorful longtime fans of the store, in their 80s and 90s, who sit around a table of fish reading the script in the style of a passover Seder. - Written by Julie Cohen
The Sturgeon Queens

At the height of the AIDS crisis, many gay men sold their life insurance policies to investors for quick cash. This documentary charts the rise and fall of the hundred-million-dollar “gay-death-profiteering” industry that grew out of their desperation, and spotlights one of its earliest investors: the filmmaker’s father.
Cashing Out

Filmmaker Nadine Natour turns her lens on her parents and her hometown, Appomattox, VA, to capture the story of her parents' emigration from Palestine to the United States. An uplifting, layered and often funny portrait of Palestinian Muslim immigrants Gehad and Sabah Natour, as the success of their popular grocery store defies xenophobia in the conservative rural town where the Civil War ended.
Natours Grocery
Pedro Ruiz: Coming Home chronicles the dancer and choreographer's journey back to his native Cuba to become the first Cuban-American to choreograph a work with a Cuban dance company. The documentary witnesses the creation of Ruiz's extraordinary work, Horizonte (Horizons), and profiles the dancers of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba who bring it to life. It follows Ruiz from Havana back to his home town, Santa Clara, for emotional reunions with old friends and family. After an intimate portrait of creation and a new window into life in Cuba, the film follows the dance back to New York, where Danza Contemporanea performs at the Joyce Theater.
Pedro Ruiz: Coming Home
Explores Windows on the World, the iconic restaurant that occupied the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Top of the World
Giovanni Sollima on the cello.
A Joyous Sound

A growing chorus of Palestinians and Israeli Jews speak up often in cross-cultural pairs against war, occupation and violence, and for peace, justice, empathy and sanity.
The Path Forward

A documentary following Army Sergeant Nick Mendes as he adapts to life after surviving a massive improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.
American Veteran
Two decades after Mandela's election, opera students struggle to fulfill the promises of a new South Africa. Some of the world's brightest new opera stars are emerging from the black townships of South Africa. When the University of Cape Town's once all white opera school opened its doors to black students after apartheid, a wave of remarkable talent came in. Recent graduates are singing at The Met and La Scala. This documentary musical follows three students from their home townships to Cape Town where they perform at the country's premier opera house, to New York where they sing at the prestigious Glimmerglass Festival. Along the way they confront everything from tuberculosis and racial politics to their parents' fears that music is not a suitable career.
Ndiphilela Ukucula: I Live to Sing
Deacon Clark Hampton, a son of slaves, lifted his twelve children out of poverty by making them into successful musicians.
The Unforgettable Hampton Family

A documentary filmmaker investigates who tried f*cking up her friends' lives a decade ago.