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Johanna Demetrakas

Johanna Demetrakas

Directing

Biography

Filmmaker and director Johanna Demetrakas has directed episodes of many television series including L.A. Law and Orde and Doogie Howser, M.D. She has also made award-winning film OUT OF LINE, starring Jennifer Beals, and the short film Homesick. She is also known for her award-winning documentaries and iconic feminist art films such as WOMANHOUSE and RIGHT OUT OF HISTORY. Most recently, Demetrakas directed a documentary focused on the arrival of Buddhism to the U.S. in the 70’s entitled CRAZY WISDOM. Demetrakas currently teaches cinematic arts at the University of Southern California.

Known For

L.A. Law
7.1

L.A. Law is an American television legal drama series that ran for eight seasons on NBC from September 15, 1986, to May 19, 1994. Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, it contained many of Bochco's trademark features including a large number of parallel storylines, social drama and off-the-wall humor. It reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s, and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot-topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights, homophobia, sexual harassment, AIDS, and domestic violence. The series often also reflected social tensions between the wealthy senior lawyer protagonists and their less well-paid junior staff. The show was popular with audiences and critics, and won 15 Emmy Awards throughout its run, four of which were for Outstanding Drama Series.

L.A. Law

1986
Doogie Howser, M.D.
6.5

Doogie Howser is a doctor. He is also a 16-year-old genius who graduated college at age 10 and finished medical school at age 14. But he is still a teenager, with normal teenage friends and problems. But unlike a normal teenager, he is just learning to drive while also consulting on serious medical cases like heart transplants.

Doogie Howser, M.D.

1989
Addicted to Love
6.2

Good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life leaves him for a suave Frenchman. He therefore does what every other normal dumpee would do — go to New York and set up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend's apartment, wait until she decides to leave her current lover, and then win her back.

Addicted to Love

1997
Caged Heat
5.1

A young woman is convicted on drug offenses and sent to a women's penitentiary run by a repressed and oppressive female warden. When the prison's sadistic doctor begins conducting illegal "therapeutic" experiments on the inmates, the ladies plot their revenge.

Caged Heat

1974
Feminists: What Were They Thinking?
7.5

In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.

Feminists: What Were They Thinking?

2018
In 'N Out
6.7

A man goes to Mexico to attend his father's funeral, 30 years after his father supposedly died.

In 'N Out

1984
Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony
6.5

The struggle to eradicate apartheid in South Africa has been chronicled over time, but no one has addressed the vital role music plays in this challenge. This documentary by Lee Hirsch recounts a fascinating and little-known part of South Africa's political history through archival footage, interviews and, of course, several mesmerizing musical performances.

Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony

2002
Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
5.5

CRAZY WISDOM explores the arrival of Tibetan Buddhism in America through the story of Chögyam Trungpa, who landed in the U.S. in 1970. Trungpa became renowned for translating ancient Buddhist concepts into language and ideas that Westerners could understand and shattered preconceived notions about how an enlightened teacher should behave. Initially rejected, his teachings are now recognized by western philosophers and spiritual leaders as authentic and profound.

Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

2011
Nunzio
4.9

A mentally-challenged delivery boy indulges in fantasies that he is a superhero in the tough streets of Brooklyn. He lives a life marked with torments from the gang of deadbeats at the corner, overbearing concern from his mother and older brother, and general confusion about women and his burgeoning desires for them.

Nunzio

1978
Broken Rainbow
5.8

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

Broken Rainbow

1985
Out of Line
8.0

Henry, a hitman hired to take out a socialite, finds himself falling for Jenny, a parole officer, instead.

Out of Line

2001
Some Nudity Required
5.1

A woman working in the B movie industry begins examining the industry and the damaged, desperate people who work in it.

Some Nudity Required

1998
Jimi Plays Berkeley
6.6

This rousing world-famous concert is regarded by critics to be one of Jimi Hendrix's finest performances ever. Taking footage from two separate performances at the Berkeley Community Theater on May 30th, 1970, these incendiary shows help illustrate the student uprisings in Berkeley, by setting footage to the stunning backdrop of some awe-inspiring Hendrix material. Tracks include "Purple Haze," "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)," "Star Spangled Banner," "Hey Joe," and many others. This is a never-to-be-forgotten musical experience you will enjoy over and over again.

Jimi Plays Berkeley

2003
Grandfather Sky
8.0

A young Native American man on his way to visit his uncle learns about his Navajo heritage by attending tribal gatherings, traditional ceremonies and listening to old folktales.

Grandfather Sky

1993
Celebration at Big Sur
3.7

Star-studded show recorded at the Big Sur Folk Festival, Big Sur, California, September 13th and 14th, 1969. Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, John Sebastian, and others. This film captures a remarkable moment in folk, rock, and pop history - the famous folk festival that brought traditional acts like Dorothy Morrison & The Combs Sisters and Carol Ann Cisneros together with the psychedelic rockers of the day who were most deeply rooted in the folk revival. Older songs like ‘Oh Happy Day,’ ‘Rise And Shine,’ ‘All God’s Children,’ and ‘Swing Down, Sweet Chariot’ meet Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock,’ Joan Baez’s ‘Sweet Sir Galahad,’ ‘Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released,’ CSNY’s ‘Down By The River,’ and many more of the now-classic songs of what was then called the ‘new rock.’ The scene is notably intimate and - aside from one fan’s dustup with Stephen Stills - mellow, with many rare, close-up moments with the stars.

Celebration at Big Sur

1971
Womanhouse
8.0

Held in 1972 at 533 N. Mariposa Street, Los Angeles was one of the most important cultural events in the United States: "Womanhouse," a feminist art installation and performance space organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro.

Womanhouse

1974
Bus Rider's Union
9.0

A 1998 editorial in Time magazine made the claim that the city of Los Angeles "might just have the most inept public-transport system on the planet earth. . . . The neglected bus system, which still handles 91% of all transit riders,is now roughly as efficient as travel by burro." Academy Award–winning cinematographer and director Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool, Latino) has now fashioned a new documentary tracing three years in the life of a group of bus-rider activists passionately engaged in the struggle to bring affordable, safe, and adequate mass transit back to their city. What might at first sound like a well-intentioned but rather parochial subject for a film has resulted in a truly inspiring lesson in how working-class, predominantly minority citizens forge an effective social movement and how, like Rosa Parks and the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycotters of the 1950s, a group of committed individuals can successfully challenge the powers that seek to control their lives.

Bus Rider's Union

2000
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In 1994 there was a shooting in Boulder, Colorado involving two 16 year old boys. "Tragic Consequences" looks deeply into what led up to the shooting, the context of gun violence in America and the tragic effect one shooting can have on not just the victim and perpetrator, but on witnesses, family, friends and the community at large.

Tragic Consequences: Teenagers and Guns

1996
Right Out of History: The Making of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party
8.0

For five years, feminist artist Judy Chicago worked with a community of four hundred other artists, craftspeople and researchers to create The Dinner Party, a monumental tribute to women of spirit and accomplishment throughout the ages -- women whose names have been banished "right out of history". For over four of those five years, filmmaker Johanna Demetrakas followed the progress of The Dinner Party, recording for posterity the alternately painstaking and exhilarating process of creating this work of unprecedented scale and beauty.

Right Out of History: The Making of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party

1980