Donna Deitch
Encyclopedia
Donna Deitch is an American
film
and television director
best known for her 1986 film Desert Hearts
. The film was groundbreaking as one of the first releases to depict a lesbian
love story in a generally mainstream, albeit art house, vein but with positive and respectful themes. Deitch also directed the mini-series The Women of Brewster Place
. Her partner is writer Terri Jentz
.
, Telluride
and Toronto
Film Festivals. The film was picked up for worldwide distribution by The Samuel Goldwyn Company
. Shortly after seeing the film, Oprah Winfrey
hired Deitch to direct the Emmy nominated 4 hour mini-series The Women of Brewster Place.
Deitch directed four pilots subsequent to the success of Brewster Place, three of which were picked up for series including Second Noah. She has directed numerous episodes of one hour dramas including NYPD Blue
, ER
, Murder One
, Law and Order: SVU, EZ Streets
, The Visitor
, Dragnet
, Crossing Jordan
, Heroes
, Private Practice, and others. She directed the pilot episode of The N's, South of Nowhere
.
She directed Prison Stories: Women on the Inside for HBO; Showtime's The Devil's Arithmetic
starring Kirsten Dunst
and Brittany Murphy
, for which Deitch won an Emmy; and Common Ground
written by Terrence McNally
, Paula Vogel
, and Harvey Fierstein
(also for Showtime).
She directed, photographed, and edited Angel On My Shoulder a feature-length documentary
about her best friend actress Gwen Welles
’ (Nashville) experience with dying which won the Gold Hugo at The Chicago Film Festival.
She is currently working on obtaining the financing for Blonde Ghost adapted from the best selling book, Stella, by Peter Wyden, which takes place in Berlin during the war. She has recently completed the screenplay.
She is writing a sequel to her 1986 film Desert Hearts.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and television director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
best known for her 1986 film Desert Hearts
Desert Hearts
Desert Hearts is a 1985 lesbian-themed romantic drama film loosely based on the Jane Rule novel Desert of the Heart. Directed by Donna Deitch, the film stars Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau with a supporting performance by Audra Lindley....
. The film was groundbreaking as one of the first releases to depict a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
love story in a generally mainstream, albeit art house, vein but with positive and respectful themes. Deitch also directed the mini-series The Women of Brewster Place
The Women of Brewster Place (1989 television)
The Women of Brewster Place is a TV miniseries that aired on March 19,1989 & March 20,1989 on ABC. The miniseries is based upon the 1982 novel by Gloria Naylor. It was produced by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions with a teleplay by Karen Hall...
. Her partner is writer Terri Jentz
Terri Jentz
Terri Jentz is an American writer. She wrote Strange Piece of Paradise, about the attack she and a college friend from Yale University suffered in Cline Falls in 1977, while on a bicycle and camping trip; and how she, after 15 years, returned to Oregon to investigate the attack and come to terms...
.
Biography
Donna Deitch segued from award winning documentary filmmaker to producing and directing Desert Hearts, the landmark hit of the 1986 SundanceSundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
, Telluride
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
and Toronto
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
Film Festivals. The film was picked up for worldwide distribution by The Samuel Goldwyn Company
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
The Samuel Goldwyn Company was an independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., the son of the famous Hollywood mogul, Samuel Goldwyn, in 1979.-Background:...
. Shortly after seeing the film, Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
hired Deitch to direct the Emmy nominated 4 hour mini-series The Women of Brewster Place.
Deitch directed four pilots subsequent to the success of Brewster Place, three of which were picked up for series including Second Noah. She has directed numerous episodes of one hour dramas including NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue is an American television police drama set in New York City, exploring the internal and external struggles of the fictional 15th precinct of Manhattan...
, ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
, Murder One
Murder One (TV series)
Murder One is an American legal drama series that first aired on the ABC network in the United States in 1995. The series was created by Steven Bochco, Charles H. Eglee, and Channing Gibson.-Premise:...
, Law and Order: SVU, EZ Streets
EZ Streets
EZ Streets is an American television drama series created by Paul Haggis. It premiered on CBS on October 27, 1996 with a two hour pilot telefilm...
, The Visitor
The Visitor (TV series)
The Visitor was a science fiction television series created by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin which aired on Fox from 1997–1998. It starred John Corbett as Adam McArthur who was abducted by extraterrestrials 50 years earlier and escapes back to Earth to help improve life for...
, Dragnet
Dragnet (series)
Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners...
, Crossing Jordan
Crossing Jordan
Crossing Jordan is an American television crime/drama series that aired on NBC from September 24, 2001 to May 16, 2007. It stars Jill Hennessy as Jordan Cavanaugh, M.D., a crime-solving forensic pathologist employed in the Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Medical Examiner's Office...
, Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
, Private Practice, and others. She directed the pilot episode of The N's, South of Nowhere
South of Nowhere
South of Nowhere is an American teen drama television series created by Thomas W. Lynch. Aimed primarily at teenagers, it first aired on November 4, 2005 and was one of six original series on The N. The second half of the third and final season aired October 10, 2008 and the final episode aired on...
.
She directed Prison Stories: Women on the Inside for HBO; Showtime's The Devil's Arithmetic
The Devil's Arithmetic (film)
The Devil's Arithmetic is a 1999 TV movie based on the historical novel of the same name by Jane Yolen. It stars Kirsten Dunst as Hannah Stern and costars Brittany Murphy, Louise Fletcher and Mimi Rogers...
starring Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress, singer and model. She made her film debut in Oedipus Wrecks, a short film directed by Woody Allen for the anthology New York Stories...
and Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
, for which Deitch won an Emmy; and Common Ground
Common Ground (film)
Common Ground is a 2000 Showtime television movie directed by Donna Deitch and written by Paula Vogel, Terrence McNally and Harvey Fierstein. It stars Brittany Murphy, Jason Priestley, Steven Weber, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Edward Asner and James Le Gros...
written by Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
, Paula Vogel
Paula Vogel
Paula Vogel is an American playwright and university professor. She received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, How I Learned to Drive.-Early years:...
, and Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Forbes Fierstein is a U.S. actor and playwright, noted for the early distinction of winning Tony Awards for both writing and originating the lead role in his long-running play Torch Song Trilogy, about a gay drag-performer and his quest for true love and family, as well as writing the...
(also for Showtime).
She directed, photographed, and edited Angel On My Shoulder a feature-length documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about her best friend actress Gwen Welles
Gwen Welles
Gwen Welles was an American actress.-Biography:She was born in 1951 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as Gwen Goldberg, the daughter of Rebecca Weis Welles , also an actress. Welles appeared nude in Playboy magazine in 1975.Welles was married to actor Harris Yulin...
’ (Nashville) experience with dying which won the Gold Hugo at The Chicago Film Festival.
She is currently working on obtaining the financing for Blonde Ghost adapted from the best selling book, Stella, by Peter Wyden, which takes place in Berlin during the war. She has recently completed the screenplay.
She is writing a sequel to her 1986 film Desert Hearts.