Sarah Kunstler - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sarah Kunstler is a 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...

filmmaker and lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

Education

Kunstler graduated from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

with a BA in Photography in 1998, and from Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...

with a JD in 2004.

Family

Sarah Kunstler is the daughter of left-wing radical lawyers William Kunstler

William Kunstler

William Moses Kunstler was an American self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist, known for his controversial clients...

and Margaret Ratner Kunstler and is the sister of filmmaker Emily Kunstler

Emily Kunstler

Emily Kunstler is an activist and a documentary filmmaker. Kunstler grew up in New York City's West Village neighborhood.- Education :...

, Karin Kunstler Goldman and Jane Drazek.

Legal Work

Kunstler is the junior partner at The Law Office of Elizabeth M. Fink, a civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

and criminal defense firm specializing in federal criminal defense for indigent defendants in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. From 2004-2010, she was a member of the Executive Committee of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild

National Lawyers Guild

The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....

. Along with attorneys Elizabeth M. Fink and Jesse Berman, Kunstler represented Osama Awadallah, a Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

college student studying in the United States, who was arrested as a material witness

Material witness

A material witness is a person with information alleged to be material concerning a criminal proceeding. The authority to detain material witnesses dates to the First Judiciary Act of 1789, but the Bail Reform Act of 1984 most recently amended the text of the statute, and it is now codified at...

in the days following the September 11, 2001 attacks

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

and prosecuted for alleged perjury

Perjury

Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...

before the grand jury

Grand jury

A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

investigating the terrorist attacks. Awadallah was acquitted in November 2006. Ms. Kunstler also assisted with the post-conviction representation of Lynne Stewart

Lynne Stewart

Lynne Irene Stewart is a former attorney who represented controversial, poor, and often unpopular defendants who was convicted on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists in 2005, and sentenced to 28 months in prison. Her felony conviction led to her being automatically...

, an attorney convicted of providing material support for terrorism in connection with her representation of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman

Omar Abdel-Rahman

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman , commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", is a blind Egyptian Muslim leader who is currently serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, United...

Film/Video Work

Together with her sister, Emily Kunstler

Emily Kunstler

Emily Kunstler is an activist and a documentary filmmaker. Kunstler grew up in New York City's West Village neighborhood.- Education :...

, she is a co-founder and director of Off Center Media, a company that produces documentaries exposing injustices in the criminal justice system. At Off Center Media, Sarah has produced and directed a number of short documentaries, including Tulia, Texas: Scenes from the Drug War (2003), which won Best Documentary Short at the Woodstock Film Festival

Woodstock Film Festival

The Woodstock Film Festival is an American film festival that was begun in 1999. The festival was first conceived as a part of the Woodstock '99 Music and Arts Festival, with movies being screened as part of that event.-History:...

(she was instrumental in winning exoneration for 46 wrongfully-convicted people in the small town of Tulia, Texas

Tulia, Texas

Tulia is a city in, and county seat of, Swisher County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,117 at the 2000 census; in the 2005 census estimate, it had fallen to 4,714. The city is at the junction of U.S. Route 87 and Texas State Highway 86, approximately two miles east Interstate 27...

); and Getting Through to the President (2004), which has aired on the Sundance Channel, Current TV

Current TV

Current TV, or Current, is a media company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt. Comcast owns a ten percent stake of Current's parent company, Current Media LLC....

, and Channel Thirteen/WNET

WNET

WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...

.

In 2009, she completed a documentary about her father entitled William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. The film is a co-production of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and aired on the award-winning PBS series P.O.V.

P.O.V.

POV is a Public Broadcasting Service Public television series which features independent nonfiction films. POV is a cinema term for "point of view"....

in 2010. The film was an official selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival

Sundance 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...

. It also received a 2008 grant from the Foundation for Jewish Culture's Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film. Arthouse Films released the film theatrically in North America in 2009.

Sarah Kunstler and her sister Emily Kunstler

Emily Kunstler

Emily Kunstler is an activist and a documentary filmmaker. Kunstler grew up in New York City's West Village neighborhood.- Education :...

were recipients of the L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth "Vision" Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival

Sundance Film Festival

Articles

External links

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