Amy Gerber
●IndyFilmmaker
●Professor of Film
An independent production company that makes documentary, narrative, and art films.
Welcome to FlatCoatFilms, LLC
Created in 2000, FlatCoatFilms, LLC has produced award-winning and critically acclaimed independent films for almost two decades.
Hope of Escape - In pre-production
Hope of Escape is a feature non-fiction film (part documentary, part reënactment) that follows the story of Diana Williams, her daughter Cornelia, and her daughter’s sweetheart, Bill, as they plan to escape slavery in Wilmington, North Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina. Time is running out as they must escape before being sold and separated forever. The film’s director, a direct descendent of Diana Williams, follows their harrowing journey, with the help of a diary and newly discovered historical records about their plight. Hope of Escape revisits the history of escaping slavery in the South while revealing the personal trials this particular family endured with hopes for a better life and a better country. To learn more about Hope of Escape and follow its progress, please check out our blog below.
Narrative Storytelling
Our engaging and provocative stories ask the viewer to look at the world from different perspectives and experiences. We have particular interest in showing the extraordinary story within the ordinary character, setting, or theme.
Filmography
Do Cell Towers Dream of Morse Code?
EXPERIMENTAL SHORT
Do Cell Towers Dream of Morse Code? offers a brief view from an observer at a unique vantage point. High above a city street, a collection of stories unfold as we experience a witness’ fixed perspective of events that occur on a supposed benign street corner. Who is the witness? And what is the witness’ connection to the lone souls below, parked in cars and affixed to their smartphones? Do Cell Towers Dream captures a linear moment in time, exploring the ideas of connection and isolation, detachment and engagement that sometimes occur simultaneously in our modern world.
My Grandfather Was a Nazi Scientist: Opa, Von Braun and Operation Paperclip
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Filmmaker Amy Gerber accidentally stumbles upon her grandfather's secret past, including his work on Nazi science that the Allied victors raced to obtain at the end of WWII. Her grandfather, Dr. Eduard Gerber, joined hundreds of other Nazi scientists brought into the U.S. under the classified and controversial government program called OPERATION PAPERCLIP. The most famous of these scientists was rocket expert Wernher von Braun. My Grandfather follows a granddaughter on a personal journey, who with her dynamic German interpreter, Julia, investigates old FBI and CIA files that they discover at the National Archives. As Gerber begins to retrace her grandfather's history and find out more about his 'other life', larger historical questions arise as she pursues many unknowns about this early Cold War period that still remain classified by the U.S. Government. Distribution by Amazon.com
Public Memory: A Film About American Memorials
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Public Memory encourages Americans to think more deeply about the importance of memorials on our landscape. In light of the continuing debate surrounding the September 11th memorial design in New York, it is an excellent opportunity for the greater public to rethink the meanings and motivations behind building a memorial of such historical significance. Why do some memorials move us? Why are others forgettable? What do they mean? Are they still important to us today? The video covers a specific group of memorials—including the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial Cairn, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and plans for the first African-American lynching monument, among others—in an attempt to answer these questions. Public Memory, through its provocative examination of what we can learn from controversial memorials and the many complex issues that involve memorializing crimes against humanity, breaks new ground by taking a fresh look at how and why the public remembers. Distribution by The Cinema Guild.
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Bio
Amy Gerber has produced and directed independent films for over twenty years. Her films have won honors at numerous film festivals and professional venues such as the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Film Forum, Los Angeles, Women in the Director’s Chair, and the Charles Guggenheim Center for Documentary Film. She also has directed art films for the Los Angeles County Museum of art. Her films focus on the intersection of memory, culture, and history. In the 90s Gerber worked as a casting associate on twelve major motion pictures, including Angels In The Outfield, City Slickers, Tank Girl, Goldeneye and The Mask of Zorro where in all the major Hollywood studios including Disney, Warner Bros., and Columbia Pictures. Prof. Gerber-Stroh received her M.F.A. in Film/Video from the California Institute of the Arts. She chairs the film department at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia where she teaches production, animation, and film studies. Find out more about studying film at Hollins University here. (For Hollywood credits see her IMDb page.)
Awards & Press
CAREER AWARDS, FESTIVALS AND EXHIBITIONS:
Annual African American “Ethno-Genre” Film Festival, New York
Best Shorts Competition
Blum-Kolver Completion Grant
Brooklyn Arts Council International Film Festival, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn Historical Society
Central Illinois Feminist Film Festival
Charles Guggenheim Center for Documentary Film
Edinburgh International Film Festival, Scotland
Film Forum, Los Angeles
Lucasfilm Ltd. Young Filmmaker’s Award
Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival (MiSciFi)
Mill Valley Film Festival, Mill Valley, CA.
New York Independent Film and Video Festival
Nuart Theater CalArts Exhibitions, Los Angeles
The Puffin Foundation Grant
Richard Von Hagen Scholarship, CalArts
Rosebud Film & Video Festival, Washington DC
Stanford University African American Festival
Wasserman Graduate Scholarship, CalArts
Women in The Director’s Chair, Chicago
Women in Media Alliance, Chairperson
Nominated for the National Princess Grace Award
University Film and Video Association Conference, Silver Award 2020
Women and Minorities in Media WAMM Fest
Winner of the 1993 National Education Film and Video Festival
Winner of the 1996 National Muse Awards
For Public Memory:
"Thoughtful and engaging... makes a significant contribution both to our collective knowledge of past memorials and what it means to commemorate mass death." -- Cineaste
"Highly Recommended! This program provides an important discussion of memorials in American life, and is useful both for instruction and for leading discussions on the topic. The production values are excellent, and the discussion is clear and well presented. The program would be especially valuable for teaching high school students the importance of our civic memory, and reviewing our thoughts on some of the most important events in our past." -- Educational Media Reviews Online
"Highly Recommended! Public Memory offers a compelling look at honoring the past while also ensuring that future generations never forget.” -- Video Librarian
“Public Memory covers so much information that students will learn something new with each subsequent viewing. An excellent, thought-provoking film that could be used across the curriculum.”
-- School Library Journal
For My Grandfather Was a Nazi Scientist:
"The story is fascinating, the use of archival footage excellent." -- Tom Nastic, U.S. National Archives
"A very interesting account of events that are rarely covered in our nation's history. The film chronicles Gerber's personal journey to discover and uncover her grandfather's role in post war America." -- Amazon review
For Do Cell Towers Dream of Morse Code:
"The film beautifully captures humanity’s collective cognitive dissonance at the prospect of trying to untangle the borders between real and virtual, connected and alienated, human and non-human." -- Vincenzo Mistretta, University Film and Video Conference
For Russia Was A Woman screenplay:
"Really an outstanding job and a wonderful story. So dramatically rich." -- John Sweet, UCLA screenwriting professor
"This is an interesting revisionist take on Ivan the Terrible's wife, and I applaud your ambition, imagination and your creation of two lead LGBT female characters." -- Fresh Voices
Contact
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