Joanna Rudnick Director of Development

Joanna is Kartemquin’s Director of Development and has been working as a producer with the company since 2003. Currently, she is producing and directing In the Family, her personal story of testing positive for the hereditary “breast cancer” gene and an exploration into the psychological, social, legal and ethical challenges surrounding predictive genetic testing. Joanna is also producing Prisoner of Her Past, the story of Chicago Tribune journalist Howard Reich’s attempt to uncover his mother’s tragic Holocaust childhood in order to understand why she is reliving it, 60 years later.

Before coming to Kartemquin, Joanna co-produced a film on war photographer Robert Capa for the American Masters series at WNET in New York. Robert Capa in Love and War was broadcast on PBS and the BBC, premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and was the presenting film for the 2003 Emmy award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series. Prior to her role on the Capa project, Joanna worked for American Masters for three years contributing to numerous films including Juilliard, Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For and Joe Papp: In Six Acts. Joanna also worked to help research and develop a 6-part series on the American novel, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Joanna received a Master’s degree in Science and Environmental Journalism from New York University and a Bachelor’s degree in English from Northwestern University. She has written for several publications including Audubon Magazine, The Artful Mind, The Berkshire Record and Humanities. Prior to her work in production, Joanna served as an Americorps volunteer, implementing project-based environmental curricula in the San Francisco Public School System. Joanna currently sits on the Illinois Humanities Council’s Steering Committee on Genetics, helping to create programming for “Future Perfect: Conversations on the Meaning of the Genetics Revolution” – a state-wide series exploring the new science of Genetics.