About Producer/ Director Jonathan Berman

After a series of restless gigs as a nightclub musician, carnival worker, banana picker, and private detective, he found his calling in film and video, first as an assistant on Pee Wees Playhouse and The Toxic Avenger 2, and then as a producer, director, writer, editor, and consultant. His documentaries reconsider subculture and identity, challenging how alternative people, groups and ideas are represented. Berman works on real-life stories about life on the edge: space age visionaries, secret societies, and hidden worlds. Projects include The Shvitz, which explores NYC’s traditional steambaths; My Friend Paul, which dives into the intersection of mental illness, friendship, and crime; Commune, the first reexamination of Sixties communal counterculture and cults, and Calling All Earthlings, an ethnographic look at California desert UFO culture.  Other work includes story for the comedy feature On The Run; producing for the German music documentary Sabbath in Paradise; and Maternity Ward for NY Times Television. Project partners including festivals like Slamdance and Jerusalem, venues like ARTE, BBC, MOMA NYC, the Laemmle and Cinema Village theaters; and project partners like the Independent Television Service, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the NY State Council on the Arts. Berman is a professor in film at Cal State San Marcos and lives in Los Angeles and NY’s Hudson Valley.