Meet John Feldman
John Feldman is a highly original and critically acclaimed filmmaker who works as a writer, director, cinematographer, and editor. His career spans over 40 years and covers a wide range of genres, including independent dramatic feature films, documentaries, experimental shorts, and educational films.
Feldman’s recent film Regenerating Life, How to cool the planet, feed the world, and live happily ever after (2023) looks at the climate crisis from an ecological perspective. Screening globally, it is translated into 11 languages. “John Feldman’s film is a masterpiece in which he puts life, in terms of healthy ecosystems, centre-stage as the Earth’s extraordinary global-temperature regulator. (Peter Bunyard, The Ecologist Magazine, UK).
Symbiotic Earth: How Lynn Margulis Rocked the Boat and Started a Scientific Revoultion (2018), “is a vivid portrait of a bold scientist who took us to an understanding of evolution very different than any previous one. This film represents an effervescent intelligence leading the way to a revolution in understanding life on Earth.” (Thomas Lovejoy, Professor, George Mason University, known as “The Godfather of Biodiversity”)
In 2005 Feldman was invited to make a film about the World Summit on Evolution on the Galapagos Islands which resulted in EVO: Ten Questions Everyone Should Ask about Evolution (2011). It won a CINE Golden Eagle and a Parents Choice Award.
Other documentaries in the arts and sciences include: Energy and You: Renewable Resources and Innovative Solutions (2009, commissioned by San Diego County Office of Education); The Little Plant that Could IS BACK (2013), a film about the rebirth of a community-based hydroelectric plant; and video portraits of artists Jessye Norman, Ming Cho Lee, Helen Frankenthaler, and Merce Cunningham (2007, commissioned for the Nelson A. Rockefeller Awards).
Feldman’s first feature film, Alligator Eyes (1990), won a first prize at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Screen International called it “a truly clever, funny and entertaining film,” the London Observer said: “Feldman’s handsome, intelligent movie is eloquently scripted,” and Variety praised it as “unusually well written, directed and acted.” His second feature: Dead Funny (1995), which stars Elizabeth Pena and Andrew McCarthy, received critical acclaim with Variety proclaiming it “top notch,” and WBAI (NY) calling it “a steamy potion of lethal and erotic dark comedy.” Who the Hell is Bobby Roos? (2002), a pioneering digital video feature, won the “New American Cinema Award” at the 2002 Seattle International Film Festival.
Feldman and his wife, composer Sheila Silver, have collaborated on many projects. Not only has she scored all his feature-length films, but starting in the late 90’s they began making works for the concert stage that include video projections. The most recent in this genre is “If Trees Could Talk,” for 4 singers, piano, Tibetan singing bowls, and video projections. Commissioned by Songfest for their 2022 festival in San Francisco, it explores the relationship between humans and trees.
Feldman’s works in progress include the third part of his Symbiosis Trilogy, The Gaia Perspective: Rethinking life, love, and human folly with Fritjof Capra and his mentors, and Why Laugh: Speaking truth to power with clowns, masks, puppets, and banana peels.
Feldman’s early 16 mm short films, Dry Yearnings (1979), The Elevator Room (1980), Circus of Hostages (1982), and Two Days in the Mountains (1986) earned him numerous international film festival awards. His first film, A Sense of Existence (super-8, 1968) about a wildlife summer camp was the start of his life-long passion for making films about the relationship between humans and the natural world.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1954, John Feldman has a BA in biology from the University of Chicago and an MFA from Temple University. He is a passionate naturalist and still photographer. Based in the mountains of New York State, he and his wife, Sheila Silver, have one son, Victor Silver Feldman, a journalist.