Judith Ehrlich, along with her partner Rick Goldsmith, is co-producer and co-director of The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, which was nominated for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary. The movie depicts how Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, concluded that the war was based on decades of lies, and leaked 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world. Hailed as a hero by some, vilified as a traitor by others, and ostracized by even his closest colleagues, Ellsberg risked life in prison to stop a war he helped plan. His actions set in motion a landmark battle between America's greatest newspapers and its president - one that would end up in the Supreme Court. This political thriller unravels a saga that leads directly to Watergate, Nixon's resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.
David Edelstein of New York Magazine called The Most Dangerous Man, “Riveting! A straight-ahead, enthralling story of moral courage. This story changed the world. The movie offers one revelatory interview after another.”
Ehrlich will be on stage at 142 Throckmorton to discuss her Oscar nomination and her history of politically-motivated films with journalist Jane Ganahl. Clips will be shown.
Ehrlich and Goldsmith are nationally known documentary filmmakers whose cogent and inspirational films deal with the themes of personal risk, conscience, dissent and commitment to ideals. Collectively, Ehrlich and Goldsmith have produced dozens of prize-winning broadcast and educational films and videos over the last two decades. Ehrlich co-produced and co-directed the ITVS documentary, The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It, a story of men guided by principle to take the unpopular position of pacifism in the face of World War II. This revealing look at questions of war, conscience, activism and the spiritual life of committed individuals was broadcast nationally on PBS in 2002 and rebroadcast in 2007. In 2003, The Good War won both major US history film awards and was selected for over a dozen major international film festivals.
Jane Ganahl has been a journalist, author, editor and arts organizer in San Francisco for more than 25 years. She is the co-founder and co-director of Litquake – the west coast’s largest independent literary festival, the author of “Naked on the Page: the Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife,” and editor of the anthology, “Single Woman of a Certain Age: 28 Women Writers on the Unmarried Midlife.” She has contributed essays to five other anthologies. Ganahl has also been a journalist for almost three decades, most of that time with San Francisco newspapers, covering everything from City Hall to pop culture. During her final five years at the Chronicle she penned the “Single Minded” Sunday column about the unmarried life. Jane has chaired panels at the Commonwealth Club, Book Expo America, Book Group Expo, and various other conferences. She has appeared on numerous TV programs, including “The Today Show,” and innumerable radio shows, from Sirius network to NPR. Her work can now be found on Huffington Post and Match.com; she has also contributed to Harper’s Bazaar, Ladies’ Home Journal, Harp, Parenting, Book, Salon.com, Vanity Fair.com and Rolling Stone.com.
