Donald Goldmacher
After being trained as a community psychiatrist, I quickly fell in love with making documentary films, which I have been doing since 1974. My first film was an exposé of the marketing practices of the pharmaceutical industry, Entitled "Do No Harm". I am deeply concerned about social issues, and have therefore focused my films in that arena. My most recent feature documentary is entitled "Ruthie and Connie: Every room in the House", a film about two Jewish lesbian grandmothers from Brooklyn New York. These two women actually were part of the first lawsuit that successfully achieved domestic partner benefits for people in New York City. The film went on to win 20 Festival awards around the world, and has been broadcast on HBO and television stations around the world.
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The filmmaker has (1) documentaries on ReelChanges which requires funds for completion.
BioGraphy
I was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1941, attended Brooklyn College where I obtained a bachelor's degree in science, and then went on to Albert Einstein College of medicine where I obtained my M.D. I specialized in the field of community psychiatry, and have worked as a psychiatrist since 1971. During the 1960s and 70s, I was deeply involved in social and political movements to bring about social justice in the United States. I was chairman of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, a civil rights organization, in both San Francisco and New York. I am notorious for being the doctor who almost shut down the Woodstock music festival in 1969. I served as the director of planning for the State health Department of California, and also directed mental health services for the County of Contra Costa in California.
As a result of my activism in the 1960s in 1970s, I realized that mass communications were a key to educating people and activating them. I concluded it would be worthwhile for me to learn how to make films, and began taking film courses in 1973. I produced my first short film about an artist commune in San Francisco that year. That was followed by a long form documentary about the deceptive marketing practices of the pharmaceutical industry. I've continued to make films, both my own and with other documentary filmmakers, as well as continuing my career in community psychiatry.
I currently reside in Berkeley, California in a cooperative for senior citizens above the age of 55. Since 2004, I have been active in the California Democratic Party serving as an elected assembly delegate from the Berkeley area.
As a result of my political activism over the last four decades, it became quite clear to me in 2006 that our economy was headed for disaster, and with my coproducers began researching and reading everything available to understand the political economy of the free-market ideology prevailing in this country. The result of all this research has been the production of our new film entitled "Heist".
