Films by Filmmaker

Liane Brandon

Liane Brandon is an award winning independent filmmaker, photographer and University of Massachusetts/Amherst Professor Emeritus. She was one of the first independent women filmmakers to emerge from Boston in the early Women's Movement. During that time, she was also a member of Newsreel film collective and of Bread and Roses, one of the first women's liberation groups in Boston.  She was also a founding member of FilmWomen of Boston and Boston Film/Video Foundation. In 1971, she co-founded New Day Films with Julia Reichert, Jim Klein and Amalie Rothschild.

Her classic films Anything You Want To Be (1971) and Betty Tells Her Story (1972) were among the earliest and most frequently used consciousness raising tools of the Women's Movement. Her films, which also include: Once Upon A Choice, How To Prevent A Nuclear War and Fine Print have won numerous national and international awards, and have been featured on Home Box Office, The Learning Channel, USA Cable and Cinemax. They have twice received Blue Ribbons at the American Film Festival, and have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Chicago Art Institute. Betty Tells Her Story was nominated for inclusion in the National Film Registry and Anything You Want To Be was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011.

Brandon is the recipient of the Boston Society of Film Critics Award and the Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University. She has served as a juror for the Emmy Awards, the Evvy Awards, the student Academy Awards and as an education consultant for WGBH -TV.

In 2008, she was awarded grants from The Women's Film Preservation Fund to preserve Anything You Want To Be and Betty Tells Her Story.

In addition to her role as Professor at the University of Massachusetts, she was the Director of UMass Educational Television which produced award winning, original educational programming for cable/home audiences throughout New England. 

Currently working as a still photographer, her photography credits include: Murder at Harvard (PBS American Experience), Typhoid Mary: The Most Dangerous Woman In America (PBS Nova), Unsolved Mysteries, The Powder and the Glory and Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (PBS American Masters).

Actively involved with the rights of media artists, her lawsuit (Brandon v. The Regents of the University of California) won a landmark victory for filmmakers' protection of their titles.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Liane experimented with several short careers, working as a ski instructor, high school teacher and professional stunt woman.