Master of Fine Arts
in Documentary Studies and Production

Faculty Bios

Skip Blumberg is one of the original documentary video pioneers. His documentaries won NYC Emmy's, Ohio State University Journalism Award, and Best of Festival at the NYC Documentary Festival. They were broadcast on PBS, Showtime, National Geographic TV, Sesame Street and MyHero.com, and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Paley Media Center. "Pick Up Your Feet: the Double Dutch Show" is considered a classic video documentary. Professor Blumberg has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and NYS Council on the Arts and is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow.

Sybil DelGaudio has taught both film studies and film production. Her production work has combined an interest in animation with a passion for documentary, resulting in two award-winning projects, Animated Women and Independent Spirits, both broadcast on over 100 PBS stations and on the BBC and screened at many domestic and international film festivals. Her work has received grants from the Independent Television Service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the New York Council for the Humanities, the Soros Documentary Fund and the New York State Council on the Arts. From 2003 to 2009 Dr. DelGaudio served as Dean of the School of Communication.

Carlo Gennarelli comes to Hofstra with a thirty-year career in broadcast television, recognized as one of the top post-production editors in New York City. His work has earned him14 Emmy awards as both editor and producer. He has edited and produced a variety of TV documentaries for A&E, Bravo, CBS, Discovery, and NBC. His contributions to "The Great Zamperini," a biographical documentary, aired as part of the 1998 Olympic Winter Games, garnered the Outstanding Program Achievement Emmy Award. Gennarelli is a graduate of New York University and holds a Masters degree in Studio Art.

Phil Katzman is an associate professor in the Audio/Video/Film department and a filmmaker and cinematographer with documentary and feature film credits. His films include From Stone, Subway Encounters, Home-Heart-Hope, Mannequin World, Lonely in America, Ticket to Freedom: Woodstock, and Mr. Vincent. Prof. Katzman's films have been licensed to PBS, HBO, Cinemax, Bravo IFC and more than 75 countries internationally for theatrical, television and video release and have been screened in over eighty film festivals worldwide.

Aashish Kumar (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi; M.S. Radio/TV/Film, Indiana State University; M.F.A. Television Production, Brooklyn College) has taught courses in documentary, community-based media production and television studies at Universities in the United States and abroad. Professor Kumar is a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Visiting Fellowship (2008). He is an award-winning producer of several films, three with civil society and grass-roots advocacy organizations. Professor Kumar’s most recent work, ,em>The Community I Serve, won the "Best of Festival" award at the Broadcast Educators Association Festival of Media. He currently serves on the National Screening Committee for Fulbright Graduate Student Scholars (Film/Video).

Dennis W. Mazzocco (Ph.D. University of California San Diego is an award-winning producer, director and/or writer (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, TNT, ESPN, Bravo). Dr. Mazzocco's artistic credits range from news (Nightline, Good Morning America) to sports (Olympics, Super Bowl, World Series) to entertainment (Oscars, Dancing with Stars, One Life to Live). He has earned nine Emmy Awards (among 20 career nominations), and three Cine Gold Awards and a Directors Guild nomination for documentary work. A member of the Directors Guild of America's National Board of Directors, he is the author of Networks of Power: Corporate TV's Threat to Democracy.

Mario A. Murillo is an associate professor in the Audio/Video/Film department and coordinator of the Audio/Radio academic program. A veteran radio journalist and feature producer in commercial, public and community radio, he currently hosts and produces "Wake Up Call" on Pacifica station WBAI (99.5 FM). He is the author of Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest and Destabilization (Seven Stories, 2004), and Islands of Resistance: Puerto Rico, Vieques, and US Policy (Seven Stories, 2002).

Christine Noschese is an award-winning writer, director and producer of both narrative and documentary films. Her work includes June Roses, which premiered at New Directors/New Films and Metropolitan Avenue, the latter broadcast nationally on PBS' POV, Channel Four in Great Britain and screened theatrically at the Film Forum in New York. Over 2,000 copies of the film have been distributed by the John T. & Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation. Prof. Noschese has been awarded grants from the American Film Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Ford Foundation and the Women in Film Foundation for her work focusing on women, community and urban issues.

Ethan de Seife (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005), Assistant Professor of Film Studies, has taught a variety of film studies courses, including Documentary History and Documentary Theory, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His first book, on the film THIS IS SPINAL TAP, was published by Wallflower Press in 2007; his second book, on the films of Frank Tashlin, will be published in 2011 by Wesleyan University Press.