Master of Fine Arts
in Documentary Studies and Production

Faculty Bios

Professor Skip Blumberg (MFA Documentary Program Director) is one of the original documentary video pioneers. His TV programs won 3 NYC Emmy’s, the Ohio State University Journalism Award, and Best of Festival at the NYC Documentary Festival and have appeared on PBS, Showtime, National Geographic TV, and Sesame Street (150 shorts!). His productions are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Paley Broadcast Media Center. His documentary “Pick Up Your Feet: the Double Dutch Show” is considered a classic video documentary. Professor Blumberg has received many grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, NYS Council on the Arts and NY Foundation for the Arts. He is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow. Fifty of his videos may be screened on-line including MyHero.com.

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. Since 2003 Dr. DelGaudio has served as Dean of the School of Communication.

Professor 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 him 14 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 him a Outstanding Program Achievement Emmy Award. Gennarelli is a graduate of NYU 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.

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.