Date: Dec 10, 2012

Hofstra Professor’s Documentary Gets International Distribution Deal

PBS Int’l Acquires Rights to “Ordinary Joe”, produced and directed by Professor Carlo Gennarelli

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY -- PBS International has acquired the worldwide television and home video rights for Ordinary Joe, the award-winning documentary feature about a Vietnam veteran that was produced and directed by Emmy award-winning Hofstra film professor Carlo Gennarelli.

Ordinary Joe chronicles the story of Joe Sciacca, a roofer from Smithtown, N.Y., who returns annually to Vietnam, travelling its back alleys and country roads from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi to deliver small donations collected back home.

The film follows Sciacca on his multi-week trek, and in doing that Ordinary Joe revisits the damage done by the deployment of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War – an issue that continues to plague new generations of Vietnamese.  Through unforgettable and heartbreaking characters, the film shows the shows the plight of Vietnam’s poor and displaced.

The deal with PBS International, one of the leading distributors of documentary television around the world, means Ordinary Joe will be released or aired in all markets – television and home video – outside the U.S. The film has been screened at more than a dozen film festivals and is the winner of several awards, including two from the Los Angeles International Film Festival.

Professor Gennarelli joined the School of Communication at Hofstra University after a lengthy career in broadcast television and film. Recognized as one of the top post-production editors in New York City, his work in the field has earned him 14 Emmy awards and 2 International Monitor Awards as both editor and producer. He has been involved with a variety of TV programs for every major television network and most cable outlets.

He has also edited and produced television documentaries for A&E, Bravo, CBS, Discovery, ESPN and NBC. Drawing on his passion for classic rock, Carlo directed, produced, edited and co-wrote a 2-hour special for Discovery Network where he personally interviewed dozens of rock icons such as Graham Nash, Johnny Ramone, Smokey Robinson , Ringo Starr and members of the Allman Brothers Band, Chicago, The Doors and the Grateful Dead.  Carlo’s contributions to “The Great Zamperini,” a biographical documentary aired as part of the 1998 Olympic Winter Games, garnered him an Outstanding Program Achievement Emmy Award. This critically acclaimed feature about an American Olympian and his ordeal as a POW in World War II became the impetus for the bestselling book, “Unbroken.”

About the  School of Communication
The School of Communication provides students with a superior education and real-world experience that prepare them to meet the challenges of the 21st century job market. It offers undergraduate and graduate coursework in multimedia journalism, media studies and public relations; radio, television and film production; and speech communication, rhetoric and performance studies, taught by an award-winning faculty. The school is also home to WRHU 88.7 FM Radio Hofstra University, the flagship station of the New York Islanders, and state-of-the-art resources such as NewsHub, an innovative multimedia classroom and newsroom, as well as cutting-edge control rooms, editing facilities and a new screening room.

About Hofstra University
Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution of higher education where more than 11,000 full and part-time students choose from undergraduate and graduate offerings in liberal arts and sciences, business, engineering, communication, education, health and human services, honors studies, the Maurice A. Deane School of Law and the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine.

About PBS International
PBS International, widely recognized for bringing high‐quality documentary, lifestyle and children’s programming to the international marketplace, is the worldwide co‐production and distribution division of PBS Distribution, a joint venture of PBS and WGBH‐TV Boston—one of the largest producers of primetime programming for PBS in the United States. PBS International licenses PBS, WGBH, and independently‐produced programs from such award‐winning producers as WGBH (NOVA, FRONTLINE, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE), Ken Burns, Ondi Timoner, Alex Gibney, Martin Scorcese, and David Grubin.

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