Debra Chasnoff

Let's Get Real

Debra Chasnoff

Examines issues that lead to taunting and bullying, including racial differences, perceived sexual orientation, learning disabilities, religious differences, sexual harassment and others. Part of The Respect For All Project.

It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School

Debra Chasnoff, Helen Cohen

Bob Smith

As the title implies, this documentary is educational and aimed at helping parents learn to untangle fact from fiction concerning homosexual people. The film is taken from educational session that took place in seven elementary and middle schools from around the country that each participated a frank workshop for students discussing homosexuality with the hope of eradicating myths and promoting tolerance and understanding. During each session, gay people offer brief lectures and question and answer periods for the children. Also include in the film is a segment in which teachers themselves argue the place of the issue in their curriculum.

That's a Family

Debra Chasnoff

With courage and humor, the children in That's a Family! take viewers on a tour through their lives as they speak candidly about what it's like to grow up in a family with parents of different races or religions, divorced parents, a single parent, gay or lesbian parents, adoptive parents or grandparents as guardians.

One Wedding and a Revolution

Debra Chasnoff

This short film reveals the inspiration, motivation and political challenges at San Francisco City Hall during the frantic days leading up to the first government-sanctioned same-sex marriage.

It's Still Elementary

Debra Chasnoff, Johnny Symons

In 1996, Women's Educational Media released their groundbreaking documentary Its Elementary-Talking About Gay Issues in School. It's Still Elementary tells the fascinating history of why and how the 1996 film was made, the infamous response it provoked from the conservative right, and the questions it raises about the national safe schools movement today. Includes interviews with some of the original students and teachers from Its Elementary.

Straightlaced: How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up

Debra Chasnoff

A powerful documentary about the lives of teens and young adults as seen through the gender lens. Approaching society's ideas and ideals of gender through clothes, sexuality, sports, dance, safety, consumerism and emotion, the film addresses the complexities of conceptions of masculinity and femininity for Generation Z.

Choosing Children

Margaret Lazarus, Debra Chasnoff

CHOOSING CHILDREN is a pioneering film about parenting in non-traditional families and helped to open dialogue about the meaning and reality of the "modern family." This film takes an intimate look at the issues faced by lesbians and gay men who decide to become parents after coming out.

Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment

Debra Chasnoff

This 1991 Academy Award®-winning documentary uncovers the disastrous health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials by the General Electric Corporation.

Prognosis: Notes on Living

Debra Chasnoff

Debra Chasnoff

When filmmaker Debra Chasnoff faces stage-4 cancer, she turns her lens on herself and the disease. What emerges is a portrait of her extended LGBTQ family —a story about hanging on while letting go.