Susan Margolin

Producer & Founder at St. Marks Productions

This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy. It is about a dark and difficult masterpiece and the deeply gifted and flawed people who made it. It is about New York in a troubled era of cultural ferment and social change.

A half century after its release, Midnight Cowboy remains one of the most original and groundbreaking movies of the modern era. Set in a New York besieged by economic collapse, social unrest, and cultural ferment, the movie tells the story of two homeless loners who join forces out of desperation and struggle to survive.

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy

“We can change other people’s lives in a positive manner because that is what the victims would have wanted.” A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting recounts the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history and the community that came together in its aftermath.

A Tree of Life

The boundary-breaking composer and performer Meredith Monk overcame a hostile critical establishment to become one of the great innovators of her generation.

Monk in Pieces

Facing the Wind

A film that tells the story of American performer Loie Fuller, a pioneer of dance, stage lighting and design.

Obsessed with Light

Behind These Walls documents the experience of Sean "Dino" Johnson through his own unsparing words. Born and raised in Queens, New York, Johnson served a 15-year prison sentence for a drug-related charge. His conviction occurred during the national war on drugs, and before New York State began to reform its notorious Rockefeller drug laws.

Behind These Walls

A Black teenager bravely challenges the most powerful white supremacist in 1960s Louisiana with the help of a young Jewish attorney. Systemic racism meets its match in decisive courtroom battles, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and a lifelong friendship is born.

A Crime on the Bayou

Unlocked captures the unsparingly honest stories of formerly incarcerated men and women who participated in RTA's prison arts program. The film offers a different model for criminal justice, emphasizing life skills that lead to success after prison. Accompanying Unlocked are ten additional videos that introduce us to more RTA alumni stories.

Unlocked: The Power of the Arts in Prison

Far from the horrors at the US border, one family seeks safety and heals from the past, while bearing the weight of an uncertain future. PAPER CHILDREN goes beyond the headlines to the subtle, intimate reality of four siblings who fled gang violence in Honduras to face the terrifying, labyrinth-like US asylum process.

Paper Children

Mrs. Recy Taylor was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Unbroken, she spoke up and fought for justice with help from Rosa Parks and legions of women.

The Rape of Recy Taylor

This film tracks six young Detroit entrepreneurs over 17 months as they struggle to make their business dreams into successful startup realities.

Generation Startup

Seven months after helping her terminally ill mother have a “good death” in home-hospice, filmmaker Judith Helfand becomes a “new old” single mother at 50. Overnight, she’s pushed to deal with her “stuff”: 63 does of her parent’s heirlooms overwhelming her office-turned-future-baby’s room, the weight of her mother had begged her to lose, and the reality of being a half century older than her daughter. Told in the first person, in deep consultation with the past — as in 25 year of family footage — LOVE & STUFF explores the transformative power of parenting, our complex and very emotional attachment to “stuff,” and what it is we really need to leave our children.