Friends of Cheryl Furjanic

Cheryl Furjanic is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose documentary and fiction films have screened at 150+ festivals worldwide and on television. Her most recent feature documentary, Back on Board: Greg Louganis was broadcast on HBO and nominated for an Emmy Award and Producers Guild of America award in 2016. The film also gained critical and audience acclaim on the film festival circuit, screening at over 40 festivals worldwide and picking up eight awards. Back on Board was selected for the American Film Showcase, a program of the U.S. State Department that brings award-winning contemporary American documentaries around the world offering a view of American society and culture as seen by independent filmmakers. In 2014 she was named to the OUT100—Out Magazine’s list of the most compelling LGBT people of the year. Her feature documentary, Sync or Swim (2008), premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival. It went on to screen at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight and other festivals and received numerous awards including a Billie Award for Journalism from the Women’s Sports Foundation. Her early short films include A Good Uplift(2003) a documentary about a Lower East Side corset shop and the LGBT film festival hit Bar Talk (2002) a comedy fiction film about women in bars who are too cool to talk to each other. Though she has worked in many different filmmaking genres, there is a through-line in all of her work of heart, humor, and hope in the face of uncertainty.

Furjanic has been teaching documentary production at New York University in the Culture & Media Program for nearly two decades. She has done freelance writing and consulting for NBC Universal, Comcast/Xfinity, and other media companies. Furjanic consults regularly for filmmakers on documentary development/production, crowdfunding, and social media campaigns. She is a proud member of the advisory board for the Making Gay History podcast. She holds a BFA in Film & Television production from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a Masters from NYU/Tisch’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). Many moons ago, she was a member of two downtown queer comedy performance troupes: Neon Tina (arguably the most well-documented, least well-know downtown queer performance troupe in NYC) and The Lesbian Overtones (an all-lesbian a cappella group whose mission was to bring Lesbian standards back to the masses…in four part harmony). Her interests include fandom, television, LGBT history, pop culture, audiences, old “how to” books, and making Halloween costumes. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and son. She has yet to attempt diving or synchronized swimming.

Welcome Cheryl Furjanic!