Mary Jane Doherty (MJ,) an Associate Professor Emerita from Boston University, taught film production courses including her innovative approach to the Narrative Documentary.  She got her start at MIT's Film/Video Program under Ricky Leacock, where she filmed GRAVITY, the story of Dr Rainer Weiss (Rai) and his students building a prototype gravitational wave antenna.  30 years later Dr. Weiss measured the first gravity wave—an epic discovery for which he received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.  MJ just finished COSMIC CODA, merging Rai's 1985 story with the story of Astrophysics as it is today.

 

In the meantime MJ made two feature films about children within the Cuban Ballet System: SECUNDARIA and PRIMARIA.  These projects screened internationally, received national press and two solo theatrical Award screenings. In April 2017 she received her first solo retrospective in Cambridge, MA, then later was awarded the 2017 Inaugural Boston Artists Fellowship and the St Botolph Fellowship in 2023.

 

Currently MJ is shifting to prose/video combinations and fiction filmmaking.  Her debut prose piece, THE FISHING WIDOWS OF BAY ST LAWRENCE received Runner Up for the 2022 Montana Prize in Non-Fiction, while a combined prose and video version is now featured at PilgrimOnline magazine.  She's published three other essays: on the mystery of sound, narrative documentary filmmaking and early music education.