Nancy Schwartzman

Nancy Schwartzman
Born	Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, US
Residence	New York, US
Ethnicity	Jewish
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation	Filmmaker
Known for	films on feminism, consent, sexuality
Religion	Jewish

Nancy Schwartzman is an American director, producer, and mobile app developer, and the CEO of Tech 4 Good. She works in the intersection of sexuality, youth culture, and new media.

Schwartzman directed the 2009 documentary The Line^[1] which premiered at the International Women's Film Festival^[2] in Tel Aviv and plays festivals and colleges. She is the director of The Line Campaign, an interactive campaign known for breaking taboos with college youth, aimed at battling rape culture amongst college youth and opening up a dialogue about desire, consent and boundaries. The Line Campaign is supported by the Fledgling Fund,^[3] The Playboy Foundation,^[4] and NotAlone.gov,^[5] the White House's website about sexual assault.

As a mobile app developer, she is the creator of the Circle of 6 app, winner of the White House Apps Against Abuse Challenge.^[6] Circle of 6 is cited in the White House report on ending violence on campus, and recipient of awards from the Avon Foundation and the Institute of Medicine.^[7] The app has 150,000 users in 32 countries and is being customized for college campuses.

She is an impact producer, working on the documentary social impact campaigns for The Invisible War and Girl Model.

She has presented at TEDxSheffield^[8] and the xosummit.

Personal life

Schwartzman was born and raised in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She attended Harriton High School and the Shipley School during her childhood.

In 1997, Schwartzman graduated from Columbia University in New York City with a BA in Art History and a minor in Film. As an undergraduate, she studied at Reid Hall in Paris, becoming fluent in French and made the Dean's List from 1995-1997.

She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York City.

Work

Before becoming a documentary filmmaker, Schwartzman worked as a production assistant for Killer Films and received credit for Todd Solondz's Happiness and Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine.

In response to a spike in violent sexual assaults in NYC, Schwartzman began her activism as the founder of NYC - Safestreets.org^[9] in December 2005. The initiative was noted in the New York Times, New York Daily News, Village Voice, and others. Safestreets.org is Brooklyn-based neighborhood watch organization that provides maps to illustrate routes where sexual assaults have been reported. NYC-Safe Streets.org also partners with community businesses which agree to serve as "safe havens" for women who may feel fearful while walking alone.

"There was a spike in rapes reported in Brooklyn and I wanted to do something," explains Schwartzman. The maps and the safe haven storefronts are a concrete action in response to that."

Schwartzman was also a founding editor and Creative Director of heeb magazine^[10][11] from 2001, known for its satire and sardonic approach to reaching Jewish readers of all streams, but geared predominantly towards the urban, younger generation. She transformed public and private spaces to create sets for photography feature stories: “Love, Challah and Betrayal,” “Jewess,” and “The Passion” and set the aesthetic tone for the first six months of the magazine.

In 2001, she also worked as the lead officer of a $1.6 million Jewish documentary film fund as the Program Officer for Media and Arts at the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, NYC.

The Line (2009)

In the film, The Line, Schwartzman "explores the issue of consent, the burden of blame and the trouble society has defining the two."^[9] In the film, "a one night stand far from home goes terribly wrong. As the filmmaker unravels her experience, she decides to confront her attacker".^[12]

xoxosms (2011)

An ongoing project, xoxosms^[13] is a documentary that follows the life and loves of two modern youths, and explores the digital intimacy that comes with new social networking technology, seeing it less as harm than something that fosters open communication.

xoxosms was produced by Cinereach and premiered on PBS POV in July 2013. It was also featured on the BBC Radio 4 Digital Human series.

"Circle of 6" (2012)

Circle of 6 is a free anti-violence iPhone app co-created by Schwartzman and Deb Levine (formerly of ISIS), engineered by Christine Corbett Moran and designed by Thomas Cabus.^[14] It won the 2011 White House Apps Against Abuse Contest,^[15] where Vice President Joe Biden called it "a new line of defense against violence" for young people.

Users add six trusted friends' contact information to the app. With just two touches, users can send their circle a message that they need to be picked up (with GPS information included), that they need an interruption, or that they're concerned about whether their relationship is healthy.^[14] Says Schwartzman, "we know that people suffer in isolation, so providing resources and embedding the information into the app itself can break that silence." On its first day in the iTunes store, Circle of 6 got over 8,000 downloads.^[16] An Android version of the app has also been released, as well as a version for India.

References

External links

• Press coverage for The Line

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