New York-based filmmaker Mary Skinner's recent film Cuba Cubano Cañibano, about the life, vision, and work of Cuban photographer Raúl Cañibano, was an Official Selection of the United Nations Association Film Festival, 2017. Her first feature film Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers is about a group of Catholic women who risked their own lives to save thousands of Jewish children in the Warsaw ghetto, and ensure their return to families of origin.
In 2010, her documentary about Irena Sendler screened at festivals and events in the US and Poland and in 2011 it was acquired by PBS for National Broadcast on Holocaust Rembrance Day. The film has somce screened in many languages around the world, and has been honored with prestigious awards, including Best Documentary at the UK Jewish Film Festival, and the 2012 Gracie Award for Best Public TV Documentary by and about a woman.
Skinner was the producer of Arthur Feinsod's Jan Karski Coming to See Aunt Sophie, a stage play about the World War II Polish spy, who was acclaimed for his intrepid efforts to convey to Allied leaders his own eye-witness accounts of atrocities he witnessed during the Holocaust.
Skinner graduated from the University of California at Berkeley’s renowned theater program and was a founding member of the acclaimed Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York. She worked as a corporate marketing executive in New York and San Francisco and, in 2003, established 2B Productions.
The daughter of a Polish WWII orphan, Mary Skinner spent seven years making her first film. Her interest in Poland is longstanding, as is her appreciation for Irena Sendler, who became a personal friend. She recorded over 70 hours of interviews with Sendler, her fellow social workers and nuns, and the children they saved, as well as historians around the world.
While in Poland, Skinner discovered rare photographs, wartime bulletins and diaries and memories from people who were part of Sendler’s underground network.
She also learned more about her own mother (who died in 2006) and her mother’s family and neighbors, who were active in the Polish Resistance in Rembertow, outside Warsaw. These revelations inspired her to continue working to bring the stories of these brave individuals to light outside Poland. She is currently building a curriculum, also based on the unique material she has gathered.
Their stories are the basis for her next documentary film project.
In 2010, her documentary about Irena Sendler screened at festivals and events in the US and Poland and in 2011 it was acquired by PBS for National Broadcast on Holocaust Rembrance Day. The film has somce screened in many languages around the world, and has been honored with prestigious awards, including Best Documentary at the UK Jewish Film Festival, and the 2012 Gracie Award for Best Public TV Documentary by and about a woman.
Skinner was the producer of Arthur Feinsod's Jan Karski Coming to See Aunt Sophie, a stage play about the World War II Polish spy, who was acclaimed for his intrepid efforts to convey to Allied leaders his own eye-witness accounts of atrocities he witnessed during the Holocaust.
Skinner graduated from the University of California at Berkeley’s renowned theater program and was a founding member of the acclaimed Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York. She worked as a corporate marketing executive in New York and San Francisco and, in 2003, established 2B Productions.
The daughter of a Polish WWII orphan, Mary Skinner spent seven years making her first film. Her interest in Poland is longstanding, as is her appreciation for Irena Sendler, who became a personal friend. She recorded over 70 hours of interviews with Sendler, her fellow social workers and nuns, and the children they saved, as well as historians around the world.
While in Poland, Skinner discovered rare photographs, wartime bulletins and diaries and memories from people who were part of Sendler’s underground network.
She also learned more about her own mother (who died in 2006) and her mother’s family and neighbors, who were active in the Polish Resistance in Rembertow, outside Warsaw. These revelations inspired her to continue working to bring the stories of these brave individuals to light outside Poland. She is currently building a curriculum, also based on the unique material she has gathered.
Their stories are the basis for her next documentary film project.