Film

  • Sitting Still with Laurie Olin: America's Urban Designer
  • GRANTEE
    Gina M. Angelone
    GRANT YEAR
    2018

Gina Angelone, Laurie Olin talking on set, 2016, Philadelphia, PA. © Gina Angelone.

Landscape architect, Laurie Olin is the Frederick Law Olmsted of our time. His work in the public realm has radically altered the design and purpose of modern-day cities while creating the most iconic landscapes in our country. Although his name may not be well known by the public he has spent a lifetime serving, the iconic places he has created are widely recognized. In Sitting Still, Olin's story is told through a prism of the themes which define his life's work and its struggles: rapidly growing urbanization and a lost connection to nature, globalization, creating landscapes for the economically marginalized, and the importance of humanity in urban design. Interviews with Olin and his longtime collaborators, including architect Frank Gehry, weave a powerful narrative about the social aspects of urban design and raise questions about what it takes to make cities viable habitats for all strata of society.

Gina Angelone's credits include producer of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio (Cable Ace and Emmy award), Director/Producer/Writer of Connections: Preserving America’s Landscape Legacy (PBS), René & I (an Emmy-winning Holocaust documentary on NBC), and It's Better to Jump (on Al Jazeera and in theatres). She is the director and producer of six long-form biographies on master designers for The Cultural Landscape Foundation and is the writer and director of the original series Defining Beauty for Disney/MAKER. Her films are internationally acclaimed, receiving critical recognition and numerous social justice awards. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, New York Women in Film, the Philadelphia Foundation, and many others. Her work spans the creation of shows for Broadway venues (Gershwin Theatre, Hudson Theatre) and major museum exhibits (Smithsonian, American Museum of Natural History), to interactive media installations (Universal Studios). Angelone lives in Los Angeles and is also a published author.