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Janis Plotkin

Janis Plotkin is a film festival professional, producer, programmer, an educator. She joined Founding Director Deborah Kaufman at the groundbreaking San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in its second year. After twenty-one years at the SFJFF she resigned to pursue other interests in film. For fifteen years she was Senior Film Programmer at the Mill Valley Film Festival. In 2015 Plotkin produced her first documentary: Plastic Man: The Artful Life of Jerry Ross Barrish (plasticmanbarrish.com). 

Articles by this author

"They Can Kill You But They Can't Eat You" Front Cover by Dawn Steel

Dawn Steel

Dawn Steel’s career began with sports publication, but she went on to become the merchandising director of Penthouse, entrepreneur of her own company, and finally moved into Hollywood. Despite struggling with studio gender politics, extraordinary marketing talents ultimately catapulted her to becoming the industry’s second female studio head.

Stacey Snider

At the age of 26, film executive Stacey Snider was already a director of development at Guber-Peters Co. at Warner Brothers. In 1992, Snider became the highest-ranking female executive at a Hollywood studio when she was named President of Production at Tri Star; later, as the CEO of Universal Pictures, Snider led the company as it achieved unprecedented success in the industry.

Amy Pascal

Named one of the most powerful women in Hollywood in 2003, Amy Pascal has been president and vice president of several major production companies. As president of Columbia Pictures, she developed multiple major hits and has overseen major franchises like Spiderman and James Bond.

Sherry Lansing

Sherry Lansing

Sherry Lansing broke barriers as the first woman studio executive when she became head of 20th Century Fox in 1980, going on to lead Paramount Studios to create wildly successful blockbusters like Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and Titanic.
Naomi Gryn and Hugo Gryn in Karlovy Vary, 1989

Filmmakers, Independent European

The substantial success of many European Jewish women filmmakers attests to their abilities to preserve or imagine what was lost as a community. The films of those born in Central Europe are reflective of the Jewish experience of loss, outsider-ness, and memory; others explore courage and individual acts of resistance during World War II. Western European directors re-tell personal stories of friendship and betrayal in a historical context of Europe without its Jews. A strong body of work from North African-born filmmakers reflects the relationship between Arabs and Jews.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Janis Plotkin." (Viewed on June 19, 2026) <https://qa.jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/plotkin-janis>.