About Me

JO ANN KAPLAN was born in New York City and studied fine art at Hunter College, City University of New York (BFA, MFA). She has been making films since 1968. She has lived in the UK since 1974, and has been working in the British film industry since 1976.  She draws, paints in watercolour, makes photo-collages, and does portraits on commission.

She has edited and directed films and tv programmes across a broad range of subjects and formats, including animation, dance, fiction and experimental films, as well as documentaries and arts programmes, which have been broadcast on Channel Four, the BBC, WNET (New York), Arte and other European outlets, and at film festivals world-wide.

Directing work includes a prize-winning fiction short, a ground-breaking arts programme written by Angela Carter, three experimental films of unusual form and content, and a dance film made in collaboration with Dana Caspersen of the Forsythe Company. Editing work includes several dance films, many animated films and films of “hybrid” form, and many programmes about the arts for television.

She has been teaching film editing at The National Film and Television School at Beaconsfield since 2000, and in 2004/06 as a part-time tutor on the MA Documentary course at Goldsmiths College Department of Media and Communications. She is also a visiting tutor at the University of Kent, The Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths College, and Westminster University.