About Beacon Productions: Jill Evans Petzall

Jill Evans Petzall is a national award-winning videomaker who is known for casting a balanced light on social-issues and for accurately portraying subjects that are not often represented in mainstream media. Her work offers poetic and uncommon insights about human beings speaking within the grip of their daily lives. She is drawn to the authentic, the remarkable, and the profound in her subjects.

Her videos have been shown in museums, at conferences, and on public television and cable stations throughout the United States and Japan. Her many Writer/Producer honors include four Emmy Awards for writing and producing; a Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Award; a CINE Golden Eagle Award; and the Golden Reel Award from ITVA. In addition, her work has garnered six Emmy nominations; a Cable ACE nomination; three National Educational Film and Video Festival awards; and the prestigious National Poetry Association and Television Literacy's Maya Angelou Award.

Since 1983, Evans Petzall has produced over forty documentaries and has been scriptwriter for others. She works exclusively for not-for-profit agencies, among them, KETC (Channel 9, St. Louis PBS affiliate); National Council of Jewish Women, St. Louis Section (NCJW); Literacy Investment for Tomorrow-MO (LIFT-MO), and Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. Petzall has an M.A. in Philosophy; currently she is a Senior Instructor at the Honors College at the University of Missouri-St. Louis where she has taught since 1994.

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS AND SCREENINGS:

Her work has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Art Institute of Chicago Video Data Bank; Saint Louis Art Museum, 1986; Churchill Memorial Museum, 1991; Goethe Institute, Los Angeles, 1991; (AFI) American Film Institute, 1991; Missouri History Museum, 2001; and Forum for Contemporary Art.

GRANTS AND RECOGNITIONS:

Petzall is recipient of University’s Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumna Award, 2006, and the Outstanding Person of the Year Award, 1997, from the University of Missouri School of Social Work in St. Louis. Her productions have been awarded grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, Missouri Arts Council (MAC), Regional Arts Commission (RAC), School Sisters of Notre Dame, and Community Access for Local Origination Programming (CALOP) -- as well as from private foundations: the Roblee Foundation, the Fox Family Foundation, and others.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

Petzall is a Senior Instructor at Honors College at University of Missouri-St. Louis. Over the past fifteen years, she has also taught courses at Washington University and Webster University, both in St. Louis.

BACKGROUND:

She has a B.A. In Philosophy and English Literature (Magna cum Laude) and an M.A. in Philosophy, both from Washington University. Currently she is also a Senior Instructor at University of Missouri–St. Louis Honors College and Washington University. She is the mother of three children and six grandchildren.

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PRODUCER / WRITER'S FILMOGRAPHY

When the Bough Breaks (2001)

Mid-America Emmy Award, Best Documentary

Carolina Film Festival: 1st Place, Documentary

Women in the Director's Chair Festival

American Film Institute AFI/DV Fest, Finalist

Athens International Film and Video Festival

NY Expo, Honorable Mention

Dedication (1997)

Dallas Video Festival
2 Mid-America Emmy Awards: Writing and Producing
ITVA Golden Reel
Maya Angelou Award, Nat'l Poetry Assn. and Literary Television

Veronica's Story (1996)

B'klyn Arts Council Film and Video Festival: 1st Prize, Experimental
Rimbaud Award, Nat'l Poetry Assn. and Literary Television
New Haven Film Festival
Big Muddy Film and Video Festival: Best of Fest
Dallas Video Festival
National Educational Video Festival: Silver Apple Award
Louisville Film and Video Festival: Best Non-Feature
Charlotte Film And Video Festival: Special Merit Award
Iowa Independent Film And Video Festival
Charleston Internat'l Film and Video Festival: Bronze Award
Women in the Director's Chair Festival
2 Mid-America Emmy Nominations

Once Upon A Book (1994)

National Educational Video Festival: Bronze Apple Award

SOS - Stories of Survival (1991)

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Silver Award
National Educational Video Festival: Bronze Apple Award
Sinking Creek Film Festival
Houston International Film Festival: Silver Award

 

November Nine (1990)

American Film and Video Festival: Honorable Mention
Sinking Creek Film Festival
AFI Video Festival
Houston International Film Festival: Silver Award
Women in the Director's Chair Festival
Hometown USA Public Access Nat'l: First Prize for Video Art

 

Rule of Thumb (1989)

American Film and Video Festival
Women in the Director's Chair Festival
Hometown USA Public Access Nat'l: First Prize Documentary
Mid-America Emmy Nominations
Women's Support Project Award

 

T.S. Eliot,"...In Different Voices" (1989)

Midwest Emmy Nomination

 

Slatkin! A Symphony (1987)

Cable ACE Nomination

The following feature segments were produced, directed, written and edited by Jill Evans Petzall for St. Louis Skyline, KETC's cultural arts weekly video-magazine (1982-1990):

1990
"Handwork by Heart"
"Off the Record"
"Eye-Witness Artists"

1989
"Not.Even.Applicable."
"Peter Bernhardt"
"Anthony Davis"
"Fine Tuning"

1988
"Tadjah"
"Glass Carnival"
"Private Stories"
"Archie's Still Around"
"Bobby"
"Synchronia"

1987
"Half a Loaf"
"Paris in Japan"
"The Woman with the Horn"
"Dance Notes"
"The Hand of the Mentor"
"Brain Work"
"Tenor Man"

1986
"Stream"
"Peter Marcus"

1985
"Delay Tactics"
** Emmy Award Nomination for Best Local Non-news Feature

1984
"Lady Jazz"
"Untold Treasures"
"Supple Epitaphs"
** Emmy Award as lead-segment in "St. Louis Skyline" for Best Video Magazine Series

1984
"The Bookbinder"

1983
"Family Harmony"
"The Gifted and Her Gift"
"Lafayette Park"

1982
"Bessie"
"The Healing Art"

Critical Stages (1991)

Mid-America Emmy

The End of the Line Orphan Trains (1989)

Mid-America Emmy Nomination