Biography

The national award-winning documentary Death: A Love Story, marked Ms. Le Brun’s debut as a filmmaker having directed, produced, written and photographed the film. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, won top awards at several other film festivals, and aired on national PBS and CBC Canada. An analysis of the film was featured in Sundancing (2000), by John Anderson, History in Documentaries (2005), by Alan Rosenthal (China edition), and Documentary Media (2009), by Broderick Fox. Death: A Love Story is currently used in classrooms in more than 500 universities, colleges and libraries in the US and Canada. Currently, it is available on DVD or streaming.

As a producer/director and educator, Ms. Le Brun’s interests include media literacy, civic engagement, and empowering young and old alike to analyze media and produce inspiring films that have an impact on social issue conversations. Toward that end in 2002 Ms. Le Brun founded HARKEN! Youth Media in East Los Angeles training underserved, gang-affiliated youth in all aspects of documentary filmmaking to nurture critical thinking, creativity, and leadership skills. Ms. Le Brun brought HARKEN! Youth Media to Providence RI in 2005 and served youth in that community until 2014. She also taught for many years in Lesley University’s Creative Arts in Learning Division Master’s Degree Program training K–12 teachers in the use of the arts and digital media to deliver the curriculum.

Ms. Le Brun has produced and directed a variety of short films that have aired on PBS including An Offering produced for The World Festival Of Sacred Music spearheaded by His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Gone Fishin’ and Ruth Dealy: A Portrait, both of which received RI Council for the Humanities and Rhode Island State Council on the Arts grants.

Ms. Le Brun’s company Harken Productions works with organizations to help them achieve their mission by producing short, documentary style videos to help with marketing, fund-raising, operational and training efforts.

She has also served on the Board of Directors for the RI Film Collaborative, was a founding member of the RI Media Education Task Force, and has been a finalist juror for The International Documentary Association and the RI International Film Festival.