About

Under the moniker of Fertigová Films, Ruth Fertig has released three short documentaries: 

YIZKOR, (2009) based on her grandmother’s memoirs of love and loss during the Holocaust, won the 2010 Student Academy Award (documentary gold) as well as a CINE Golden Eagle and several film festival honors. 

TWO SPIRITS, (2007) which explores Native American LGBT rights activist Joey Criddle’s personal identity and community, is part of Frameline’s Voices program available on YouTube.

THE COCKROACH PROJECT (2005) profiles four people whose livelihoods are linked to the eponymous insect, while documenting the filmmaker’s quest to conquer her own roach phobia.

Her independent film work has screened at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the United Nations in New York, and at film festivals internationally, as well as airing on PBS, Free Speech TV, and the Documentary Channel.

As a film and television producer, meanwhile, her most recent project is PBS’s Caregiving series. She has previously contributed to documentaries directed by Barbara Kopple, RJ Cutler, Edet Belzberg, and Morgan Spurlock, for outlets including HBO, Hulu, PBS, ABC, NBC, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and A&E. Additionally, she spent nearly a decade as a one-woman-band / backpack journalist, making social impact videos across four continents for the United Nations and non-profits including the International Rescue Committee, Helen Keller Intl, and the Political Asylum Project of Austin.

Her MFA in Film and Video Production is from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a Hutchison Fellow, and she has a B.A. in History from Columbia University.