Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno & Jerome Bongiorno

are husband and wife filmmakers who formed their own production company, Bongiorno Productions.  Marylou, a  graduate/adjunct faculty of New York University’s Graduate Film Department, is a producer and director; Jerome is an editor, cinematographer, and animator.  The Bongiornos have created numerous fictional, documentary, art, and experimental films and screenplays. They’ve also exhibited their video installations in museums and galleries.  They’ve earned numerous international awards, an Emmy nomination, and received grants from The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Martin Scorsese, Lew Wasserman, Warner Bros. Pictures, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Bongiornos are in production on a documentary on eco-sustainable homes, a fictional short film on angels, and more city symphony films in 3D, which began with their popular New Work: Newark in 3D - commissioned, acquired, and exhibited in a solo show in 2009-10 by the Newark Museum.

Bongiornos featured at “groovycareers”

Historian Lonnie G. Bunch,  founding director, Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture, and filmmakers Marylou and Jerome Bongiorno

The filmmakers of Revolution '67, the winner of the 2008 John E. O'Connor award,  receive their prize from AHA president  Gabrielle M. Spiegel

Historical Commission Chair Larry Greene; Jerome and Marylou Bongiorno; Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells; Historical Commission Executive Director Marc Mappen, Ph.D.

Newark Boys Chorus School Gala: Executive Director Vickie J. Snoy; Dinner Co-Chairman Marshall Alston; Dinner Chairman Dr. Randal Pinkett; Arts Honorees Marylou and Jerome Bongiorno

Bongiornos profiled in Profiles of Italian Americans, Achieving the Dream and Giving Back

They created television programs for John Pierson’s “Split Screen” which aired on Bravo and IFC, a Special one hour PBS program WORKING ACTORS (featuring Matthew Broderick, Edie Falco, Swoozie Kurtz, Anthony LaPaglia, Audra McDonald, B.D. Wong) for the Emmy award winning “City Arts,” and a film for Rainbow Media’s “Urban Indies.”

Their screenplay, LITTLE KINGS, is based on their New York Film Festival Grand Marnier Award winning short, won international writing prizes, and was produced with the $75,000 Richard Vague Film Production Fund Award and major support from SONY. LITTLE KINGS made its World Premiere in competition at the Hamptons International Film Festival where it was nominated for the Golden Starfish Award, won the Festival Director’s Award for Best Feature at The Method Fest in LA, and garnered 4 top awards including Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay at the Palm Beach International Film Festival.  It’s screening internationally.

Mother-Tongue: Italian American Sons & Mothers, featuring Martin Scorsese, John Turturro and Rudy Giuliani, debuted on cable television, was nominated for an Emmy Award., and screened at the Venice Film Festival and Pesaro Film Festival.

Their award-winning, critically acclaimed documentary, REVOLUTION ’67, premiered nationally on the PBS series “P.O.V.,” is distributed by California Newsreel, and is screening internationally in college, community, and  NEH Justice tours.  Funders include ITVS, P.O.V./American Documentary Inc, CPB, the NJHC and NJCH.  It’s the basis of a fictional film in development, Executive Produced by Spike Lee., received two national awards for outstanding film of American history from the AHA and OAH, and features a curriculum designed by Teachers College, Columbia U.

WATERMARK, also in development, is a love story set against the backdrop of post-Katrina New Orleans and the devastating floods in Venice, Italy.   Featured at Sundance’s Investing in Media That Matters, the Hamptons Writers Conference, IFP Market’s No Borders, and the Tribeca Film Festival/Sloan Summit., it was the centerpiece of a Johnson Foundation Wingspread Conference on Global Warming and Film funded by SC Johnson, The Park Foundation, Timberland, and major US environmental groups.  A related series of short films and photographs is in exhibition by PBS,  film festivals, museums and art galleries.

The Bongiornos were two of “20 for 2000 - artists to watch this century,” as chosen by the Star Ledger’s arts writers, “2 of 90 Interesting Members of Alpha Sigma Nu,” and are featured in the recent book Profiles of Italian Americans: Achieving the Dream and Giving Back.  .They are former educators, with extensive teaching experience, and are the recipients of fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Ledig House.