Giovanna
Chesler is a Director and Producer of new media projects and documentary and narrative
films addressing themes of the body, sexuality, and gender. She received an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University and a BA in Anthropology and Women's Studies from the University of Virginia.
Chesler's films include: Bye Bi Love (HD24p, 17min, 2010) a short fiction film about a woman who receives an invitation to her ex-girlfriend's wedding, Period: The End of Menstruation? (16mm,
54 min) a feature documentary on cultural and medical trends in menstruation which is distributed by Cinema Guild, New York, BeauteouS: The Trilogy, an examination of three sisters and their relationships to beauty (16mm,
43 min) and hand-some, a reflexive documentary on a failing lesbian
relationship (16mm, 13 min) distributed by Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. Her first film, BeauteouS: Stephanie was awarded the Gold Plaque Award for Best Student Documentary from the Chicago International Film Festival in 2000. BeauteouS: Giovanna was a regional finalist in the Student Academy Awards experimental category and received honorable mention from the California State University experimental film competition in 2002. Chesler's films have played at over 100 international
festivals in fifteen countries. Her new media work includes Tune in HPV, a web television channel for awareness, expression and entertainment around the human papillomavirus.
Giovanna directs and produces videos for feminist organizations and shoots for feminist video artists and filmmakers, including this 30 minute documentary for the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University, Six Years by Monique Moumblow, and camera work on short videos by Kim Schoen.
Chesler is an Asisstant Professor in Communication Arts at Marymount Manhattan College and a research and media fellow at the Center for Social Media at American University. She has served on the selection committee for the 2008 AFI Silverdocs Film Festival. In her critical scholarship, she focuses on sound and documentary. Recent essays include this piece in Jump Cut Spring 2007 on sound pedagogy in the video classroom and a chapter on Frederick Wiseman's sound editing in an edited collection on Wiseman's work in DFI Vorwerk. A forthcoming book on the HPV vaccine debates (published by Johns Hopkins University Press) will contain a co-authored essay by Chesler on the Tune in HPV project.
G6 Pictures, Giovanna's production company, comes from her name - Giovanna
Marie is the 6th in a matrilineal line of Giovannas.