Joanne Caputo is a former classroom teacher from Pittsburgh who has worked in film and video production since the 1980s. After creating educational, commercial, medical, and corporate productions, she began independent filmmaking with a children’s video, Ballerina, Ballerina! (1995), recommended by Sesame St. Magazine.
Caputo's first documentary, On A Roll: Family, Disability and the American Dream, was filmed over four years and broadcast nationally by PBS Independent Lens, where it won the 2005 Audience Award. Recommended by The New York Times, Anti-Defamation League and others, On A Roll represented the USA at international disability film festivals, and was selected for (PBS) True Stories: Life in the USA global programming through 2017. Following On A Roll, Caputo released Cutting Loose, a seven-year documentary study of an American prison artist, and Letters From Frank, winner of the Ohio State Fair’s Juror’s Choice Award (Short Film Festival). She was collaborating director for Love After War: Saving Love, Saving Lives (2021) and is a producer on We Came in Peace: U.S. Marines in Lebanon 1982-84 Documentary (2024).
In 2008, Caputo published Margaret Garner, a dual non-fiction book based on American slavery research for her Margaret Garner feature-length screenplay, recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Screenwriting Fellowship. From her book, Caputo has crafted a television series co-written with Writer/Director Michael Ivey.
Raised in a big Italian family, Caputo is a magna cum laude graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a Master’s Equivalency degree. While working as an Associate Producer at KDKA-TV (CBS), she answered George Romero's 1984 call for zombies for Day of the Dead, along with author/illustrator Michael Fleishman, whom she married. They raised their sons in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and now reside in Delaware, where they are writing tutors for local college students.
Caputo's first documentary, On A Roll: Family, Disability and the American Dream, was filmed over four years and broadcast nationally by PBS Independent Lens, where it won the 2005 Audience Award. Recommended by The New York Times, Anti-Defamation League and others, On A Roll represented the USA at international disability film festivals, and was selected for (PBS) True Stories: Life in the USA global programming through 2017. Following On A Roll, Caputo released Cutting Loose, a seven-year documentary study of an American prison artist, and Letters From Frank, winner of the Ohio State Fair’s Juror’s Choice Award (Short Film Festival). She was collaborating director for Love After War: Saving Love, Saving Lives (2021) and is a producer on We Came in Peace: U.S. Marines in Lebanon 1982-84 Documentary (2024).
In 2008, Caputo published Margaret Garner, a dual non-fiction book based on American slavery research for her Margaret Garner feature-length screenplay, recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Screenwriting Fellowship. From her book, Caputo has crafted a television series co-written with Writer/Director Michael Ivey.
Raised in a big Italian family, Caputo is a magna cum laude graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a Master’s Equivalency degree. While working as an Associate Producer at KDKA-TV (CBS), she answered George Romero's 1984 call for zombies for Day of the Dead, along with author/illustrator Michael Fleishman, whom she married. They raised their sons in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and now reside in Delaware, where they are writing tutors for local college students.
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