Urban Owl

Mark Lipman has worked as a documentary filmmaker for forty years, exploring a wide range of subjects from domestic violence to human sexuality to affordable housing and community organizing. His films have been broadcast nationally on public television and won numerous awards. His directing credits include "To Have and To Hold" (1981), the first documentary to look at domestic violence through men's experience of it; "Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street" (1996), a film about the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative’s successful efforts to revitalize a Boston neighborhood devastated by redlining, arson and illegal dumping; "Father’s Day" (2003), an experimental documentary about the death of Mark’s father; and "Gaining Ground" (2013), a sequel to "Holding Ground" that explores DSNI’s success in preventing foreclosures and fostering youth leadership.

Mark has produced media for non-profit organizations throughout New England including the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where he documented the creation of new artwork by internationally renowned artists-in-residence. As a freelance editor, he has worked for the NOVA series at WGBH/Boston and for many other Boston-area companies.

After moving to San Francisco in 2004, and forming Open Studio Productions with Helen Cohen, they produced "Streets of Dreams: Development Without Displacement in Communities of Color" (2013), portraits of four community land trusts in communities of color; "States of Grace" (2014), a feature documentary that follows the inspiring recovery of a Buddhist physician from a near-fatal car crash; and "Arc of Justice" (2016), a documentary short that tells the remarkable story of the first community land trust that emerged out of the Civil Rights Movement in Albany, Georgia.

More recently, Mark's filmmaking has taken a turn toward nature-related work with the creation of "Refuge" (2020), a 3-channel video installation with surround sound that takes the viewer from dawn to dusk in a wildlife refuge where thousands of snow geese and other migrating birds spend the winter. "Urban Owl" (2023), his most recent film, follows the growth of three great horned owlets high in a eucalyptus tree in a San Francisco park where the adults have nested for many years. We watch them transform from tiny white puff balls to young fledglings learning to fly and hunt for themselves.

In addition to film production, Mark also has extensive experience designing and implementing audience engagement campaigns for his films. The Ford Foundation included "Holding Ground" as one of ten case studies in an evaluation of its most successful media grants over the prior twenty years. Since 1981 he has been an active member of New Day Films, a national cooperative of social issue filmmakers who collaborate in the distribution of their films, serving several times as its chief financial officer and as a member of its steering committee.

Mark has an MFA in filmmaking from the Massachusetts College of Art and a BA in psychology from Harvard University.