GUEST SPEAKER

Nashville Film Festival, Documentary Film: Funding, Strategy and Impact Panel

Fordham University, Masters in Public Media, Video Narrative Class

New Orleans Film Society, South Summit, panel discussion on “The Shifting South”

Lit Fest Panel, Youngstown State University, “The Places That Make Us”

City College of New York, Journalism, “Covering Power” Class

New York University, Journalism Institute, “The Art of the Profile” Class

Rutgers University, Journalism and Media Studies Department, Video Storytelling Class

ESSAYS FOR TALKHOUSE MAGAZINE

“Personal Exposure” 
Karla Murthy shares the experience of turning the camera on herself and her family in her latest feature, The Gas Station Attendant.

“How I Get Unstuck” 
Karla Murthy, whose latest documentary, Love, Jamie, is now streaming on PBS American Masters, on where she finds creative inspiration.

“Finding Home”
First-time documentarian Karla Murthy ponders what home means to her.

TALKS

Changing Narratives and Building Connection: the Power of Documentary Film to Redefine, Reimagine, and Break Stereotypes by Creating Empathy
As society has become increasingly and dangerously divided, empathy through the arts is now more than ever a vital and powerful tool to bring people together.  In this talk, filmmaker and reporter Karla Murthy explores the subtle beauty of documentary as a vehicle to create an understanding of people's experiences unlike our own. Using clips from her award winning documentary film about Youngstown Ohio, Karla unpacks how her film sought to create new narratives, and in the process, made her confront her own stereotypes, while exploring the essential role of the artist today to help transform and reimagine the world around us.

From the Small Screen to the Big Screen:  Crafting Stories for News and Documentary Films
In 2016, TV reporter Karla Murthy was sent to Youngstown, Ohio, to produce a news segment for PBS NewsHour, a fateful assignment that would begin her journey to make her first feature film, The Place That Makes Us.  Akin to writing a newspaper article and a narrative non-fiction book on the same subject, Karla explores the confines and freedoms of the newsmagazine format versus the documentary feature film. Comparing and contrasting similar thematic video clips from each, Karla pulls back the curtain to reveal not only the process, but how her journey from reporter to filmmaker led her to embrace the unexpected.