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Catherine Gund
Catherine Gund (born Catherine Gund Saalfield in 1965) is an American producer, director, and writer who founded Aubin Pictures in 1996.
Gund's films have screened around the world in festivals, theaters, museums, and schools; on PBS, HBO, Paramount+/MTV Documentary Films, and the Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. She is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Catherine Gund was born in Geelong, Australia but grew up in Ohio. She is the daughter of the late billionairess philanthropist Agnes Gund (1938-2025) and her first husband, Albrecht "Brec" Saalfield. She attended Brown University and received a dual degree in Art/Semiotics and Women's Studies, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Upon graduation, Gund moved to New York City to do the Whitney Independent Study Program and joined ACT UP. She co-founded DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activist Television), the AIDS activist video collective affiliated with ACT UP/NY whose productions included Target City Hall, Pride '69-'89, Like a Prayer, and Stop the Church. During this time, she also became involved with Paper Tiger Television, a collectively produced weekly public access show, and contributed to shows from 1987-1994. Much of her early video work from this time is held at the New York Public Library as a part of their AIDS Activist Videotape Collection.
Gund's early activist video work focused on AIDS activism and the LGBTQ+ community. Her work in the early 1990s included Bleach, Teach, and Outreach (1989, co-produced with Ray Navarro) to document the emergence of a city-sponsored needle exchange program to combat the spread of HIV; Keep Your Laws Off My Body (1990, co-produced with Zoe Leonard) about censorship and legislation against privacy and lesbian bodies; Among Good Christian Peoples (1991, co-produced with Jacqueline Woodson) based on Woodson’s humorous essay about growing up as a Black lesbian Jehovah’s Witness; I’m You, You’re Me: Women Surviving Prison Living with AIDS (1992, co-produced with Debbie Levine); Sacred Lies, Civil Truths (1993, co-produced with Cyrille Phipps) documented the Religious Right and its broad-based agenda, analyzes their campaigns for anti-gay initiatives in Oregon and Colorado in 1992, also examining issues of family and religion in lesbian and gay communities; Not Just Passing Through (1994, co-produced with Polly Thistlethwaite, Dolores Perez, and Jean Carlomusto) a four-part documentary about constructions of lesbian history, community and culture; Cuz It's A Boy (1994, about the murder of Brandon Teena); Positive: Life with HIV (1993-95, senior associate producer & segment producer) AIDSFILMS’ four hour series about HIV/AIDS targeted at the HIV community covering political, psycho-social, cultural, medical and legal issues of living with HIV/AIDS.
In 1996, Gund founded Aubin Pictures, a nonprofit documentary film company with scholar and activist Scot Nakagawa. She produced Aubin's first film, When Democracy Works (1996), that same year, in a three-part focus on stories of multi-issue organizing. Three years later, she produced and directed the feature documentary Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance (1998) about controversial and iconoclastic performance artist Ron Athey, and co-directed Object Lessons (1999) along with Catherine Lord, which uses the creation of a gallery exhibition to question received ideas about lesbian visibility, community, culture, and identity. In 2000 she produced On Hostile Ground, a documentary about three abortion providers working in the USA. It was broadcast on the Sundance Channel.
In 2004, she produced Making Grace, documenting the journey of a lesbian couple having a baby together. Gund's documentary, A Touch of Greatness (2004), about the revolutionary teaching practices of elementary school teacher Albert Cullum, was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy. The film also won Best Documentary award at Hamptons International Film Festival in 2004.[citation needed]
She produced Motherland Afghanistan in 2006 about an OB/GYN struggling to make a difference in his homeland of Afghanistan, first at Kabul's renamed Laura Bush Maternity Ward and then in an isolated provincial hospital where patients often travel for several days to get treatment. Broadcast on PBS/Independent Lens.
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Catherine Gund
Catherine Gund (born Catherine Gund Saalfield in 1965) is an American producer, director, and writer who founded Aubin Pictures in 1996.
Gund's films have screened around the world in festivals, theaters, museums, and schools; on PBS, HBO, Paramount+/MTV Documentary Films, and the Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. She is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Catherine Gund was born in Geelong, Australia but grew up in Ohio. She is the daughter of the late billionairess philanthropist Agnes Gund (1938-2025) and her first husband, Albrecht "Brec" Saalfield. She attended Brown University and received a dual degree in Art/Semiotics and Women's Studies, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Upon graduation, Gund moved to New York City to do the Whitney Independent Study Program and joined ACT UP. She co-founded DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activist Television), the AIDS activist video collective affiliated with ACT UP/NY whose productions included Target City Hall, Pride '69-'89, Like a Prayer, and Stop the Church. During this time, she also became involved with Paper Tiger Television, a collectively produced weekly public access show, and contributed to shows from 1987-1994. Much of her early video work from this time is held at the New York Public Library as a part of their AIDS Activist Videotape Collection.
Gund's early activist video work focused on AIDS activism and the LGBTQ+ community. Her work in the early 1990s included Bleach, Teach, and Outreach (1989, co-produced with Ray Navarro) to document the emergence of a city-sponsored needle exchange program to combat the spread of HIV; Keep Your Laws Off My Body (1990, co-produced with Zoe Leonard) about censorship and legislation against privacy and lesbian bodies; Among Good Christian Peoples (1991, co-produced with Jacqueline Woodson) based on Woodson’s humorous essay about growing up as a Black lesbian Jehovah’s Witness; I’m You, You’re Me: Women Surviving Prison Living with AIDS (1992, co-produced with Debbie Levine); Sacred Lies, Civil Truths (1993, co-produced with Cyrille Phipps) documented the Religious Right and its broad-based agenda, analyzes their campaigns for anti-gay initiatives in Oregon and Colorado in 1992, also examining issues of family and religion in lesbian and gay communities; Not Just Passing Through (1994, co-produced with Polly Thistlethwaite, Dolores Perez, and Jean Carlomusto) a four-part documentary about constructions of lesbian history, community and culture; Cuz It's A Boy (1994, about the murder of Brandon Teena); Positive: Life with HIV (1993-95, senior associate producer & segment producer) AIDSFILMS’ four hour series about HIV/AIDS targeted at the HIV community covering political, psycho-social, cultural, medical and legal issues of living with HIV/AIDS.
In 1996, Gund founded Aubin Pictures, a nonprofit documentary film company with scholar and activist Scot Nakagawa. She produced Aubin's first film, When Democracy Works (1996), that same year, in a three-part focus on stories of multi-issue organizing. Three years later, she produced and directed the feature documentary Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance (1998) about controversial and iconoclastic performance artist Ron Athey, and co-directed Object Lessons (1999) along with Catherine Lord, which uses the creation of a gallery exhibition to question received ideas about lesbian visibility, community, culture, and identity. In 2000 she produced On Hostile Ground, a documentary about three abortion providers working in the USA. It was broadcast on the Sundance Channel.
In 2004, she produced Making Grace, documenting the journey of a lesbian couple having a baby together. Gund's documentary, A Touch of Greatness (2004), about the revolutionary teaching practices of elementary school teacher Albert Cullum, was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy. The film also won Best Documentary award at Hamptons International Film Festival in 2004.[citation needed]
She produced Motherland Afghanistan in 2006 about an OB/GYN struggling to make a difference in his homeland of Afghanistan, first at Kabul's renamed Laura Bush Maternity Ward and then in an isolated provincial hospital where patients often travel for several days to get treatment. Broadcast on PBS/Independent Lens.
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