Peter Emanuel Goldman

Directing · Born 1939-06-05 · New York, New York, U.S.

Peter Emanuel Goldman (born June 5, 1939 in New York) is an American film director. He did not have a strong interest in film but did see early works from the French New Wave. He enrolled in university, first in New York and then at La Sorbonne in Paris, but did not complete his studies. Returning to New York, he was given an old 8mm camera from his father, and he began shooting street scenes in Greenwich Village. His first feature-length film, Echoes of Silence, took the sorts of everyday scenes he had been shooting and created a fictional story in which to place them, following the adventures of an aimless young man wandering the streets of New York. He cast his friend, sculptor Miguel Chacour, in the lead role. The silent film was shot over two years on a budget of $1600. It premiered at the 1966 New York Film Festival. Goldman then returned to Europe to shoot his next film Wheel of Ashes, starring Pierre Clémenti. It premiered at the 1968 Venice Film Festival. Following the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, Goldman became a committed Zionist. He wanted his wife to convert to Judaism but she did not, and the two ultimately divorced. Goldman served as head of Americans for a Safe Israel during the 1980s. He directed its 1983 documentary NBC in Lebanon: A Study in Media Misrepresentation, which alleged that NBC Nightly News' coverage of the 1982 Lebanon War was biased against Israel in favor of the Palestine Liberation Organization.