As partners in the Simon & Goodman Picture Company, independent filmmakers Kirk Simon and Karen Goodman are recipients of three Academy Award nominations and three Emmy Awards and recently won an Oscar for their documentary “Strangers No More.” The company is based in New York, and works in film and television production.

Karen’s  Oscar winning film “Strangers No More,” is about the Bialik-Rogozin school, a unique school in south Tel Aviv with children from forty-eight different countries and wildly diverse backgrounds.  The documentary profiles the school and the students who somehow, despite the dizzying diversity, manage to do all the right things to foster an environment where these students can actually come together to learn. 

Simon & Goodman received an Oscar nomination and an Emmy Award for Best Documentary for the HBO special, Chimps: So Like Us. Their exploration of the role of women in Egypt, “Cairo Unveiled,” was broadcast as the season premiere of National Geographic Explorer series in 1992. They produced and directed “Backstage at Masterpiece Theater: A 20th Anniversary Special,” which was broadcast nationally on PBS and nominated for an Emmy Award. They have produced a number of projects for Lincoln Center’s Dance Film Archive, documenting the works of choreographers Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, Robert Joffrey, Jerome Robbins, and George Balanchine. Other joint projects include commercials, corporate and promotional videos, and political spots.

Karen Goodman was nominated for an Oscar for “Children’s Storefront”, a portrait of an extraordinary educational oasis in Harlem. Her film No Applause, Just Throw Money was first seen at New Directors/New Films; following its broadcast on the PBS documentary showcase P.O.V., it won an Emmy and numerous festival awards, including the Silver Prize at the Leningrad International Film Festival. Ms. Goodman’s first film, Light of Many Masks, was televised in the U.K. and the U.S.

Kirk Simon was nominated for an Oscar for Isaac In America, a co-production with AMERICAN MASTERS about the Nobel laureate writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, which premiered at the New York Film Festival. Mr. Simon produced a dramatic adaptation of a Singer short story, “The Cafeteria”, for American Playhouse. He directed the PBS special, “Carnegie Hall”, and the PBS children’s series, Eat Well, Be Well.

Both Simon and Goodman are members of the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and served as judges for the International and National Emmy Awards, the Ace Awards and the Media Program for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Simon & Goodman are currently in production on a documentary for PBS’s American Experience chronicling the early history of the telephone.

Here’s a picture of VIP Talent Sevices Nicole holding Karen’s Oscar.