Greenwald’s first feature film,
Home Remedy (1987), from her original screenplay, premiered at the
Munich Film Festival before screening at the London and
Torino Film Festivals, and opening at the prestigious
Film Forum in New York. The next film she directed was
The Kill-Off (1989), which she adapted from Jim Thompson’s noir novel of the same name. Acquired by Channel 4 in Britain, and released theatrically by Palace Filmed Entertainment, the film also appeared at film festivals around the world, including:
Sundance (in Dramatic Competition), Munich (opening night, American Independent section), London, Florence,
Deauville,
Toronto and
Edinburgh, before winning the Best Director Award at the Torino Film Festival before its release in the US. The film is listed in the BFI (
British Film Institute) Screen Guides as one of the 100 best American Independent Films. It established Greenwald’s as a significant independent filmmaking voice. Greenwald went on to write and direct her groundbreaking Western,
The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), which was released worldwide by
Fine Line Features and
Polygram Filmed Entertainment. Star
Suzy Amis was nominated for an
Independent Spirit Award while co-star David Chung won the award for Best Supporting Actor. A great deal has been written about the film by scholars of the Western who consider
The Ballad of Little Jo a landmark revisionist film within the genre. The film is also one of the primary subjects of Modleski’s
Old Wives Tales and Other Women’s Stories, which explores “the phenomenon of female authors and performers who ‘cross-dress’ - women, that is, who are moving into male genres and staking out territory declared off-limits by men and by many feminists.” Subsequently, Greenwald wrote and directed
Songcatcher (2000). An unconventional, naturalistic musical, the film premiered in Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it garnered a Special Jury Award for Ensemble Performance. The film received
the first Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize, Deauville Film Festival Audience Award, two Independent Spirit Award nominations (for actors Emmy Rossum and
Pat Carroll) and a
GLAAD Award nomination. Greenwald’s most recent film,
Sophie and the Rising Sun (2016), is based on
the novel by Augusta Trobaugh. She adapted, produced and directed the film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2016, Salt Lake City Gala World Premiere. Throughout her career, Greenwald has shifted back and forth between directing feature films and directing television. Her numerous TV movies include
What Makes a Family, starring
Brooke Shields,
Whoopi Goldberg, and
Cherry Jones. It was produced by
Barbra Streisand and Whoopi Goldberg, with Academy Award-winning producers
Craig Zadan and
Neil Meron. The
Lifetime Television Channel movie went on to win a prestigious GLAAD Award for Outstanding Television Movie and a Humanitas Award. Other TV movies include
Get A Clue, starring
Lindsay Lohan,
Tempted starring
Virginia Madsen,
Comfort and Joy, Lifetime Television’s Christmas standard, and
Good Morning, Killer, starring
Catherine Bell, based on
April Smith’s Ana Grey novel. Recent television work includes episodes of
Nashville and
Madam Secretary, including the controversial episode, “Break in Democracy,” which was banned in the Philippines for its portrayal of a fictional Filipino dictator. Earlier forays in directing for episodic television expanded Greenwald’s work to include children’s television. For
Nickelodeon she directed several episodes of
The Adventures of Pete and Pete, created the look of the show
The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, for which she directed six episodes over two seasons. She also directed the non-air pilot for a show that evolved into
Backyardigans and an episode of
Wildfire for ABC Family (now
Freeform). ==Personal life==