Karen Ranucci is a veteran producer with over fifty years of experience in independent video and film production and distribution. She began her career at the Downtown Community TV Center in New York, where she worked on PBS documentaries, led community video workshops, and helped establish both an education program and a documentary distribution department. She later spent nearly a decade freelancing as a reporter, producer, and camera operator for NBC Nightly News and the Today Show, covering stories around the world. In 1985, she won an Emmy Award for Best Investigative Reporting for a series on the poisoning of workers in the tungsten carbide industry. Ranucci also founded the Latin American Video Archives, supporting the distribution of Latin American film and video in the U.S., and joined the Democracy Now! team after September 11, 2001 to help expand the program into television and digital broadcast.
Please List the Title of Your Film at BIFF 2026
STEAL THIS STORY, PLEASE!
What was your first experience with film and how did it influence your first project?
See above. It influenced all my work by dedicating myself to projects that can serve as community organizing and educational tools.
Who are your favorite Filmmakers?
Guillermo del Toro
What are you working on that no one knows about?
I am a farmer.
Who would play you in a movie? What’s your go to movie snack? What’s the film title that best describes your life?
Play me in a movie: Ma Kettle.
Go-to movie snack: Popcorn with butter and nutritional yeast.
Film title that best describes my life: The Way We Were.
