Catherine Murphy (filmmaker)

Catherine Murphy is a U.S. filmmaker, activist and educator, best known for her documentary film MAESTRA about the 1961 Cuban Literacy Campaign. Her work principally focuses on social justice and literacy in the Americas. Murphy founded The Literacy Project in 2004 and Tres Musas Producciones in 2009.

Early life
Murphy was raised on the campus of Stanford University, where her parents both studied. Growing up, she was influenced by her grandmother and great-aunt, both of whom had lived in Cuba at the turn of the 20th century.

Time in Cuba
Murphy studied in Havana during the 1990s in what is known as Cuba's Special Period. While living in Havana, Murphy earned a master's degree in sociology from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales. An early version of her thesis was published by the Institute for Food and Development Policy in 1999, under the title “Cultivating Havana: Urban agriculture and food security in the years of crisis”.

Based on this work, she gave one of the 2010 keynote speeches to the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

Filmography
Catherine Murphy has earned the following credits for her film work:

MAESTRA
Director/Producer. MAESTRA (Teacher). Documentary. US/Cuba. 2012. MAESTRA is distributed by Women Make Movies and streams free on Kanopy with most public library cards.

MAESTRA has been translated into six languages and included in multiple recommended curriculum resources, including the Zinn Education Project

MAESTRA at the International Documentary Festival “OXDOX”

Maestra Productions
In 2022 Murphy founded Maestra Productions in homage to her first documentary MAESTRA and the women educators who inspired it. Maestra Productions is a collaborative international production house creating documentaries on art, education, and social justice movements.

Other films

 * Director, Maestras Voluntarias. Documentary. US/Cuba. 2022.
 * Director, Fonemas de Liberdade. Documentary. US/Brazil. 2021.
 * Director, Silvio Rodríguez: My First Calling. Documentary. US/Cuba. 2020.
 * Co-Producer, They Say I'm Your Teacher. Documentary short. USA. 2019.
 * Executive Producer. To Be A Miss. Documentary. Dir Flor Salcedo. Venezuela/USA. 2016.
 * Associate Producer. From Ghost Town to Havana. Documentary. Dir Eugene Corr, 2013.
 * Director/Producer. MAESTRA. Documentary. US/Cuba. 2012.
 * Associate Producer. Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up? Documentary. Dir: Saul Landau. USA. 2011.
 * Archive Researcher. Sing Your Song: The Life of Harry Belafonte. Dir Susane Rostock. USA. 2010.
 * Subtitle Editor. Stealing America: Vote By Vote. Documentary. Dir Dorothy Fadiman. 2008.
 * Subtitle Editor. The Greening of Cuba. Dir Jaime Kibben. USA. 1997
 * Production Assistant. Gay Cuba. Documentary. Dir Sonja de Vries. USA. 1994

Teaching
Murphy is an adjunct professor at New York University's Center for Global Affairs, where she teaches a graduate course on the culture and history of Havana.

The Literacy Project
Murphy founded The Literacy Project in 2004 to explore issues of literacy and illiteracy in the Americas. inspired by meeting women who volunteered on the Cuban Literacy Campaign. In 1961, Cuba aimed to eradicate illiteracy across the island in the space of one year. Over 250,000 volunteers traveled across the island to teach reading and writing in rural communities. 100,000 of the volunteers were under 18 and more than half of them were women.

In 2003, after completing academic studies in Havana, Murphy recorded the first three interviews with former Literacy Campaign volunteers Norma Guillard, Daysi Veitia and Gina Rey. From 2004 to 2010, she continued to research and record stories of Literacy Campaign volunteers and the rural families that hosted them, eventually producing and directing the documentary MAESTRA and founding The Literacy Project.

The Literacy Project collects oral histories and uses a variety of media and documentation methodologies to capture the history of adult literacy work throughout the Americas.