Check out the most anticipated movies and shows premiering during the summer season, from [i]Jurassic World Rebirth[/i] to [i]Fantastic Four: First Steps[/i].

IMDb Summer Watch Guide

Check out the most anticipated movies and shows premiering during the summer season, from <em>Jurassic World Rebirth</em> to <em>Fantastic Four: First Steps</em>.

"[link=/title/tt0804484]Foundation[/link]" and "[link=/title/tt33043892]Dexter: Resurrection[/link]" are two of this month's most anticipated TV releases. Check out our [link=/list/ls599083852/]July calendar[/link] for more!

July 2025 TV and Streaming Premiere Dates

&quot;<a class="ipc-md-link" href="/title/tt0804484?ref_=nmpub_eds_right-5_lk">Foundation</a>&quot; and &quot;<a class="ipc-md-link" href="/title/tt33043892?ref_=nmpub_eds_right-5_lk">Dexter: Resurrection</a>&quot; are two of this month&#39;s most anticipated TV releases. Check out our <a class="ipc-md-link" href="/list/ls599083852/?ref_=nmpub_eds_right-5_lk">July calendar</a> for more!

Check out the lastest posters and stills coming out of this year's San Diego Comic-Con!

SDCC 2025: The Latest (and Greatest) Posters & Stills

Check out the lastest posters and stills coming out of this year&#39;s San Diego Comic-Con!

Maya Deren came to the USA in 1922 as Eleanora Derenkowsky. Together with her father Solomon Derenkowsky, a psychiatrist, and her mother Maria Fidler, an artist, she fled the Soviet Union. She studied journalism and political science at the Syracuse University in New York, finishing her BA at the New York University (NYU) in June 1936, and then received her MA in English literature from the Smith College in 1939.

In 1943, she made her first film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), co-starring with Alexander Hammid. Through this association, at Hammid's suggestion, she changed her name to Maya, meaning "illusion." Overall, she made six short films and several incomplete films, including Witch's Cradle (1944) starring Marcel Duchamp.

Deren is the author of two books, "An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film" 1946 (reprinted in "The Legend of Maya Deren," vol 1, part 2) and "Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti" (1953)--a book that was made after her first trip to Haiti in 1947 and which is still considered one of the most useful on Haitian Voudoun. Deren wrote numerous articles on film and on Haiti. Maya Deren shot over 18,000 feet of film in Haiti from 1947 to 1954 on Haitian Voudoun, parts of which can be viewed in Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1993) made after her death by her then-husband Teiji Itô and his new wife Cherel Ito.

In 1947, Maya Deren became the first filmmaker to receive a Guggenheim grant for creative work in motion pictures. She wrote film theory, distributed her own films, traveled across the USA, and went to Cuba and Canada to promote her films using the lecture-demonstration format to teach film theory, and Voudoun and the interrelationship of magic, science, and religion. Deren established the Creative Film Foundation in the late 1950s to reward the achievements of independent filmmakers.

Maya Deren in In the Mirror of Maya Deren (2001)

Publicity listings

Maya Deren

Print Biography

Film Biography

Contribute to this page

More from this person

More to explore

Recently viewed