A longtime documentary filmmaker, Sharon Wood’s recent credits include Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly, And the Oscar Goes To… (writer) for Turner Classic Movies and The Battle of amfAR (producer/writer) for HBO. On staff at Lucasfilm’s documentary unit from 2003 to 2011, Wood produced, directed and wrote 18 historical documentaries on subjects ranging from Leo Tolstoy to the Ottoman Empire to John Ford, as well as Manifest Destiny, a series on U.S. foreign policy, which aired on public television. Wood earlier served as writer on Paragraph 175 and The Celluloid Closet, (story by) a Peabody and Columbia-Dupont award winner. Her public television writing credits include Isamu Noguchi:  Stones and Paper for “American Masters,” and Oscar nominees Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press and Super Chief: The Life and Legacy of Earl Warren.  Two films she co-produced, KPFA On the Air and Freedom Machines, aired on POV.  In 2012, Praeger-ABC Clio published a book Sharon co-authored with Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein, The Art of Nonfiction Movie Making. She has consulted on numerous documentaries over the years.

Sharon is currently developing Travel Writer, a documentary about Evliya Çelebi, a 17th century Ottoman traveler. With an open mind and boisterous sense of humor, curiosity drove this devout Muslim to pass through parts of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. He revealed complex and fascinating cultures in transition, traces of which still inform today’s world.  A Fulbright fellowship to Turkey in 2016 helped jumpstart research and development.