In addition to filmmaking and running a small production company, Irene Taylor Broadksy taught photography and filmmaking to high school and college students for three years. She currently lives in an old Victorian house high on a hill above Portland with her husband, Matt, her Bernese Mountain Dog, Balu, her cat Mingus, and baby Jonas.
Irene was born in St. Louis and grew up in Rochester, NY and England. She moved to New York City to attend NYU in 1988. She studied Political Science and Journalism, and took many courses at Tisch with her lifelong mentor and Film Hero, Documentarian (and Octogenarian) George Stoney.
After graduating, she moved to Kathmandu. From the time her parents gave her their old manual Nikon in the late 70s, she always wanted to be a photographer. But in Nepal, she made her first film,The Image with Story.
In 1996 she returned to the U.S. to go to go to the Journalism School at Columbia, when she also published a book of photographs from Nepal (?Buddhas in Disguise?).
When her parents told announced they were going to get cochlear implants - at age 65 - Irene was totally shocked but then the filmmaker wheels started turning. Her instinct was to document their experience. Yet, when her Dad gave her a steel box filled with old 8mm film reels dating back to the 1940s, she knew she had to make more than a document -- she had to make a film. Hear and Now tells the story of their journey into the world of hearing.