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Maya DEREN
Maya Deren came to the USA in 1922 as Eleanora Derenkowsky. Together with her father, a psychiatrist, and her mother, an artist, she fled the pogroms against Russian Jews. She studied journalism and political science in at Syracuse University in New York, finishing her BA at NYU in June 1936 and then received her MA in English literature from Smith in 1939.
In 1943 she made her first film with Alexander Hammid, called Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Through this association she changed her name, at Hammid's suggestion, to Maya, meaning "illusion." Overall, she made six short films and several incomplete films, including one with Marcel Duchamp titled Witch's Cradle (1944).
