Karen Cooper is the president and director of the New York City-based independent, nonprofit cinema Film Forum.
Today considered one of America's leading venues for new American independent and foreign art house features,[1] Cooper oversees programming and selects premieres for Film Forum alongside associate Mike Maggiore.
[4] The 1980s saw Cooper bringing such documentaries as The Atomic Cafe and Henry Hampton's Eyes on the Prize to the theater's screens.
[3][5] Recently, Film Forum premiered Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann and Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro, both of which were nominated at the 89th Academy Awards.
[6] A graduate of Smith College, Cooper received an Honorary Doctorate from the American Film Institute in 1995.