Ruth Peyser has been making animated films since her arrival in New York from Australia in 1978. Her award-winning films have been screened on public television and at hundreds of festivals in the United States and throughout the world. A half hour segment of the PBS series Animated Women was devoted to her and her work.

        She made her earliest films, Another Great Day and Random Positions, in collaboration with Jo Bonney. Another Great Day tells the story of a woman who mechanically follows the expected societal norms, which causes her a despair she doesn’t understand. Random Positions depicts the familiar but often destructive roles people play in sexual relationships. Like all Ruth’s work, these films draw from her own experience and self-examination.

        Ruth subsequently made Covered in Fleas and Go to Hell, which were hand drawn with an edgy, underground comics feel. The themes of these films focus largely on women’s issues.

        Ruth stopped making films when she had her second child in 1993. While she was bringing up her daughters, she jotted down ideas for films and also wrote many short stories about her life. When her children were teenagers she started developing a coherent concept for a film from her writings. This evolved into her most recent film, There was a Little Girl.