Filmmaker Nora Jacobson started Off The Grid Productions in 1995, in a quonset hut located at the delta of two rivers in the State of Vermont, USA. Watch Nora's reel

Nora is the Project Director and Supervising Editor of a 6-part collaborative film series about Vermont: Freedom & Unity: The Vermont Movie. Completed in 2014, the film series has toured Vermont to enthusiastic response. The film includes the work of over 49 Vermont filmmakers, plus scores of Vermont musicians, animators, and crew members. The film digs under the surface of Vermont’s bucolic image and reveals surprising stories in a compelling and entertaining manner.

Her award-winning films include: "Delivered Vacant" (Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Festival), about housing issues, real estate and gentrification in Hoboken, New Jersey; "My Mother's Early Lovers" (Austin Film Festival, New Haven Film Fest, Method FilmFest), a family drama about intergenerational abuse and healing; “Nothing Like Dreaming" (Best in Fest, Lake Placid Film Festival, Northampton Independent Film Festival, Woods Hole Film Festival, Hearts & Minds Film Festival)  about teenagers, mental illness, creativity and the sound of fire set in rural Vermont; "Sun and Moon Were Children and Lived on the Earth" (Ajijic Festival Internacional de Cine), based on a Zapotec creation myth, and "Habits & Choices: Living with HIV" (National Educational Film and Video).

Current Productions:
We are in pre-production on a new feature film called “The Hanji Box “ a love story about art and international adoption in Korea. We are partnering with Fire Circle Films on this project.

We are in production on a documentary about the poet Ruth Stone as well as a film about pond hockey and the community that surrounds it.

We also made the 23-minute film, "Tremors in the System: the help you want or the help you get", with Marj Berthold, about her experiences in the mental health system: Ronald Bassman says about the film: "Tremors in the System does what excellent films do best - it helps us understand by inspiring us to feel the struggles and the emotions that are portrayed on screen.  The viewer is exposed to the frustrations of being a person living with an extensive psychiatric history who is unable to attain credibility despite all her attempts to communicate her very genuine concerns.  I recommend this documentary to stimulate   discussion for schools and community groups interested in gaining more understanding of mental illness" Ronald Bassman, Ph.D., author of A Fight to Be: A Psychologist's Experience from Both Sides of the Locked Door

Our films also include an experimental dramatic film about a man struggling to cope with the loss of his young wife to breast cancer. The film is based on a series of scenes written by Stephen Goldberg about the death of his wife, Rachel Bissex.