Art en Route: Turning a Book About the Birth of the UN Into Film

Last fall, I was having drinks in New York with two documentary filmmakers, Romuald Sciorra, and Estelle Moser. We were discussing our favorite subject, the United Nations, and its latest doings. All three of us are longtime UN aficionados. I met both individuals a half-decade earlier through Harpers Magazine editor, Louis Lapham, who had put us together because of the publication of my book, “Act of Creation,” about the 1945 San Francisco conference that created the UN. Later, I was interviewed for two of their films about the UN – in 2005, “At the Glass Building: Interviews with UN Secretaries-General,” and in 2008, “Planet UN,” about the world body’s pioneering work at the beginning of the 21st century in development, human rights and peace.