Ira Wohl began his filmmaking career more than twenty-five years ago, as an editing room assistant to Orson Welles on his feature film “Don Quixote,” in Spain. After making his own short films upon returning to New York, Wohl joined the Peabody Award winning children’s television series “Big Blue Marble,” where he researched, produced, directed and edited documentary segments for the next five years.

In 1976, while still working for “Big Blue Marble,” Wohl began working on a film about his 50-year-old mentally retarded cousin, Philly. The film, which took four years to make, eventually became BEST BOY and won first prize in every film festival in which it was entered: Houston, Miami, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and many others. BEST BOY was awarded the first ever New York Film Critics’ Circle Documentary Award, and in 1980, it received the Academy Award^® for best documentary feature. Since then it has played theatrically and on television all over the world, and to this day, continues to have extremely active television, educational, institutional and home video distribution.

Between 1980 and the present, Wohl has written two screenplays and produced and directed for a variety of television series.  In 1990, Wohl returned to school at the University of Southern California, where he received a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work. In addition to his currently ongoing psychotherapy practice, five years ago he combined both professions by producing, directing and editing a three-hour documentary series on psychological diagnosis called “Diagnosis According to the DSM-IV.” The series, which utilizes real patients rather than actors and scripts, is now in distribution as a major resource for mental health professionals and students throughout the country.

In 1997 Wohl released the twenty-year-later sequel to BEST BOY called BEST MAN. It depicts how Wohl’s cousin Philly managed to survive and thrive to the age of seventy. In 2003, Wohl produced the film “People Say I’m Crazy.”  Directed and filmed by a young artist who has schizophrenia, it is a true insider’s view of what it is like to face the world day by day with this disorder.

Wohl is currently at work editing the third in his series of “BEST” films. This one, entitled “Best Sister,” portrays a week in the life of Wohl’s eighty year old cousin Frances, Philly’s sister.