Life In the Shadows focuses on President John F. Kennedy's pioneering effort to improve the lives of persons with mental retardation. His advocacy culminated in the 1963 signing of the first piece of legislation in our country's history addressing the needs of citizens with mental retardation and underwriting research and programs of action in the area of hereditary disorders, child disease and birth defects.

Written and directed by Charles Guggenheim (1924 – 2002)

a production of Guggenheim Productions, Inc.

Producer: Grace Guggenheim

Grace Guggenheim has been a producer and executive producer with Guggenheim Productions for the past twenty years.

She served as Producer of the documentary Berga: Soldiers of Another War. This co-production with WNET/Thirteen New York debuted in a national broadcast on May 28, 2003 on PBS. It tells the unknown story of a group of American soldiers captured in the Battle of the Bulge who, because they were Jewish or classified as "undesirables," were sent to a slave labor camp in eastern Germany. In May of 2005, a companion book, entitled Soldiers and Slaves was published by Knopf, and written by Herald Tribune and New York Time columnist Roger Cohen.

Ms. Guggenheim has produced over fifteen documentaries for both television and theatrical release. Many of these films have been finished in 35mm for permanent exhibition at museums and presidential libraries around the country. Most of them involved intensive archival research with private and public resources in the United States and abroad.

Ms. Guggenheim is President of Guggenheim Productions, Inc., overseeing and managing the preservation legacy of her late father’s work, located at The Academy of Motion Picture Archives in Los Angeles and The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, MA. She has created Grace Guggenheim Productions LLC, which is creating and distributing the Charles Guggenheim DVD Collection Series.