- Took her B.A. from Queens College and her Ph.D. in English from Yale University, where she held a Danforth Fellowship.
- For some years she was a professor of English at Yale University. Among her students were Jodie Foster, Edward Norton and Angela Bassett.
- A popular panel moderator, she is responsible for the panels at the annual Telluride Film Festival (where she is also the main translator).
- Director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia University, New York. She was Chair of the Film Division between 1990 and 1995.
- Her parents were born in Poland and she speaks Polish herself.
- Although she was born in Paris, she grew up in the United States.
- She served as Krzysztof Kieslowski's translator at various film festivals.
- Member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1998
- She is the recipient of the 2008 Award for Excellence in Teaching from Columbia University's School of General Studies.
- Her DVD commentaries and "extras" include Kieslowski's Decalogue, Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds, Philip Kaufman's The Wanderers, and Milcho Manchevski's Before the Rain. She has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times as well as The Huffington Post, and her articles have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, Film Comment, The Washington Post, and Newsweek.
- Was interviewed on "Fareed Zakaria GPS," August 5, 2018, about the opening sequences of great American films.
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