Tara Calligan

Tara Calligan is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, public media producer, and marketing director who has spent her career telling stories about film, arts, culture, and community. She is the Director of Marketing for the Michigan & State Theaters in Ann Arbor, where she leads creative strategy, event planning, and storytelling for two of Michigan’s most iconic independent cinemas.

Before making Michigan home, Calligan spent more than a decade at WGCU Public Media in Southwest Florida, producing award-winning television, radio, podcast, and digital journalism. Her documentary The Face of Immokalee: Public Art for Social Change was named Best Florida Film at the 2023 Naples International Film Festival, among other accolades.

Her love of film extends well beyond the marketing office. Calligan has produced documentaries and arts programming, moderated conversations with filmmakers and artists, covered film festivals, and developed programming that explores the ways movies can bring people together. She also co-hosted and produced Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music, a podcast that tells guests’ life stories through the songs that shape them.

Calligan has served on PBS’ Media & Marketing Advisory Council from 2021-2024 and has presented at national PBS and NPR conferences, including PBS TechCon and the PBS Annual Meeting.

At the heart of her work is a belief that movies are more than something we watch. They are a way to understand each other, discover new perspectives, and build community.

And long before joining Cinema Chat, Calligan had at least one particularly unusual screen credit: late-night horror host Moria Midnight, Monarch of Macabre on WGCU HDTV.