Eugene “Gene” Sullivan was raised in Medford, MA. During WWII, the Navy sent him to study languages at the University of Colorado, where he met Hope Becker. Against her parents’ wishes (he was Catholic, her family was Protestant), they were married, and moved to D.C. upon his graduation. 

During the late '40s and early '50s he moved over to the NSA as well as the CIA before landing at a precursor agency to USAID. He worked for USAID for his whole career, helping manufacturing development in countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Ethiopia. Gene was an incredibly intelligent man with a sharp sense of humor, but also private and deeply secretive. He died in 1972 in Ethiopia, and (up until recently) had a plaque in the USAID Agency headquarters in D.C., honoring him as one of the few individuals who died while serving the agency. 

Lisa Romagnoli is a filmmaker based in New York City. Over her career she has directed award-winning editorial video content for publications such as Vanity Fair, WIRED, Vogue, Architectural Digest, and The New Yorker. She has also directed multiple short films that have played at festivals around the world.

Granddaughter of Hope & Gene, she interviewed most of the family in the early 2000s as a college project. The result was a story of a brave woman who led her seven children on a grand life adventure. But after decades of thinking about the United States’ role in the world, and the geopolitical implications of intervention, has the view of America’s international work shifted? With multiple FOIA requests on her grandfather's work, Lisa examines what that experience of representing America overseas might mean through a 2025 lens. What is the real legacy of her family? 

lisaromagnoli.com