While in graduate school, Paglin lived near Coventry Road-an old Jewish immigrant neighborhood that had became a coultercultural hangout in the 1960s. She was immediately struck by street's colorful inhabitant, its rich history and strong sense of community so she decided to make a film about the neighborhood. Initially she had a documentary in mind and began tape-recording interviews with dozens of Coventry residents-Jewish immigrants who had lived there in the 1930s and 1940s as well as hippies and bikers who had hung out there in the 1960s and 1970s. Paglin ultimately decided to turn her material into a fictional story and eventually finished the script for Nightowls of Coventry, which was a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 1999.
Currently, Paglin is completing another music documentary called Shadow of the Swan, about the struggles and triumphs of a composer with a disability as he travels to Russia to premiere his new piano concerto. The concerto eulogizes the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk and the death of its crew-a tragedy that was never properly memorialized by the Russian government. Eberhard's journey is testament to the power of music to bond cultures and to heal-but he must also face seemingly impossible barriers in a culture he knows little about. Shadow of the Swan will be completed by fall, 2004.