Margaret Lazarus used her talents as an independent filmmaker to bring attention to issues ranging from rape culture to nuclear threat. Deeply interested in the social content of art, Lazarus studied communications and media in a graduate program at Boston University. It was there that she met Renner Wunderlich, her life partner and long-time collaborator. Together they formed an independent film company that would allow them to address issues ranging from rape culture to the nuclear threat without censorship. They produced movies on the women’s health movement, rape culture, images of women in the media, homophobia, and nuclear threat. In 1994, they won an Academy Award for Defending Our Lives, a documentary on battered women serving prison sentences for killing their abusers. In 1999, she produced and directed a series of films on women and violence which was screened at the UN General Assembly.

Margaret Lazarus was honored at the 2001 Women Who Dared event in Boston.