The early life of Johanna Alemann was a perilous one as a teenager and "enemy resident" of Nazi Germany as she went to school to get a journalism degree first in Berlin and later in Prague, Czechoslovakia during WWII. After surviving gunshot wounds in Prague and being rescued by American GI's, she returned to New York to work as an international journalist and continued in that career until 1958 when she entered the male dominated world of filmmaking.

For the next twenty three years, Johanna made sixteen films for the education film market and her films earned numerous national and international awards. More remarkable than her awards was the fact she did it all, from filming, writing, editing to marketing and distribution and earned a good income from her film business. She was listed in the Who's Who of Filmmaking and in the Who's Who of Amerian Women.