Directoras
Ranking personal de realizadoras de cine.
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A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be critiqued by people like Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Sontag. Later she earned a scholarship to study film at Columbia University School of Arts, graduating in 1979. She was also a member of the British avant garde cultural group, Art and Language. Kathryn is the only child of the manager of a paint factory and a librarian.- Director
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Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of moral disquiet" and the winner of the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980. Subsequently, she made the films FEVER (1980) and THE LONELY WOMAN (1981). In 1981, just before the declaration of the state of emergency in Poland, Agnieszka Holland emigrated to France.
She directed ANGRY HARVEST (1985) which was nominated for a foreign-language Oscar. Her film EUROPA EUROPA (1990) also received a U.S. Academy Award nomination (best screenplay) and IN DARKNESS (2011) was again nominated as best foreign-language film. She also collaborated with her friend Krzysztof Kieslowski on the screenplay of his trilogy, THREE COLOURS (1993).
Holland's other films include TO KILL A PRIEST (1988), OLIVIER, OLIVIER (1992), THE SECRET GARDEN (1993), TOTAL ECLIPSE (1995), WASHINGTON SQUARE (1997), THE THIRD MIRACLE (1999), SHOT IN THE HEART (2001), JULIE WALKING HOME (2001), COPYING BEETHOVEN (2006), IN DARKNESS (2011), BURNING BUSH (2013), SPOOR (2017), MR. JONES (2019) and CHARLATAN (2020). She also directed several episodes of many notable TV series, including THE WIRE, JAG, COLD CASE, TREME (for the pilot of the latter she was nominated for an Emmy) and HOUSE OF CARDS. Agnieszka Holland has also written or co-written screenplays for films made by other directors and directed plays for Polish television. She was elected chairwoman of the Board of the European Film Academy in 2014 and was elected as its President in 2021.- Actress
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Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.- Actress
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Jennifer Kent was born on 5 March 1969 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. She is an actress and director, known for The Nightingale (2018), The Babadook (2014) and Monster (2005).- Director
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Lynne Ramsay was born on 5 December 1969 in Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland, UK. She is a director and writer, known for You Were Never Really Here (2017), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and Ratcatcher (1999). She was previously married to Rory Stewart Kinnear.- Writer
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Veronika Franz was born in 1965 in Vienna, Austria. She is a writer and director, known for Goodnight Mommy (2014), The Lodge (2019) and The Devil's Bath (2024). She is married to Ulrich Seidl. They have two children.- Director
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Maya Deren came to the USA in 1922 as Eleanora Derenkowsky. Together with her father Solomon Derenkowsky, a psychiatrist, and her mother Maria Fidler, an artist, she fled the pogroms organized by the Bolsheviks against the Jews. She studied journalism and political science at the Syracuse University in New York, finishing her BA at the New York University (NYU) in June 1936, and then received her MA in English literature from the Smith College in 1939.
In 1943, she made her first film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), co-starring with Alexander Hammid. Through this association, at Hammid's suggestion, she changed her name to Maya, meaning "illusion." Overall, she made six short films and several incomplete films, including Witch's Cradle (1944) starring Marcel Duchamp.
Deren is the author of two books, "An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film" 1946 (reprinted in "The Legend of Maya Deren," vol 1, part 2) and "Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti" (1953)--a book that was made after her first trip to Haiti in 1947 and which is still considered one of the most useful on Haitian Voudoun. Deren wrote numerous articles on film and on Haiti. Maya Deren shot over 18,000 feet of film in Haiti from 1947 to 1954 on Haitian Voudoun, parts of which can be viewed in Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1993) made after her death by her then-husband Teiji Ito and his new wife Cherel Ito.
In 1947, Maya Deren became the first filmmaker to receive a Guggenheim grant for creative work in motion pictures. She wrote film theory, distributed her own films, traveled across the USA, and went to Cuba and Canada to promote her films using the lecture-demonstration format to teach film theory, and Voudoun and the interrelationship of magic, science, and religion. Deren established the Creative Film Foundation in the late 1950s to reward the achievements of independent filmmakers.- Director
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Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have built an impressive body of work by perpetually seeking innovative projects in a variety of mediums.
After introducing bands such as REM and The Red Hot Chili Peppers on their ground breaking MTV show The Cutting Edge, Jonathan and Valerie continued to work in music television directing music videos and documentaries for bands such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Jane's Addiction, Macy Gray, Janet Jackson, Oasis, Weezer, and The Ramones. Their music productions have earned them two Grammy Awards, nine MTV Music Video Awards, and a Billboard Music "Director of the Year" Award.
In 1998, Jonathan and Valerie co-founded Bob Industries, one of the country's leading commercial production companies. Directing commercials for VW, Sony Playstation, Gap, Target, Ikea, Apple, ESPN amongst others, Dayton and Faris continue to push the medium into new vistas. In 2002, Creativity Magazine labeled them as one of their top ten best commercial directors.
Aside from their work in music videos and commercials, Jonathan and Valerie have done extensive work in television and film, including directing episodes of "Mr. Show with Bob and David" for HBO and producing two feature films, "The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" for New Line Cinema, and "Gift" for Warner Bros. Music.- Writer
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Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early 1980s, attending the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). Her first short film, Peel (1982) won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. Her other short films include A Girl's Own Story (1984), Passionless Moments (1983), After Hours (1985) and the tele-feature 2 Friends (1986), all of which won Australian and international awards. She co-wrote and directed her first feature film, Sweetie (1989), which won the Georges Sadoul prize in 1989 for Best Foreign Film, as well as the LA Film Critics' New Generation Award in 1990, the American Independant Spirit Award for Best Foreign Feature, and the Australian Critics' Award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. She followed this with An Angel at My Table (1990), a dramatization based on the autobiographies of Janet Frame which won some seven prizes, including the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1990. It was also awarded prizes at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals, again winning the American Independent Spirit Award, and was voted the most popular film at the 1990 Sydney Film Festival. The Piano (1993) won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, making her the first woman ever to win the prestigious award. She also captured an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 1993 Oscars, while also being nominated for Best Director.- Director
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Karyn Kusama was born on 21 March 1968 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for The Invitation (2015), Destroyer (2018) and Yellowjackets (2021). She has been married to Phil Hay since October 2006. They have one child.- Director
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Jennifer Lynch was born on 7 April 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Chained (2012), Boxing Helena (1993) and Surveillance (2008).- Writer
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Kelly Fremon Craig is a writer and director from Whittier, California. She made her directorial debut with The Edge of Seventeen. James L. Brooks' Gracie Films acquired the project in 2012, and developed the screenplay with Fremon Craig. She graduated from UC Irvine with an English degree. Fremon Craig started out writing sketch comedy and spoken word poetry in college, then landed an internship in the film division of Immortal Entertainment, where she read her first film script and began to pursue screenwriting. Fremon Craig now resides in Los Angeles with her husband and young son.- Actress
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Maggie Gyllenhaal was born on November 16, 1977 in New York City, New York as Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal, the daughter of producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She is of Ashkenazi Jewish (mother) and Swedish, English, and German (father) descent.
She made her film debut in Waterland (1992). She had sporadic roles throughout her teenage years though she took a break to attend Columbia University where she graduated w/ a degree in literature in 1999. In addition, she briefly studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, which helped w/ her post-graduation transition back into acting.
Soon after graduating, she had supporting roles in Cecil B. Demented (2000) & Donnie Darko (2001). Her breakout role came later when she starred in Secretary (2002), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. She followed that up w/ supporting roles in 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), Adaptation. (2002), & Mona Lisa Smile (2003) among other movies. She received her 2nd Golden Globe nomination for playing a recent prison parolee in Sherrybaby (2006). She followed that up w/ roles in World Trade Center (2006), Stranger Than Fiction (2006) & The Dark Knight (2008).
In 2009, she received great acclaim for her role in Crazy Heart (2009), which earned her 1st Oscar nomination. Since then, she has been seen in Nanny McPhee Returns (2010), Hysteria (2011) & Won't Back Down (2012).- Director
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Isabel Coixet was born on 9 April 1960 in Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. She is a director and writer, known for My Life Without Me (2003), The Secret Life of Words (2005) and The Bookshop (2017).- Actress
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Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).- Director
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Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.- Director
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- Soundtrack
The writer and director was born in Campinas, Brazil. Her solo work includes the award-winning short films O Duplo, which won a Special Mention at La Semaine de la Critique in Cannes, and The Passage of the Comet, as well as the feature film Necropolis Symphony, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival. Collaborating with Marco Dutra, she wrote and directed the short films The White Sheet, A Stem, The Shadows and We Were Born Today, and the feature films Hard Labor and Good Manners, the latter winning the Special Jury Award at the Locarno Film Festival.- Actress
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Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America (2015). Gerwig made her solo directorial debut with the critically acclaimed comedy-drama film Lady Bird (2017), which she also wrote, and has also had starring roles in the films Damsels in Distress (2011), Jackie (2016), and 20th Century Women (2016).
Greta Celeste Gerwig was born in Sacramento, California, to Christine Gerwig (née Sauer), a nurse, and Gordon Gerwig, a financial consultant and computer programmer. She has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Gerwig was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, but also attended an all-girls Catholic school. She has described herself as "an intense child". With an early interest in dance, she intended to get a degree in musical theatre in New York. She graduated from Barnard College in NY, where she studied English and philosophy, instead. Originally intending to become a playwright, after meeting young film director Joe Swanberg, she became the star of a series of intellectual low budget movies made by first-time filmmakers, a trend dubbed "mumblecore".
Gerwig was cast in a minor role in Swanberg's LOL (2006) in 2006, while still studying at Barnard. She then appeared in many of Swanberg's films, and personally co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced one entitled Nights and Weekends (2008). She has worked with good quality directors such as Ti West (The House of the Devil (2009)), Whit Stillman (Damsels in Distress (2011)), or Woody Allen (To Rome with Love (2012)) but success and (international) recognition did not come until Frances Ha (2012), directed by Noah Baumbach, a film she also co-wrote. Both tall and immature, awkward and graceful, blundering and candid, annoying and engaging, Greta has won all hearts in the title role of Frances Ha(liday).
In 2017, she wrote and directed the highly acclaimed, semi-autobiographical teen movie Lady Bird (2017), set in 2002-2003, and starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Timothée Chalamet.
In 2011, Gerwig received an award for Acting from the Athena Film Festival for her artistry as one of Hollywood's definitive screen actresses of her generation.- Actress
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Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her sensitive portraits of wounded and conflicted young women in independent films.
She was born into a show business family: her stepfather, Michael Polley, appeared with her in the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and on the television series Avonlea (1990); and her mother, Diane Polley, was an actress and casting director. It was her mother's connections that launched Sarah, at her own insistence, on an acting career at the age of four, following in the footsteps of her older half-brother Mark Polley. A second half-brother, John Buchan, is a casting director and producer.
Her career as a child actress shifted into high gear when she was cast as the Cockney waif Jody Turner in Lantern Hill (1989), for which she won a Gemini Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy, in 1992. Produced by Kevin Sullivan, the film was based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables (1985). When Sullivan created a television series based on Montgomery's work, he cast Polley in the lead role of Sara Stanley in Avonlea (1990). The series propelled Polley into the first rank of Canadian TV stars and made her independently wealthy by the age of fourteen.
Her personal life was deeply affected by the death of her mother Diane from cancer shortly after her 11th birthday, a development that ironically paralleled the fictional life of her character Sara. Highly intelligent and politically progressive at a young age, Polley eventually rebelled against what she felt was the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the US, eventually dropping out of the show. Though she does not blame her parents, she remains publicly disenchanted over the loss of her childhood and, in October 2003, said she is working on a script about a twelve-year-old girl on a TV show.
Polley, who picked up a second Gemini Award for her performance in the TV series Straight Up (1996), subsequently quit acting and high school to turn her attention to politics, positioning herself on the extreme left of Canada's left-of-center New Democratic Party. The publicity ensuing from her losing some teeth after being slugged by an Ontario policeman during a protest against the Conservative provincial government, plus the stinging cynicism from some other activists unimpressed by her celebrity, led her to lower her political profile temporarily and return to acting in Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter (1997). It was her appearance as Nicole, the teenage girl injured in a school bus accident who serves as the conscience of the small town rent by the tragedy, that first brought her to the attention of critics in the US. In Canada, the role was heralded by critics as her successful breakthrough to adult roles. It was her second film with Egoyan, who wrote the part with her in mind when he adapted the novel by Russell Banks, who, ironically, is American. Predictions of an Academy Award nomination and future stardom were part of the critical consensus, and she received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada's Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics. It was the buzz created at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere (1999) was showcased, when the entertainment media crowned her the it-girl of 1999.
Intensely private and extremely ambivalent about the personal cost of celebrity and the Hollywood ethos Fame is the Name of the Game, Polley could be seen as rebelling against the expectations of mainstream cinema when she embarked on a career path that took her out of the spotlight thrown by the harsh lights of the Hollywood hype/publicity machine after shooting the film Go (1999). She dropped out of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), the US$60 million mega-hyped vehicle that was supposed to make her a mainstream star in the US, choosing to return to Canada to make the CDN$1.5 million The Law of Enclosures (2000) for Genie Award-winner John Greyson, a director she admires greatly. The film grossed poorly in Canada and was not released in the US, but it did garner Polley her second Genie nomination for Best Actress. While her replacement in Almost Famous (2000) went on to win an Oscar nomination and a career above the title in glossy Hollywood films, she took a wide variety of parts, large and small, in independent films, including significant roles in the ensemble pieces The Claim (2000) and The Weight of Water (2000); bit parts in eXistenZ (1999) and Love Come Down (2000); and the lead in No Such Thing (2001). Her choice of projects showed her to be a questing spirit more focused on learning the art of her craft than on stardom.
She has said that her choice of film roles, eschewing mainstream Hollywood movies for chancier, non-commercial independent fare, was the result of an ethical decision on her part to make films with social importance. A less-observant viewer might think that the rebel Polley played in her political life that had previously manifested itself in her profession was now driving her to the verge of career suicide in terms of popularity, marketability, and choice of future roles. However, that interpretation does not recognize the extraordinary talent that will always keep her in demand by directors, if not casting agents, with an eye on the opening weekend box office. One must understand Polley's career progression in light of her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre's directors program and her production of short films, including Don't Think Twice (1999) and the highly praised I Shout Love (2001). Polley is a cinema artist. This woman wants to make, and will make films. Thus, we can understand her career choices as a desire to work with and understand the technique of some of the best directors in film, including David Cronenberg, Michael Winterbottom, and Hal Hartley.
Polley is as renowned for her intelligence as for her remarkable talent. The problem of the intelligent person in the acting field is that the actor, as artist, in not ultimately in control of their medium, and it is artistic control that is the hallmark of the great artist. The controlling intelligence on a movie set is the director, and her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre has given her a new perspective on acting. The actor, she says, should not try to give a complete performance for the camera (that is, control the representation on film) but must remember that the function of the actor is to give the director as much coverage as possible as a film, as well as a performance, is made in the editing room. According to Polley, this realization, that the film actor exists to serve the director, has given her new enthusiasm for acting. Thus, her career, and her career choices, can be seen as a quest for knowledge about the art of cinema, a journey whose fruition we will see in her future feature work as both actor and director.- Director
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The world's first female filmmaker, French-born Alice Guy entered the film business in 1896 as a secretary at Gaumont, a manufacturer of movie cameras and projectors who had purchased a "cinématographer" from its inventors, the Lumiere brothers. The next year Gaumont became the world's first motion picture production company when they switched to creating movies, and Guy became its first film director. She impressed the company so much with the output (she averaged two two-reelers a week) and quality of her productions that by 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising its other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, an Englishman who ran Gaumont's British and German offices. The pair went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations there. In 1910 Mme. Guy set up her own production company, Solax, in New York and with her husband built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After a period of critical and financial success, the couple's fortunes declined when Thomas Alva Edison's trust hindered film production in the East coast, and they eventually shut down the studio in 1919. Although her husband secured work directing films for several major Hollywood studios, Guy was never able to secure any directorial jobs there, never made a film again, most of her films were lost, some were credited to other film directors, and she did no receive recognition for her pioneering work in France and the United States. She returned to France in 1922 after her divorce from Blaché, and in 1964 returned to the U.S. and lived in Mahwah, New Jersey - not far from where her original studios were - with her daughter, where she died in 1968.- Director
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Niki Caro is a New Zealand film director and screenwriter, born in 1967. Caro was born in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. She was educated first at the Kadimah College in Auckland, and then the Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland. The School is a private girls' school, and ranks among the top-achieving schools in New Zealand.
In the late 1980s, Caro enrolled in the Elam School of Fine Arts to pursue training as a sculptor. However her interest shifted to film studies. She graduated from Elam in 1988, at the age of 21. For post-graduate studies, Caro enrolled at the Swinburne University of Technology, located at Melbourne, Victoria.
Following the completion of her studies, Caro initially directed television commercials. In 1992, she directed and wrote an episode for the anthology television series "Another Country" (1992). In 1998, Caro directed her first feature film "Memory and Desire". It was an adaptation of a short story by Peter Wells (1950-2019), concerning the depression and apparent suicide of a Japanese married man. The film was critically well-received and won a New Zealand film award.
Caro next directed the feature film "Whale Rider" (2002).. It depicts a young Maori girl, Paikea "Pai" Apirana (played by Keisha Castle-Hughes) , who stands as a candidate for the position of tribal chief. The film earned over 41 million dollars at the worldwide box office, becoming one of New Zealand's most commercially successful films. The film also won an award at the Sundance Film Festival.
In 2005, Caro directed her first American film, "North Country". The film was loosely based on the legal case "Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co.", a class-action sexual harassment lawsuit concerning the treatment of female miners in a Minnesota-based mine. The film earned about 25 million dollars at the worldwide box office, failing to recover its budget expenses. Two of the films actresses (Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand) were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances, but neither of them won.
In 2009, Caro directed the romantic drama "A Heavenly Vintage", an adaptation on the fantasy novel "The Vintner's Luck" (1998) by Elizabeth Knox. The film won three awards at the Sedona Film Festival, but was criticized for toning down the homosexual relationship depicted in the novel.
In 2015, Caro directed the sports drama "McFarland, USA". The film is based on the life of track and field coach James White (1941-), and the first victory of the McFarland High School at a cross-country running championship in 1987. The film won about 46 million dollars at the worldwide box office, the commercially most successful film in Caro's career to that point.
In 2017, Caro directed the World War II-themed war film "The Zookeeper's Wife". The film was based on the lives of a married couple, the zoologist Jan Zabinski (1897-1974) and the children's writer Antonina Erdman ( 1908-1971). During the foreign occupation of Poland in World War II, the Zabinskis used the abandoned buildings of the Warsaw Zoo and their privately-owned villa to shelter hundreds of displaced Jews. They managed to rescue about 300 people. Caro won an award at the Heartland Film Festival for her direction in this film.
In 2017, Caro was hired by the Walt Disney Company to direct a live-action remake of "Mulan" (1998). Caro was reportedly the second female film director entrusted by Disney to direct a big-budget film, following Ava DuVernay (1972-). Caro's remake is scheduled for release in 2020.- Director
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Debra Granik (born February 6, 1963) is an American New York City-based independent film and documentary film director and screenwriter. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and for which Granik was nominated for Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, and 2018's Leave No Trace, a film based on the book My Abandonment by Peter Rock.
Granik was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to father William R. Granik, who was an attorney with H.U.D. who litigated fair housing, and mother Marian Gay. She grew up in the suburbs of Washington D.C. Granik is the granddaughter of broadcast pioneer Ted Granik (1907-1970), founder and moderator of the long-run public affairs panel discussion program, The American Forum of the Air, on from 1934 to 1956, first on the radio and later on television. Granik is from a Jewish family.
In 1985, Granik received her B.A. in political science from Brandeis University. As an undergraduate at Brandeis, Granik also took classes at the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art. In 2001, Granik received an MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
While at Brandeis, Granik took Henry Felt's film and media workshop production class and volunteered with the Boston grassroots filmmaking organization Women's Video Collective. She also took film classes at the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art. During this time, Granik made educational films for trade unions on subjects like workplace health and safety, one of which was made for the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Safety. Granik worked in production on educational media projects, eventually working on long form documentaries by Boston-area filmmakers before deciding to go to graduate school for filmmaking at New York University.
In 1997, Granik directed her first short film, Snake Feed, as her senior thesis with the mentorship of NYU film professor Boris Frumin, who was instrumental in sharing his love of post-World War II European neorealist films. Snake Feed, which began its life as a 7-minute documentary portrait exercise, was accepted into Sundance Institute's Lab Program for screenwriting and directing. Granik workshopped and developed the short film into a feature film at the Sundance Lab. Granik has said that Snake Feed was a work of narrative fiction, with the main characters, recovering addict Irene and her boyfriend Rick, playing dramatized versions of themselves.
In 2004, the short film of Snake Feed and the story of Irene and Rick became the basis of Granik's first feature-length film, Down to the Bone, which was a fictionalized depiction of their struggles. Down to the Bone is the story of an upstate New York mother who goes to rehab to kick her cocaine addiction and ends up falling in love with a nurse and descending back into her old drug habits. Down to the Bone was based on an original screenplay written by Granik and her creative partner, Anne Rosellini. The role of the main character Irene, played by Vera Farmiga, significantly raised Farmiga's profile as an actor. Down to the Bone was shot in Ulster County in upstate New York.
Granik's second feature, 2010's Winter's Bone, was an adaptation by Granik and Rosellini of the 2006 novel by Daniel Woodrell. It is the story of Ree Dolly, a teenager living in the Missouri's Ozark Mountains who is the sole caretaker of her two younger siblings and her catatonic mother. She is forced to hunt down her missing drug-dealing father in order to save her family from eviction.
The film starred a then-unknown Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes and won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, which led to a distribution deal with Roadside Attractions. Winter's Bone won the Seattle International Film Festival Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Director and Best Actress award for Jennifer Lawrence. In 2011, Winter's Bone was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress for Jennifer Lawrence and Best Supporting Actor for John Hawkes. The film featured a soundtrack made up of old time gospel, bluegrass, and traditional music found in the Ozarks and was produced by Steve Peters. It features the singing of Marideth Sisco, who worked as a music and folklore consultant for the region, and also appeared in the Winter's Bone. The actor John Hawkes sings one track on the soundtrack.
Winter's Bone was shot on location in the Ozark area of southern Missouri. Granik cast many of the supporting roles with first-time actors from the surrounding area and all of the homes on screen were established Ozark homes-no sets were built for this film. For the look of the film, Granik kept most of the established aesthetics of the homes in which they were shooting and many of the few mementos that were added to the homes were contributed by Ozark people in the community.
Granik produced and directed an HBO television pilot called American High Life. The show was a family drama that "follows a young career woman to her economically depressed small home town in the midwest."The show was not picked up.
Granik developed a film adaption of Rule of the Bone, the 1995 novel by Russell Banks, but the project is still in development.
In 2014, Granik's film, Stray Dog, was released. The film is a documentary about a man named Ron Hall, whose nickname is "Stray Dog," and portrays his life as an avid biker and Vietnam Veteran who sometimes struggles with PTSD. The film documents Hall's participation in an annual pilgrimage motorcycle ride called "Ride to the Wall" with fellow biker Vietnam vets from all over the country where they ride to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Granik had met Hall, who had a small role on Winter's Bone, during filming.
Granik directed the drama Leave No Trace, starring Ben Foster and newcomer Thomasin McKenzie, which was released in 2018, domestically by Bleecker Street and internationally by Sony Worldwide Acquisitions. The film tells the story of a father and daughter who illegally live on government land and are forced to adapt to more traditional living in mainstream life. It examines ideas of self-reliance and community, and was a critics' pick of The New York Times. Leave No Trace premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and played at the Cannes Film Festival, and was shot in the forested areas of Oregon, including Forest Park near Portland, Oregon, over the course of 30 days. In addition to Oregon, Washington state was used for locations, with some scenes shot at a Christmas tree farm. Leave No Trace took approximately three and a half years to develop, from the first time Granik read Peter Rock's novel, My Abandonment, on which the film was based.
Other projects Granik has in development include a documentary about life after being released from jail and the subject of recidivism in East Baltimore - that was to feature Felicia "Snoop" Pearson from The Wire and elements of her memoir, Grace After Midnight - but is now a documentary about four former inmates in New York City.
Another project is a film based on Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which focuses on poverty and the working poor in America- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Celine Song was born in 1988 in South Korea. She is a writer and director, known for Past Lives (2023), The Wheel of Time (2021) and Working in the Theatre (1976). She has been married to Justin Kuritzkes since 11 June 2016.- Director
- Actress
- Writer
Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two daughters, Romy and Cosima. She was previously married to Spike Jonze.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Issa López was born in Mexico. She is a writer and director, known for Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017), Secondary Effects (2006) and True Detective (2014).- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Penny Marshall was born Carole Penny Marshall on October 15, 1943 in Manhattan. The Libra was 5' 6 1/2", with brown hair and green eyes. She was the daughter of Marjorie (Ward), a tap dance teacher, and Anthony "Tony" Marshall, an industrial film director. She was the younger sister of filmmakers Garry Marshall and Ronny Hallin. Her father was of Italian descent, originally surnamed "Masciarelli," and her mother was of German, Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry.
Penny was known in her family as "the bad one"... because not only did she walk on the ledge of her family's apartment building, but she snuck into the movies as a child and even dated a guy named "Lefty." She attended a private girls' high school in New York and then went to the University of New Mexico for two and a half years. There, Penny got pregnant with daughter, Tracy Reiner, and soon after married the father, Michael Henry, in 1961. The couple divorced two years later in 1963. She worked as a secretary for awhile. Her film debut came from her brother Garry Marshall, who put her in the movie How Sweet It Is! (1968) with the talented Debbie Reynolds and James Garner. She also did a dandruff commercial with Farrah Fawcett - the casting people, of course, giving Farrah the part of the "beautiful girl" and Penny the part of the "plain girl." This only added to Penny's insecurity with her looks.
She then married Rob Reiner on April 10, 1971, shortly after getting her big television break as Oscar Madison's secretary, Myrna Turner, on The Odd Couple (1970). She also played Mary Richards' neighbor, Paula Kovacks, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) for a couple of episodes. However, her Laverne & Shirley (1976) fame came when her brother needed two women to play "fast girls" who were friends of Arthur Fonzarelli and would date Fonzie and Richie Cunningham on Happy Days (1974). Penny had been working on miscellaneous writing projects ("My Country Tis Of Thee", a bicentennial spoof for Francis Ford Coppola and "Paper Hands" about the Salem Witch Trials) with writing partner Cindy Williams. Cindy happened to be a friend and ex-girlfriend of Henry Winkler's, so Garry asked the two to play the parts of these girls. The audience saw their wonderful chemistry, and loved them so much, a spin-off was created for them.
Penny was well-known as Laverne DeFazio. She and Rob had divorced in 1980. The show ended three years later, half a year after Cindy Williams left the show due to pregnancy (her first baby, Emily, from now ex-husband Bill Hudson)... they wanted Williams to work the week she was supposed to deliver.
Soon after, Penny began directing such films as Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), Big (1988) and A League of Their Own (1992). Her hobbies included needlepoint, jigsaw puzzles and antique shopping. She was best friends with actress Carrie Fisher and was godmother to Carrie's daughter, Billie.
Penny died at 75 in Los Angeles, California.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Marta Rodríguez was born on 1 December 1933 in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a director and writer, known for Nuestra voz de tierra, memoria y futuro (1982), Campesinos (1975) and Chircales (1972).- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Justine Triet is a graduate from the Paris National School of Fine Arts. Since then, she has directed a couple of films dealing with the place of the individual within a group: Sur place (2007) was shot right in the middle of the 2006 student protest; Solférino (2009) was filmed during the 2007 French presidential election; in her next effort, Two Ships (2012), Justine Triet gave a startling account of life in a São Paulo shantytown and garnered many awards in the festival circuit. Her first feature, Age of Panic (2013) is a skillful mix of a documentary (five years after Solférino (2009), she records the second ballot of the French elections for President live in the streets of Paris) and fiction (the crisis experienced on that very day by a divorced couple). Age of Panic (2013) has been acclaimed by most critics as one of the best works of the latest new wave of French directors.- Producer
- Director
Mimi Leder was born on 26 January 1952 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a producer and director, known for The Morning Show (2019), On the Basis of Sex (2018) and Deep Impact (1998). She has been married to Gary Werntz since 26 January 1986. They have one child. She was previously married to Allen Garfield.- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Mary Lambert was born in 1951 in Helena, Arkansas, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Pet Sematary (1989), Madonna: Like a Prayer (1989) and The in Crowd (2000). She has been married to Jerome Gary since 28 September 1991. They have one child.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Nancy Jane Meyers is an American filmmaker. She has written, produced, and directed many critically and commercially successful films including Private Benjamin (1980), Irreconcilable Differences (1984), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), The Parent Trap (1998), What Women Want (2000), Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Holiday (2006), It's Complicated (2009), and The Intern (2015).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
- Director
- Producer
Antonia Bird was born on 27 May 1951 in London, England, UK. She was a director and producer, known for Priest (1994), Face (1997) and Ravenous (1999). She was married to Ian Ilett. She died on 24 October 2013 in London, England, UK.- Director
- Actress
- Writer
Identical twins, writers, directors, actors, and even stunt players, the Soska sisters have always loved twisted film. Even at an early age, they devoured Stephen King novels, one after another as fast as they could read - and would sneak into the over 18 sections at video stores, to critique the bloody images on the backs VHS horror movies and in gore magazines.
They both entered the film industry, acting and doing background work - and were soon unsatisfied with stereotypical roles that were commonly offered to identical twins. To expand their horizons, they trained in martial arts in hopes of picking up stunt roles and briefly attended a film school that included an intensive stunt program. For one of the school's final film projects, their prepared short film had its funding misappropriated and their short was pulled from the program. Undeterred, they decided to go ahead with it anyway, getting a new cast and crew and paying for it out of their own pockets. The title of that project was 'Dead Hooker In A Trunk'.
'Dead Hooker In A Trunk' is their debut film, which the twins wrote, directed, produced, starred in, and performed the stunts. Using Robert Rodriguez's book, Rebel Without A Crew - a bible for how film-making could be done on a modest budget, armed only with creativity and ambition. Even following the spirit of El Mariachi, the twins' story reached the original El Mariachi, actor Carlos Gallardo - who not only gave the ladies advice, but appeared in the film - as God. The completed film - embraced by horror fans, film festivals, and critics - became an underground sensation, called "a hidden gem in indie film-making" and "a cult classic in the waiting", and won multiple awards: Pollygrind's Favorite Feature, Best Screenplay, City of Death's Best Director Award, and Cinefantasy's Audience Favorite Prize.
In 2008 the twins incorporated, Twisted Twins Productions -- to create their own label for many future projects to come, including their highly anticipated second feature, American Mary, an analogy of their own struggles in the film industry. American Mary has gone on to win numerous praise and awards. The film has gone on to become a cult classic and the various costumes of the lead character Mary Mason a Halloween and horror convention favorite for cos-players.
The Soska Sisters have gone on to be very outspoken about equal rights across the board including but not limited to gender equality and equal rights for the LGBT community. They're actively involved in promoting blood donation and create a new PSA for it every February. And they are only just getting started.
2014 was a big year with the Soska Sisters bringing a new life to See No Evil 2 where they resurrect the WWE Studios franchise with WWE Superstar Glenn "Kane" Jacobs reprising his role as Jacob Goodnight and scream queens Danielle Harris and Katharine Isabelle appear together for the first time. As well, the Twins will be one of the all star director lined up for ABCs of Death 2 in a segment that will shock and be destined for cult status. Their segment, T is for Torture Porn, has since been banned in Germany.
In 2015, the twins did a genre jump, teaming again with Lionsgate and WWE Studios, with a action revenge thriller called Vendetta to star, Dean Cain, Paul 'Big Show' Wight, and Michael Eklund. The high action, ultra gory nature of the film proved that the sisters are not one trick ponies as they expand their sensibilities to this Justin Shady written, men's prison revenge flick.
Avid comic book fans, the Soska Sisters have teamed up with Daniel Way (Deadpool, Daken) to create their own very graphic novel entitled Kill-Crazy Nymphos Attack! with artist Rob Dumo & cover artist Dave Johnson which is a pitch black satire on patriarchal society and women's roles within it. The very graphic novel is set with a 2017 release date.
September 16th, 2015, also marks the release of Jen & Sylvia Soska's first collaboration with Marvel comics with their Night Nurse story line 'The Risk of Infection' featured in Secret Wars Journal #5. The Soska twins have been long time fans of Marvel Comics and been quite vocal in their interests to tackle the adaptation of one of their stories for the big screen with them at the helm as directors. In April it was announced that the twins would be teaming with Marvel again, this time writing 'The Ripley' as a Guardians of the Galaxy story featured in Guardians of Infinity #8.
The media that the twins take on ever expanding, the Soska Sisters are the hosts of the survival horror game-show called Hellevator that premiered October 21 2015 on GSN. The show is a creation from Blumhouse, GSN, Matador, and Lionsgate. The show just enjoyed its second season and received even more attention when it was made available on VOD through Netflix and Hulu proving that evil twins continue to have a rich history with elevators and scaring people.
In February 2016, the directing duo of Jen and Sylvia Soska came on board to direct a remake of David Cronenberg's 1977 zombie thriller Rabid. John Vidette's Somerville House Releasing entered into a joint venture with Paul Lalonde and Michael Walker to produce a feature film and original TV series based on the 1977 Canadian horror film.
December 11, 2016 will mark the twins' company, Twisted Twins Productions' 8 year anniversary which will have them with 4 feature films, 2 graphic novels, a series of blood donation PSAs, and a television show. Not too shabby for a pair of twins from Canada who set their sites on shaking up the entertainment industry playing by their own rules and leaving a hefty cinematic body count in their wake.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Identical twins, writers, directors, actors even stunt players, the Soska sisters have always loved twisted film. Even at an early age, they devoured Stephen King novels, one after another as fast as they could read - and snuck into the over 18 sections at video stores, to critique the bloody images on the backs VHS horror movies and in gore magazines.
They both entered the film industry, acting and doing background work - and were soon unsatisfied with stereotypical roles that were commonly offered to identical twins. To expand their horizons, they trained in martial arts in hopes to pick-up stunt roles and briefly attended a film school that included an intensive stunt program. For one of the school's final film projects, their prepared short film had it's funding misappropriated and their short was pulled from the program. Undeterred, they decided to go ahead with it anyway, getting a new cast and crew and paying for it out of their own pockets. The title of that project was 'Dead Hooker In A Trunk'.
'Dead Hooker In A Trunk' - their debut film, which the twins wrote, directed, produced, starred in, and performed the stunts. Using Robert Rodriguez's book, Rebel Without A Crew - a bible for how film-making could be done on a modest budget, armed only with creativity and ambition. Even following the spirit of El Mariachi, the twins' story reached the original El Mariachi, actor Carlos Gallardo - who not only gave the ladies advice, but appeared in the film - as God. The completed film - embraced by horror fans, film festivals, and critics - became an underground sensation, called "a hidden gem in indie film-making" and "a cult classic in the waiting", and won multiple awards: Pollygrind's Favorite Feature, Best Screenplay, City of Death's Best Director Award, and Cinefantasy's Audience Favorite Prize.
In 2008 the twins incorporated, Twisted Twins Productions -- to create their own label for many future projects to come, including their highly anticipated second feature, American Mary, an analogy of their own struggles in the film industry. American Mary has gone on to win numerous praise and awards. The film has gone on to become a cult classic and the various costumes of the lead character Mary Mason a Halloween and horror convention favorite for cos-players.
The Soska Sisters have gone on to be very outspoken about equal rights across the board including but not limited to gender equality and equal rights for the LGBT community. They're actively involved in promoting blood donation and create a new PSA for it every February. And they are only just getting started.
2014 was a big year with the Soska Sisters bringing a new life to See No Evil 2 where they resurrect the WWE Studios franchise with WWE Superstar Glenn "Kane" Jacobs reprising his role as Jacob Goodnight and scream queens Danielle Harris and Katharine Isabelle appear together for the first time. As well, the Twins will be one of the all star director line up for ABCs of Death 2 in a segment that will shock and be destined for cult status. Their segment, T is for Torture Porn, has since been banned in Germany.
In 2015, the twins did a genre jump, teaming again with Lionsgate and WWE Studios, with a action revenge thriller called Vendetta to star, Dean Cain, Paul 'Big Show' Wight, and Michael Eklund. The high action, ultra gory nature of the film proved that the sisters are not one trick ponies as they expand their sensibilities to this Justin Shady written, men's prison revenge flick.
Avid comic book fans, the Soska Sisters have teamed up with Daniel Way (Deadpool, Daken) to create their own very graphic novel entitled Kill-Crazy Nymphos Attack! with artist Rob Dumo & cover artist Dave Johnson which is a pitch black satire on patriarchal society and women's roles within it. The very graphic novel is set with a 2017 release date.
September 16th, 2015, also marks the release of Jen & Sylvia Soska's first collaboration with Marvel comics with their Night Nurse story line 'The Risk of Infection' featured in Secret Wars Journal #5. The Soska twins have been long time fans of Marvel Comics and been quite vocal in their interests to tackle the adaptation of one of their stories for the big screen with them at the helm as directors. In April it was announced that the twins would be teaming with Marvel again, this time writing 'The Ripley' as a Guardians of the Galaxy story featured in Guardians of Infinity #8.
The mediums that the twins take on ever expanding, the Soska Sisters are the hosts of the survival horror game-show called Hellevator that premiered October 21 2015 on GSN. The show is a creation from Blumhouse, GSN, Matador, and Lionsgate. The show just enjoyed it's second season and received even more attention when it was made available on VOD through Netflix and Hulu proving that evil twins continue to have a rich history with elevators and scaring people.
In February 2016, the directing duo of Jen and Sylvia Soska came on board to direct a remake of David Cronenberg's 1977 zombie thriller Rabid. John Vidette's Somerville House Releasing entered into a joint venture with Paul Lalonde and Michael Walker to produce a feature film and original TV series based on the 1977 Canadian horror film.
December 11, 2016 will mark the twins' company, Twisted Twins Productions' 8 year anniversary which will have them with 4 feature films, 2 graphic novels, a series of blood donation PSAs, and a television show. Not too shabby for a pair of twins from Canada who set their sites on shaking up the entertainment industry playing by their own rules and leaving a hefty cinematic body count in their wake.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Lulu Wang was born on 25 February 1983 in Beijing, China. She is a director and writer, known for The Farewell (2019), Touch (2015) and Family Meal.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Elizabeth Banks was born Elizabeth Mitchell in Pittsfield, a small city in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts near the New York border, on February 10, 1974. She is the daughter of Anne Marie (Wallace), who worked in a bank, and Mark Phineas Mitchell, a factory worker. Elizabeth describes herself as having been seen as a "goody two-shoes" in her youth who was nominated for the local Harvest Queen.
Banks left home to attend college at the University of Pennsylvania--from which she graduated Magna cum Laude--and went on to attend the Advanced Training Program at the prestigious American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, graduating in 1996. She then moved to New York and worked in the theater, and began getting small roles in films and on television. Seeking more screen work, she moved to Los Angeles and was soon cast in supporting roles. She also had to change her last name, to Banks, in order to avoid confusion with actress Elizabeth Mitchell.
Her breakthrough role was as Betty Brant, the secretary of the cantankerous newspaper tycoon in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002). She followed up this performance with small roles in other movies: Swept Away (2002), Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002), Seabiscuit (2003) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). In 2003 she won the Exciting New Face Award at the Young Hollywood Awards. The winsome, beautiful Banks projected an exceptionally charming screen presence that drew comparisons to Audrey Hepburn, and Hollywood eventually began to take notice, Banks being cast in the lead in such films as Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) and in Oliver Stone's biopic of George W. Bush, W. (2008), as Laura Bush.
In television, Banks was a recurring guest star on Scrubs (2001) as Dr. Kim Briggs, the love interest of Zach Braff's J.D. In 2010 she was cast as Alec Baldwin's love interest in season four of 30 Rock (2006). Originally scheduled to appear in only four episodes, she was brought back as a recurring character for two more seasons, and earned Emmy nominations for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for two consecutive years. Elizabeth has also appeared in such films as Our Idiot Brother (2011), Man on a Ledge (2012), What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012), People Like Us (2012), and Pitch Perfect (2012). She also won the coveted role as Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games (2012) and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013).
After an eleven-year courtship, Banks married Max Handelman, a sports writer and producer, in 2003. They have two sons, Felix, who was born in March 2011, and Magnus, born in Nov. 2012, both by gestational surrogacy.- Director
- Writer
- Location Management
Rose Glass was destined to be a director from a young age. Upon leaving home she studied film and video at London College of Communication, UAL - where she directed her first 'proper' shorts - and also gained experience as a runner on professional sets. Eventually she made her way to the NFTS, where she made acclaimed short Room 55 and began working on the idea for Saint Maud.
In the years following she waitressed and worked as a cinema usher whilst working on the treatment and teamed up with fellow Breakthrough Brit Oliver Kassman. Initially Rose was intimidated by the idea of directing a feature, especially after finding the writing process quite isolating, but once she started, the collaborative nature of the experience made everything a complete joy.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Amy Holden Jones was born on 17 September 1953 in Florida, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for The Resident (2018), Mystic Pizza (1988) and Indecent Proposal (1993). She was previously married to Michael Chapman.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Nora Ephron was educated at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She was an acclaimed essayist (Crazy Salad 1975), novelist (Heartburn 1983), and had written screenplays for several popular films, all featuring strong female characters, such as anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood (Silkwood (1983), co-written with Alice Arlen) and a mobster's feisty independent daughter Cookie Voltecki (Cookie (1989), also co-written with Arlen). Ephron's hard-headed sensibilities helped make Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... (1989) a clear-eyed view of modern romance, and she earned an Oscar nomination for her original screenplay.
Ephron made her directorial debut with the comedy This Is My Life (1992), co-scripted by her sister Delia Ephron, which starred Julie Kavner as a single mother who struggles to establish herself as a stand-up comedienne. Ephron followed up by helming and co-writing Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a romantic comedy in which lovers Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are separated for most of the film. Less about love than about love in the movies, the film drew inspiration from the beloved shipboard romance An Affair to Remember (1957), starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.
Ephron was born in New York City, the daughter of stage and screen writing team Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron, who used her infancy as the subject of their play "Three's a Family" and based their comedy Take Her, She's Mine (1963) on letters their daughter wrote them from college. Their screenplays include There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), Carousel (1956) and Desk Set (1957). Formerly married to novelist Dan Greenburg and investigative journalist Carl Bernstein, Ephron was wed to crime journalist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, at the time of her passing, who wrote such films as Goodfellas (1990). She was of Russian Jewish descent.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Ana Lily Amirpour was born in Margate, Kent, England, UK. She is a director and writer, known for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), The Bad Batch (2016) and Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021).- Writer
- Director
- Actress
María Luisa Bemberg was born on 14 April 1922 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was a writer and director, known for I Don't Want to Talk About It (1993), I, the Worst of All (1990) and Miss Mary (1986). She was married to Carlos Maria Miguens y Zumarán. She died on 7 May 1995 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Ami Canaan Mann was born in 1969 in London, England, UK. She is a director and writer, known for Jackie & Ryan (2014), Morning (2001) and Texas Killing Fields (2011).- Director
- Producer
- Actress
Emma Tammi was born on 26 February 1982 in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), The Wind (2018) and The Left Right Game (2020).- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Rachel Talalay was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents, Paul and Pamela, moved to Baltimore to work/teach at Johns Hopkins when she was 6 years old. After graduation from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, she met Director John Waters and entered the movie business as a production assistant on his 'Polyester', starring Divine. She worked on the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films as assistant, production manager, producer and culminated with directing "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare". From there she continued her directing career, moving into television, and working on a wide variety of projects from family entertainment "Wind in the Willows" to Horror "Supernatural" to Comedy "Ally McBeal". In 2014 she became the first American and seventh woman to direct "Doctor Who".- Director
- Writer
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the gravity and gift of foreignness. Often revolving around reactions to the intrusion of the other, be it a stranger or foreigner, Denis' films insist on the vital necessity of the unusual to coexist within the "normal" world. In films such as I Can't Sleep (1994) and Nénette and Boni (1996), Denis captures the mercurial and instant shifts in tone, from the pleasurably sensual to the menacing or the simply unaccountable, caused by the intrusion of the strange into the fabric of the everyday. In Denis' films one often feels that all is well even as worlds collide and collapse or, conversely, that a grave challenge underlies the seemingly calm moments. While Denis' childhood in French colonial Africa is reflected most directly in the African setting shared by her debut feature Chocolat (1988) and best-known film, Beau Travail (1999), this encounter with the intimacies and injustices of colonialism resounds throughout much of her work. Also shaping Denis' unique vision are the apprenticeships she served, just out of film school, under a variety of renowned directors, including Jacques Rivette, Wim Wenders, Dusan Makavejev and Jim Jarmusch - an eclectic company that is itself suggestive of the unique juxtaposition of careful craft and seeming casualness within Denis' work. Denis has often spoken of her shock as a young woman at discovering the novels of Faulkner that have exerted such a major influence over postwar French cinema. For Denis, Faulkner "was a plunge into the senses, into terror and the pain of his characters." These words describe Denis' films as well. But whatever terror and pain her characters may sometimes experience is outmeasured by the depths of Denis' deep affection for them and by her curiosity in their experiences of pleasure as well as fear. Even in the unsettling Trouble Every Day (2001), the not-infrequent catastrophes in Denis' films provoke a sense of wonder at, and even delight in, the sheer weight of existence.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Gurinder Chadha was born in Kenya, and grew up in Southall, London, England. She began her career as a news reporter with BBC Radio, directed several award winning documentaries for the BBC, and began an alliance with the British Film Institute (BFI) and Channel Four. In 2001, Chadha set up her own production company: Bend It Films.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Jackie Kong is a director, producer, and screenwriter known for irreverent comedy and over-the-top horror films. In 1983, she made her feature film debut as director with the low-budget drive-in horror film The Being, which starred Martin Landau and Jose Ferrer. In 1984, she followed up by directing and co-writing the comedy Night Patrol, featuring Linda Blair, about a Los Angeles policeman moonlighting as a stand-up comedian. Kong received a Platinum Video award from the RIAA for Night Patrol, which became a college-party film staple. Night Patrol was a major worldwide theatrical success, setting the stage for Kong to direct the comedic cult horror film Blood Diner, released in 1987.
Kong added her comedic flair to Blood Diner, changing the traditional horror film into a gore fest with outrageous effects and comedy, ultimately pioneering a new sub-genre of horror film. The fact that Blood Diner was directed by a woman blew audience' and critics' minds. She followed that with another comedy, The Underachievers.
Kong's films are always irreverent, inventive, shocking, and funny. Weirdly, she enjoyed making the horror films much more than the comedies. "Making a monster movie was actually more fun than making a comedy," she says. "People watched the comedies and because they're laughing, think it must have been so much fun, when in fact that was harder work than making a monster movie. There's something about getting everyone in makeup and costumes and creating a hyper reality, that's so much more fun. Both are tough crowds to surprise."Writer/director/producer Jackie Kong made a handful of enjoyably low-budget pictures throughout the 80s. She was born on June 14 in Hanford, California and grew up in Benedict Canyon above Beverly Hills. Kong made her film debut with the entertainingly tacky killer toxic mutant monster horror feature "The Being." The cast for this flick includes Jose Ferror, Ruth Buzzi, Dorothy Malone, and Martin Landau. Jackie next made the hilariously stupid comedy "Night Patrol" starring Linda Blair, Murray "The Unknown Comic" Langston, and Pat Paulsen. Both "The Being" and "Night Patrol" were produced by Kong's then husband Bill Osco of "Flesh Gordon" infamy; Osco also appears in "The Being" acting under the pseudonym Rexx Coltrane. Her next film was the outrageously campy and gory "Blood Diner," which was an affectionate tongue-in-cheek tribute to the notorious Herschell Gordon Lewis splatter landmark "Blood Feast." Her last movie to date was the amusingly dopey slapstick farce "The Underachievers." Moreover, Jackie Kong also directed and produced episodes of the short-lived TV series "Karaoke Nights." Her films have played worldwide theatrical to acclaim and financial success. and have developed a loyal "cult " following.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Michelle Garza Cervera is Mexico City-based director and screenwriter who graduated from The Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. She was awarded a Chevening scholarship to study in the United Kingdom, where she completed an M.F.A in Film Directing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her short films have been selected in over a hundred international film festivals. Her debut feature, Huesera, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2022, where it won the Best New Narrative Director and the Nora Ephron awards, and has continued to collect over 30 accolades from international film festivals around the world, including the Sitges Film Festival's Citizen Kane Award for Best New Director and the Blood Window Award for the Best Ibero-American film.- Director
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Chloé Zhao or Zhao Ting (born March 31, 1982) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Her second feature film, The Rider (2017), was critically acclaimed and received several accolades including nominations for Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and Best Director.
Zhao was born and raised in Beijing, China, to father and stepmother, Chinese actress Song DanDan. Growing up, she was very rebellious, and drawn to influences from Western pop culture. She attended a boarding school in London before moving to Los Angeles to finish high school. Zhao studied at Mount Holyoke College earning a bachelor's degree in political science. She worked odd jobs as a party promoter, in real estate, and bartending before studying film production at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
In 2010, Zhao's short film Daughters premiered at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and won Best Student Live Action Short at the 2010 Palm Springs International ShortFest and Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Cinequest Film Festival.
In 2015, Zhao directed her first feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me. Filmed on location at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the film depicts the relationship between a Lakota Sioux brother and his younger sister. The film premiered as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival. It later played at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Director's Fortnight selection. The film was nominated for Best First Feature at the 31st Independent Spirit Awards.
In 2017, she directed The Rider, a contemporary western drama which follows a young cowboy's journey to discover himself after a near-fatal accident ends his professional riding career. Similar to her first feature, Zhao utilised a cast of non-actors who lived on the ranch where the film was shot. Zhao's impetus for making the film came when Brady Jandreau - a cowboy whom she met and befriended on the reservation where she shot her first film - suffered a severe head injury when he was thrown off his horse during a rodeo competition. Jandreau later starred in the film playing a fictionalised version of himself as Brady Blackburn. The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight selection and won the Art Cinema Award. The film earned her nominations for Best Feature and Best Director at the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards. At the same ceremony, Zhao became the inaugural winner of the Bonnie Award, named after Bonnie Tiburzi, which recognizes a mid-career female director. The film was released on April 13, 2018 by Sony Pictures Classics and was critically acclaimed.
In April 2018, it was announced that Amazon Studios greenlit Zhao's upcoming untitled Bass Reeves biopic, a historical Western about the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal. Zhao is set to direct the film and write the screenplay. In September 2018, Marvel Studios hired her to direct a film based on the Eternals.- Editor
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Prano Bailey-Bond is a director and writer originally from Wales. She was named a 2021 'Director to Watch' by Variety and a Screen International 'Star of Tomorrow' in 2018. Prano's debut feature film, CENSOR, starring Niamh Algar and supported by the BFI, Film4 and Ffilm Cymru Wales, opened the Midnight section of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and went on to be selected for the Berlin Film Festival's Panorama section.- Director
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Patty Jenkins is a writer/director best known for directing Wonder Woman, the Warner Bros./DC Comics blockbuster of 2017, and her debut feature Monster. Patty also works in television where she is best known for the pilot and finale episode of AMC's hit show The Killing.
Patty began her career as a painter at The Cooper Union in New York City. Upon transitioning to filmmaking, she spent eight years as an Assistant Camera Person/Focus Puller on commercials and music videos. After attending the AFI in Los Angeles, she wrote and directed Monster.
Roger Ebert named Monster as The #1 Best Film of 2004 and #3 Best Film of the decade. AFI named it on the Ten Best Films of the Year. Patty also garnered a number of awards and nominations, including winning Best First Feature at the 2004 Independent Spirit Awards. Charlize Theron went on to sweep the awards circuit winning the Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG Award, and numerous critics' awards in the Best Actress category.
Jenkins went on to direct many commercials and TV programs including Fox's Arrested Development and HBO's Entourage and the pilot episodes for ABC's Betrayal and Exposed. She won the DGA award for best directing for The Killing pilot, as well as being nominated for an Emmy. She also received an Emmy nomination for her work on the final segment of FIVE - a series of short films about breast cancer.
In 2017, Jenkins broke the record for Biggest Grossing Live-Action Film Directed by a Woman, Domestic and Worldwide, with Wonder Woman. The film also received critical acclaim, broke several records and went on to become highest grossing film of the summer of 2017.- Writer
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Nia DaCosta was born on 8 November 1989 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Candyman (2021), Little Woods (2018) and The Marvels (2023).- Director
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Laura Casabe is known for The Returned (2019), El hada buena - Una fábula peronista (2010) and La Hora Marcada (2023).- Director
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Julia Ducournau is a French film director and screenwriter. She attended film school at La Fémis in Paris, where she studied screenwriting. In 2011, her short film JUNIOR won the Petit Rail d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Her first feature, the horror movie Raw (2016), won the coveted FIPRESCI prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.- Director
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Hardwicke's first film as a director was the Sundance winner THIRTEEN which explored the transition into teenage years with an authenticity that still captures young audiences (1.3 billion Tik Tok engagements.) Hardwicke directed LORDS OF DOGTOWN before she became best known as the director of TWILIGHT, which launched the blockbuster franchise and has since earned over three billion dollars. Recently her indie film PRISONER'S DAUGHTER premiered at TIFF 2022 and DREAMS IN THE WITCHHOUSE dropped on Netflix October 2022 as part of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities. MAFIA MAMMA premieres in theaters on April 14 2023.- Writer
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Emerald Lilly Fennell is an English actress, filmmaker, and writer. She has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. Fennell first gained attention for her roles in period drama films, such as Albert Nobbs (2011), Anna Karenina (2012), The Danish Girl (2015), and Vita and Virginia (2018). She went on to receive wider recognition for her starring roles in the BBC One period drama series Call the Midwife (2013-17) and for her portrayal of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in the Netflix period drama series The Crown (2019-20).- Script and Continuity Department
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Brazilian filmmaker Anita Rocha da Silveira's sophomore feature "Medusa" (2021) premiered at Cannes Directors' Fortnight. It went on to participate in festivals such as TIFF, Sitges Film Festival (Best Direction - New Vision Section), Tromsø Int. Film Festival (Best Film), IndieLisboa (Special Jury Award), Rio Film Festival (Best Film, Best Direction and Best Supporting Actress), Palm Springs Int. Film Festival (Honor Mention), Viennale, Jeonju Int. Film Festival and IFFR. "Medusa" was acquired by Music Box Films and enjoyed a successful limited run in US theaters. Her first feature "Kill Me Please" (2015) was screened at the Orizzonti section at Venice Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, SXSW, IndieLisboa, Filmfest München, Gotebörg Film Festival, Cali Film Festival (Best Film), Rio Film Festival (Best Direction and Best Actress), among others. Prior to her full-length features, Anita wrote, directed and edited three short-films: "The Noon Vampire" (2008), "Handball" (2010, FIPRESCI Award at the Int. Short Film Festival Oberhausen), and "The Living Dead" (2012, Directors' Fortnight selection). Anita was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro.- Producer
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Jimena Monteoliva was born on 21 October 1974 in Mendoza, Argentina. She is a producer and director, known for Clementina (2017), To Kill the Dragon (2019) and Bienvenidos al infierno (2021).- Actress
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Born and raised in Mexico City, also known by fans as "La Muñeca Del Terror" in Latin America. She is a Mexican genre director/filmmaker and actress now living in Vancouver Canada, she's described by VARIETY, L'ATTITUDE LATINXT as part of the new wave of Latino talent, and scored a First Look Deal with Jason Blum's BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS. Gigi graduated with honors at Capilano University's BOSA CENTRE FOR FILM AND ANIMATION and is also a current Directing instructor at Vancouver Film School. She has been praised as one of the top, emerging directors in the horror genre by Empire, Dread Central, Fangoria and Bloody Disgusting. Guerrero is co-founder of Luchagore Productions In Vancouver Canada. Guerrero directed an action-packed episode for THE PURGE season 2. She directed her feature debut CULTURE SHOCK for Blumhouse Productions Television, winner of Best Primetime movie at IMAGEN AWARDS and it is still 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Now recently genre-bending fun flick Bingo Hell is on Amazon Prime where she co-wrote and directed. Guerrero started her career with several genre short films including gore-fest El Gigante, and viral hits like A Luchagore Christmas and Evil Dead in 60 seconds. In 2014, Guerrero participated in the Mexican horror anthology Mexico Bárbaro with its Day of the Dead segment while still in film school. Her series with Warner Brothers/Stage 13, La Quinceañera, won the Audience Award at the 2017 Morbido Film Festival.
Guerrero is also known for not just her talent behind the camera but her beauty in front. She has posed for PlayBoy Mexico, and many pinup holiday themed pictures. She is also an actress and most commonly known for her voice over work such as NETFLIX SUPER MONSTERS as Vida, MARVEL SUPERHERO ADVENTURES as Spider-Girl, and fan favourite character Varzia on Warfare video game. Her first leading role is Peacock's new anticipated animated series SUPERNATURAL ACADEMY as Mischa Lebron.- Director
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Anna Biller is a writer and director who creates unique, female-focused, highly visual films. She has a BA from UCLA in art and an MFA from CalArts in art and film. Her first feature Viva played in film festivals all over the world and gained minor cult status, and her second feature The Love Witch won acclaim for its elaborate visual style and feminist themes, and has screened at numerous film festivals worldwide.
The New York Times called The Love Witch "a hothouse filled with deadly and seductive blooms;" The New Yorker called it "a metaphysical astonishment;" Film Comment said, "Biller's sharp film stands in stark contrast to the complacency and crushing safeness of the vast majority of independent films made in the US. Shot in 35mm, her film displays a technical mastery that is glorious to behold;" and The Austin Chronicle said, "Anna Biller has quickly established herself as one of the most exciting filmmakers of the past decade."
In 2017 she won the Trailblazer Award and Best Costume Design at the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle Awards for The Love Witch, and in 2019 she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is listed in a Rotten Tomatoes article as one of "The 21 Masters Of Horror Shaping The Genre Right Now." The Love Witch appeared on many 2016 best-of-year lists, and on Rotten Tomatoes it's ranked as the #40 horror film of all time.- Producer
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Jennifer Lee was born on 22 October 1971 in Barrington, Rhode Island, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for Frozen (2013), Frozen II (2019) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012). She has been married to Alfred Molina since August 2021. She was previously married to Robert Joseph Monn.