Interviews
Oscars 2021 International Feature Contenders: Meet Zaida Bergroth – “Tove”
Zaida Bergroth is a Finnish director and screenwriter. Her films include 2019’s “Maria’s Paradise” and 2017’s “Miami.” Her film “Skavabölen Pojat” (“Last Cowboy...
Céline Cousteau on “Tribes on the Edge,” Her Doc About Indigenous Peoples Protecting Their Land and Lives
Céline Cousteau is a humanitarian and environmental activist working with a variety of media, ranging from documentaries to art, from consulting with corporations and foundations, to public...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Kristina Lindström – “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World”
Kristina Lindström is a filmmaker, journalist, and author. She has directed highly acclaimed documentaries including “Astrid Lindgren;” “Palme” with Maud Nycander, awarded two Guldbagge...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Debbie Lum – “Try Harder!”
Debbie Lum is an award-winning filmmaker whose projects give voice to the Asian American experience and other unsung stories. “Seeking Asian Female,” her feature-length directing debut,...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt – “Cusp”
Parker Hill’s thesis film, “One Good Pitch,” premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Her short films “Homing In” and “Sanderson to Brackettville” have...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Natalia Almada – “Users”
Natalia Almada is the recipient of the 2012 MacArthur Genius Award. Her directing credits include “Al Otro Lado” (2005 Tribeca Film Festival), “El General” (2009 Sundance Film...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Marilyn Agrelo – “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street”
Marilyn Agrelo’s directorial debut, “Mad Hot Ballroom,” enjoyed a theatrical run of 24 weeks and became the 25th highest-grossing documentary film. A Broadway version is currently in...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Betsy West and Julie Cohen – “My Name is Pauli Murray”
Betsy West is the Academy Award-nominated director and producer of “RBG” along with Julie Cohen. She is a 21-time Emmy Award winner for her work as an ABC News producer and executive...
Sundance 2021 Directors: Meet Jane Schoenbrun – “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”
Jane Schoenbrun is a non-binary filmmaker who co-created ongoing touring variety series “The Eyeslicer,” which has screened in hundreds of venues across the world, including MoMA, the Tribeca...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Nikole Beckwith – “Together Together”
Writer and director Nikole Beckwith made her feature film debut at Sundance 2015 with “Stockholm, Pennsylvania,” which earned her a Nicholl Fellowship, Satellite Award, Women’s Image Award, and...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Rintu Thomas – “Writing with Fire”
Rintu Thomas is an independent documentary director-producer based in New Delhi, India. She is a 2018 Sundance Institute, Bertha Foundation Fellow, and a 2019 Sundance Stories of Change Fellow. A...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Salomé Jashi – “Taming the Garden”
Salomé Jashi was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her documentary “The Dazzling Light of Sunset” was awarded the Main Prize at Visions du Réel’s Regard Neuf Competition as well as at ZagrebDox,...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jamila Wignot – “Ailey”
Jamila Wignot is a documentary filmmaker whose directing work includes the Peabody, Emmy, and NAACP award-winning series “The African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (PBS), hosted by...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Siân Heder – “CODA”
Siân Heder is a writer, director, and showrunner. She wrote and produced three seasons of the acclaimed Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” receiving multiple WGA nominations for her work....
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Erin Vassilopoulos – “Superior”
Erin Vassilopoulos is a New York-based filmmaker whose short films have screened at Sundance, the Berlinale, BFI London Film Festival, and Tribeca. Her directorial feature debut, “Superior,”...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Maisie Crow – “At the Ready”
Maisie Crow is a documentary film director, cinematographer, and photographer. “Jackson,” Crow’s documentary exploring both sides of the reproductive health care debate in the Deep...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Karen Cinorre – “Mayday”
Karen Cinorre is a writer/director whose work has shown internationally at such venues as the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Opera Centrum Amsterdam. She’s currently...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Mariem Pérez Riera – “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It”
Mariem Pérez Riera’s first documentary, “Cuando lo pequeño se hace grande,” about the Puerto Ricans who fought against the U.S. Navy presence in the island of Vieques, was...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Sally Aitken – “Playing with Sharks”
Sally Aitken is an Emmy-nominated director and writer, and showrunner of multiple international series. Her award-winning work includes the Camera d’Or-nominated feature documentary “A...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Marion Hill – “Ma Belle, My Beauty”
Marion Hill (she/they) is a New Orleans-based director with roots in Vietnam, England, and France. Her direction of the camera is devoted to the nuances of femme power, queer sensibility, and radical...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Kate Tsang – “Marvelous and the Black Hole”
Kate Tsang is an artist, filmmaker, and Emmy-nominated writer. Tsang’s award-winning shorts have been watched by millions online and broadcast nationally on PBS. Her most notable works are...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Zoe Lister-Jones – “How It Ends”
Zoe Lister-Jones is an actor, writer, director and producer. She recently wrote, directed, and produced “The Craft: Legacy.” Lister-Jones made her directorial debut with “Band Aid,” which...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Frida Kempff – “Knocking”
Frida Kempff’s films have been screened and awarded at festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Telluride, IDFA, London Film Festival, and Gothenburg. In 2010 she won Cannes’ Jury Prize for...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Carlson Young – “The Blazing World”
Carlson Young’s first short film, “The Blazing World,” premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Also an actor, she has appeared in “Scream: The TV Series,” “Key...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Prano Bailey-Bond – “Censor”
Prano Bailey-Bond is a Welsh director and screenwriter. Commissioned by Film4 to direct an episode of their Halloween focused “Fright Bites,” Bailey-Bond’s short...
Eliza Schroeder Talks “Love Sarah,” an Uplifting Drama About “Giving Life Another Chance”
Eliza Schroeder incorporated her London-based production company, Rainstar Productions, in 2008. She’s directed and produced several short films including “Matilda,” “First, Love?,”...
Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond Discuss Switzerland’s Oscar Pick “My Little Sister”
Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond’s first feature, “The Little Bedroom,” premiered at the 2010 Locarno Film Festival. Their other credits include “Open Book,” a...
Helena Coan on Showing a Different Side to Audrey Hepburn in “Audrey”
Helena Coan is a writer, director, and musician. Her first documentary feature, “Chasing Perfect,” was produced by Salon Pictures and distributed by Lionsgate. The documentary is a...
Jiayan “Jenny” Shi on Deviating from Traditional True Crime Docs with “Finding Yingying”
Jiayan “Jenny” Shi is a documentary filmmaker and video journalist who is passionate about social justice issues regarding people of color. She shoots, edits, and produces video stories...
Stella Hopkins on Tackling Grief and Taboos in “Elyse”
“Elyse” marks Stella Hopkins’ directorial debut. In collaboration with Margam Films, she is developing a documentary based on the life of Sir Anthony Hopkins. “Elyse”...
Dana Nachman on “Celebrating Everything Beautiful About Christmas” in USPS Doc “Dear Santa”
Dana Nachman is an award-winning filmmaker of both fiction and documentary films. The Walt Disney Company hired Nachman to remake her 2018 Slamdance festival documentary “Pick of the...
April Mullen on Highlighting Targets and Victims of Governmental Subjugation in “Wander”
April Mullen is a mixed Anishinaabe Algonquin (Indigenous) director and producer. Her credits include “Below Her Mouth,” which made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film...
Hannah Olson Discusses Family, History, Consent, and Her Directorial Debut “Baby God”
Hannah Olson has series produced PBS’ “Finding Your Roots” for the past two seasons. Prior to that, she produced a number of films for PBS including “American Experience”...
Ryann Liebl on Celebrating Friendship and Finding Your Way in “Mags and Julie Go on a Road Trip”
Ryann Liebl is an award-winning actress, filmmaker, writer, and director whose longstanding career has culminated in the launch of her production company REL Films and its first feature, “Mags...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Katrine Philp – “Beautiful Something Left Behind”
Katrine Philp’s first film, “Book of Miri,” was awarded the President’s Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, nominated at IDFA, and won the European Young CIVIS...
Sacha Polak on Confronting Feelings of External Beauty Versus Internal Dignity in “Dirty God”
Interview by Gabriela Rico Sacha Polak is an award-winning director and screenwriter. Her feature films “Hemel” and “Zurich” were both screened ata range of international film festivals....
Deborah Shaffer on Honoring a Trailblazing Artist in “Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack”
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Deborah Shaffer began making social issue documentaries as a member of the Newsreel collective in the ‘70s. She co-founded Pandora Films, one of the first woman’s...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Rosalynde LeBlanc – “Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters”
Rosalynde LeBlanc has spent over 20 years in dance as a performer, choreographer, and educator. She was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Lauren DeFilippo and Katherine Gorringe – “Red Heaven”
Katherine Gorringe is a documentary director and editor whose work has been featured at numerous festivals including SXSW, CPH:DOX, and Lunafest. Her most recent editing work includes the...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Cheryl Dunn – “Moments Like This Never Last”
Cheryl Dunn is a New York City-based documentary filmmaker and photographer. Since the late 1980s she has spent a large part of her career documenting city streets and the people who strive to leave...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Petra Epperlein – “The Meaning of Hitler”
Petra Epperlein makes documentaries with her husband Michael Tucker. Epperlein was born in Karl Marx City, GDR, and began her professional life as an architect. Her credits include “The Last...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Raquel Cepeda – “La Madrina: The [Savage] Life of Lorine Padilla”
Raquel Cepeda’s features include “Bling: A Planet Rock,” about American hip-hop’s obsession with blinging and how that intersected itself into the decade-long blood...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Marianne Hougen-Moraga – “Songs of Repression”
Marianne Hougen-Moraga has directed a number of short documentaries including “Returned” (2011), which premiered at CPH:DOX, and “Sea of Sorrow – Sea of Hope” (2017), which...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Abigail Child – “Origin of the Species”
Abigail Child has been at the forefront of experimental writing and media since the 1980s, having completed more than 50 film/video works and installations, and written six books. Her most recent...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth Lo – “Stray”
Elizabeth Lo is an award-winning filmmaker who was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine. Her shorts include “Hotel 22,” “Bisonhead,” and...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Loira Limbal – “Through the Night”
Loira Limbal is an Afro-Dominican filmmaker and DJ based in the Bronx. She is the Senior Vice President of Programs at Firelight Media, an organization that provides mentorship, funding, and industry...
Diane Lane on Exploring Grief, Motherhood, and Marriage in Her New Film “Let Him Go”
Diane Lane has starred in dozens of memorable films, starting with her first first feature, 1979’s “A Little Romance.” She has portrayed a self-reliant teen in Francis Ford...
Alice Gu Sees Her Doc “The Donut King” as the “Quintessential American Dream Story”
Alice Gu launched her career as a still photographer/cinematographer. Shooting docs has taken her from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, to touring with rock bands throughout Europe, to following the...
Sara Wolitzky on Exploring “Reawakened Feminist Energy and Organizing” in “Not Done: Women Remaking America”
Sara Wolitzky is a documentary filmmaker. In 2012, she helped launch the multi-platform documentary series MAKERS, which chronicles the U.S. and global women’s movement and the stories of hundreds...
Sabrina Van Tassel on Uncovering Flaws in the System in “The State of Texas vs. Melissa”
Sabrina Van Tassel is a French-American film director and journalist. As an investigative reporter, Van Tassel has directed more than 45 documentary films over the last 15 years for major television...
Catherine Eaton on “The Sounding,” Her Film About a Woman Fighting for Her Voice and Freedom
Catherine Eaton is a writer, director, and actor. She was chosen for Tribeca’s Through Her Lens Lab and Grant for her pilot “On the Outs,” and was selected as a Shadowing Director...