Talented, Young Directors...
Some of the best and most interesting up and coming directors on the scene today.
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Joshua Trank is an American filmmaker and screenwriter. He got his big break by directing the found footage superhero film Chronicle for 20th Century Fox in 2012. He was later hired to direct Fant4stic, an ill-fated reboot to the Tim Story Fantastic Four film series of the 2000s starring Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell and Kate Mara. Trank's film resulted in a reevaluation of the Jessica Alba Fantastic Four films for keeping the lighthearted tone and chemistry of the Marvel franchise compared to the 2015 failure. The failure of Fant4stic resulted in Josh Trank doing small-scale projects such as Capone starring Tom Hardy.- Producer
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Sean Durkin was born on 9 December 1981 in Canada. He is a producer and director, known for Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), The Nest (2020) and The Iron Claw (2023).- Writer
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Mark Freiburger was born in Roanoke, Virginia, USA. Mark is a writer and director, known for Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Ordinary Angels (2024) and Dog Days of Summer (2007).- Director
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Cinema came into Mia Hansen-Løve's life when she was seventeen, as Olivier Assayas made her start as an actress in Late August, Early September (1998). Two years later, he gave her the part of "Aline" in his Les Destinées (2000). Their artistic collaboration was coupled by a union in real life, Mia and Olivier becoming life companions. In 2001, Mia Hansen-Løve began studying at the municipal Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris' 10th district but she dropped our after two years to contribute instead to the famous film magazine "Les Cahiers du Cinéma", where Olivier Assayas also wrote. In 2001, she tried her hand at directing and, as of the first day of shooting, discovered that this WAS what she wanted to do. The result was Après mûre réflexion (2004). Since then, although aged only twenty-eight, she has already made two more films, All Is Forgiven (2007) and Father of My Children (2009), both acclaimed by the critics, both showing consistent thematic and stylistic unity.- Writer
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Jeff Nichols was born on 7 December 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Take Shelter (2011), Mud (2012) and Midnight Special (2016).- Director
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Writer/Director Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University's graduate film program and a Sundance Screenwriting & Directing Lab Fellow.
In 2018, Dee became the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for her highly-acclaimed film Mudbound (2017). The film, starring Jason Mitchell, Carey Mulligan and Mary J. Blige, tells the story of two men returning home from World War II, struggling to deal with racism and post-war life and was nominated for four Oscars, two Golden Globes, and received over 100 nominations between 2017 and 2018.
Her 1980's political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted is an adaptation of the novel by Joan Didion and will star Anne Hathaway as hardened journalist Elena McMahon.
Dee's Emmy-Award winning HBO film Bessie (2015) starred Queen Latifah as the legendary American Blues singer and was nominated for a total of twelve Emmy Awards, including Dee's individual nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing For A Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special. Bessie was also nominated for four Critics' Choice Awards and Dee was the recipient of the 2016 Director's Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Miniseries as well as the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Television Movie.
Dee's debut feature film Pariah starring Adepero Oduye and Kim Wayans premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival where it was honored with the festival's U.S. Dramatic Competition "Excellence in Cinematography" Award and was later released by Focus Features. Pariah went on to win numerous awards including the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards (2011), the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Director (2011), Outstanding Film- Limited Release at the GLAAD Media Awards (2012) and it received seven NAACP Image Award nominations including Outstanding Motion Picture, Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing and won the award for Outstanding Independent Motion Picture. Pariah also earned Dee a spot on New York Times' 10 Directors to Watch list in 2013.
Previously, Dee was selected as a 2008 Tribeca Institute/Renew Media Arts Fellow and appeared on Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film that same year. She is a 2011 United States Artists Fellow and her notable residencies include Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony.
Dee Rees was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee and resides in New York.- Director
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Rupert Sanders is a British filmmaker from Westminster, London who is known for directing Snow White and the Huntsman and the live-action film based on Ghost in the Shell. He also directed The Life, an advertising campaign for Halo 3: ODST and the pilot of the Apple TV science fiction show Foundation. He was married to Liberty Ross and had 2 children.- Visual Effects
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Gareth James Edwards was born on June 1, 1975 in the English town of Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Growing up, he admired movies such as the 1977 classic "Star Wars", and went on to pursue a film career. He even cites George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as his biggest influences. Edwards studied BA (Hons) Film & Video at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham (formerly the Surrey Institute of Art & Design), graduating in 1996. In 2012, he received an honorary Master of Arts from UCA.
Edwards got his start in special visual effects, working on visual f/x for programs that aired on networks such as PBS, BBC and the Discovery Channel. In 2008 he entered (and won) the Sci-Fi-London 48-hour film challenge, where a movie had to be created from start-to-finish in just two days, within certain criteria. Edwards wrote and directed his first full-length feature, "Monsters", which was shot in only three weeks. Edwards personally created the film's special effects by using off-the-shelf equipment. Asides from the two main actors (real-life couple Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able), the crew consisted of just five people. The $500,000 thriller received a riotous reception at the South by Southwest festival, and was released by Veritgo Films to great success.
The success of "Monsters" resulted in Edwards getting offers from the major studios, especially Warner Bros., who tapped him to direct an English-language reboot of the 1954 Japanese classic "Gojira". Produced by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, "Godzilla" began development in 2011 with Edwards at the helm, and was released on May 16, 2014 to mixed reviews and tremendous box office success, grossing $529 million worldwide against a $160 million budget.
Following the success of "Godzilla", producer Kathleen Kennedy tapped Edwards to helm a spin-off of "Star Wars" for Lucasfilm Limited. In 2015, it was revealed that Edwards' "Star Wars" spin-off, written Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, would be titled "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", set for release on December 16, 2016. The film boasts an ensemble cast including Felicity Jones, Donnie Yen, Mad Mikkelsen and James Earl Jones among others.- Actress
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Multi award-winning multi hyphen Palka was born and brought up in Glasgow and moved to New York City at age 17 to study at the Atlantic Theater Company. She studied Suzuki movement for actors, knows how to do any accent, has theater voice projection and is known for being the kindest most enthusiastic director. She wrote, directed and starred in amazingly reviewed Good Dick which played in Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival 2008. The film stars Palka and Jason Ritter (with whom she met in 1999), Martin Starr, Mark Webber, Charles Durning and Tom Arnold. Palka received the Directing Award from Sean Connery for the film. The film explores what intimacy truly can be for someone who has been sexually abused in their childhood. Critics have related it to Hitchcock's Marnie for its vulnerable and strong, masculine and feminine male and female characters. It's been described as the only film with only one female character; that still passes the Bechdel Test. Good Dick played internationally in cinemas across the globe. And has never not been top 5 streaming on Hulu. It was self-released in the US in 2009, in the states, and the New York Times wrote about its success, creating the phrase "The Good Dick business model" At the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Palka was a Juror with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Later that year she performed in "Love Loss and What I Wore" at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Palka appeared in Peter Mullan's 2011 film TriBeCa Neds. which Robert DeNiro bought and released in America. In this film Palka played a red-headed Scottish character BETH. Neds was shot on film and is the most critically acclaimed film Palka had done since Good Dick at that time. Palka played the lead role of Texas southern feminist bad-ass JEVA in director Jeremiah Jones independent film Restive. She appeared again at Sundance in 2012 in the short Spoonful (by director Jenee LaMarque about breastfeeding) and in Bryce Dallas Howard's second film When You Find Me. She played a Scottish bookstore owner in director Nathan Sutton's film Autumn Wanderer. She starred in director Sylvia Sether's shot on film short film, King Of Norway.
In 2012, she was in The Ensemble Theater in Santa Barbara, California, reading of The Good Soldier. She appeared in as Irish Girleen Martin McDonagh's The Lonesome West at the Actor's Gang Theatre, Los Angeles, and in as another Irish woman in Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol at the Ensemble Theatre Company. Gaining positive reviews and awards for all. In 2014 Marianna produced and was the subject of HBO Lucy Walker documentary Lions Mouth Opens which was nominated for an Emmy and short-listed for an Oscar. In 2015 Palka played 'Minerva', Jemima Kirke's character Jessa's sister in GIRLS HBO in true magical fashion the show's Jenni Konner met Palka at Jeremy Konner's wedding by the pool. Palka was wearing a blue macrame bathing suit. Jenni Konner told Lena Dunham that if they ever need a sister for Jessa on the show, Palka was it. This the exact same bathing suit Palka wore on the show. Along with her Scottish kilt which her Polish grandmother Babcia bought for her from Marks and Spencer's when Palka was 14.
Palka wrote her Sundance 2017 critically acclaimed feature film BITCH over a weekend in Lake Tahoe because she was inspired by Maya Angelou's habit of writing in hotels. The film was produced by Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah and Josh Waller's who's company Spector Vision developed the film and sold for America right after Sundance and it sold for the world at Cannes 2017. It stars Palka, Jason Ritter, Jaime King, Rio Mangini, Brighton Sharbino, Jason Maybalm and Kingston Foster. The film is based on a true story from Scottish doctor R.D. Laing of a mother becoming a dog after a psychotic break.
While making BITCH summer 2016 Palka got the role of American Olympian 'Reggie Walsh' in Netflix series G.L.O.W. Glow aka Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. With 14 actresses in the show Palka trained as a wrestler with them for 6 weeks. Becoming a body positive girl gang, and learning the ethos of wrestling, changed all of their lives. The show is ground breaking for its feminist humanist stand and for its celebration of women for multiple ethnic and racial back grounds. It's has 94% on rotten tomatoes and the women on the show have been accepted by the wrestling community as ultra heroines.
Marianna was hired summer 2017 to direct feature film EGG the astonishing cast are Christina Hendricks, Alysia Reiner and Anna Camp. Produced by former Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless who is responsible for the ethics of The Daily Show, South Park, The Colbert Report, K and P show, Inside Amy Schumner, Broad City. The film is also produced by Alysia Reiner who made Equity which was at Sundance with BITCH. BITCH also played Sundance London, which Palka attended with her niece and watched all the films there. And BITCH played to a screaming and roaring huge crowd having its Los Angeles premiere at Sundance Next Fest with band Sleigh Bells playing during the same evening.
Training for Season 2 of Glow starts and the shooting begins and continues through the fall 2017. Palka is heavily involved in charities of all kinds. Her work has been Oscar Shortlisted twice and Emmy nominated.
Marianna directed two episodes of epic Universal Studios TV show HAPPY 2021 with Chris Meloni and action love story COLLECTION 2022 with Alex Pettyfer.
The Oscar and Emmy nominations were directly related to Marianna's bravery as an artist. Marianna also hosted the 2019 Sundance Awards Ceremony As well as acted in Restive, Neds opposite Peter Mullan. Marianna's two episodes of HAPPY for SYFY 2nd Season aired in the 2019 season. She is the first female director to direct any episodes for the show*- Director
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Rashaad Ernesto Green was born on 19 August 1978 in Bronx, New York, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Premature (2019), Gun Hill Road (2011) and Premature (2008). He was previously married to Maryse Tricia Karunaratne.- Producer
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Jonathan Levine was born on 18 June 1976. He is a producer and director, known for 50/50 (2011), The Wackness (2008) and Warm Bodies (2013).