Lauren Wolkstein
Lauren Wolkstein is an American film director, writer, and editor. She is known for directing the 2017 drama-thriller The Strange Ones with Christopher Radcliff and serving on the directorial team for the third season of Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar.[2] A 2017-2018 Women at Sundance fellow,[3] Wolkstein has been named a "New Face of Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine.[4] Her films have screened at several festivals, including Cannes Film Festival,[5] Outfest LGBT Film Festival,[6] Sundance Film Festival,[7] and SXSW.[8]
Lauren Wolkstein | |
---|---|
Born | 1982 (age 37–38)[1] |
Education | Duke University (BA) Columbia University (MFA) |
Occupation | Director, writer, editor |
Website | Official website |
She is an Assistant Professor of Film and Media at Temple University in Philadelphia.[9]
Early life and education
Wolkstein was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. The daughter of a schoolteacher and an Air Force Colonel,[10] she grew up a short drive away from the amusement park where fellow Baltimorean John Waters staged part of his 1990 film, Cry-Baby. At 16, Wolkstein worked in coding for a Department of Defense agency where she was "the only female coder and the only teenager in the room." She was provided a security clearance that exceeded her war veteran father's. With David Lynch, Lukas Moodysson, and Waters serving as early inspirations,[11] Wolkstein obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Film from Duke University in 2004, where she also won the school's Undergraduate Filmmaker Award. In 2010, she obtained a Masters of Fine Arts in Directing from Columbia University.[12] While at Columbia, she say that she "fell in love with filmmakers like Hal Ashby and Nicholas Ray, who had a sensitivity to outsiders, odd couple pairings, and people on the fringes.”[13]
Career
Wolkstein's School of the Arts thesis film, Cigarette Candy, won the Short Film Jury Award for Best Narrative Short at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival.[14] Cigarette Candy was praised as "a strikingly honest portrayal of one teenage Marine's homecoming" by Short of the Week.[15]
In 2017, Wolkstein and Radcliff adapted their intergenerational road trip short The Strange Ones into a feature-length film. The thriller gleaned mixed reviews, with Eric Kohn at IndieWire calling it “a bracing, unpredictable movie, building its disquieting suspense around unknown relationships and invisible threats”[16] and Matt Zoeller Seitz at RogerEbert.com noting that The Strange Ones is "assembled like a jigsaw puzzle that one can 'solve,' immediately or gradually, but the characters are characters, human beings, and they suffer a bit from being treated as puzzles as well."[17] In Artforum, John Waters named The Strange Ones one of his favorite movies of 2017.[18]
Filmography
Film
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor | Notes | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | Coney Island Catch | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short film | Coney Island Catch (2005) |
2007 | Dandelion Fall | Yes | Yes | No | No | Short film | Dandelion Fall (2007) |
2007 | Love Crimes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short film | Love Crimes (2007) |
2009 | Cigarette Candy | Yes | No | No | Yes | Short film | Cigarette Candy (2009) |
2011 | The Strange Ones | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Short film | The Strange Ones (2011 |
2013 | Social Butterfly | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Short film | Social Butterfly (2013) |
2016 | Collective: Unconscious | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Anthology | Collective Unconscious (2016) |
2017 | The Strange Ones | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Feature | The Strange Ones (2017) |
Television
Year | Program | Episode | Role | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
2018 | Queen Sugar | Season 3, Episode 3: Your Distant Destiny | Director | [19] |
2019 | Cloak & Dagger | Season 2, Episode 6: B Sides | Director | [20] |
2020 | Dare Me | Season 1, Episode 3: Surrender at Discretion | Director | [21] |
References
- "Curriculum Vitae". Lauren Wolkenstein. Retrieved September 20, 2016.
- Craig Elvy (March 22, 2018). "Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar Has All Women Directors For Third Season". Screen Rant. Retrieved February 19, 2019.
- "Meet the 2017-2018 Women at Sundance Fellows". Sundance Institute. November 2, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Paula Bernstein (July 18, 2013). "Filmmaker Magazine Names 2013's '25 New Faces of Independent Film'". IndieWire. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Elsa Keslassy (June 23, 2017). "'The Strange Ones,' 'Jean of the Joneses,' 'Etoiles Restantes' Win Prizes at 6th Champs-Elysees Film Festival". Variety. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- "The Strange Ones-2017 Outfest". Outfest. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- "Sundance Institute Announces Program of Films, Panels and Workshops for First-Ever NEXT WEEKEND". Sundance Institute. July 16, 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- "Social Butterfly". SXSW. 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- "Temple University School of Theater, Film and Media Arts".
- "Columbia University School of the Arts". Archived from the original on January 27, 2012. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
- "A Letter to My 14 Year-Old Self". Talkhouse. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 31, 2013. Retrieved February 9, 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- "People: Lauren Wolkstein". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Neha Aziz (February 1, 2018). "25 Years of SXSW Film Festival – Lauren Wolkstein". SXSW. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Jason B. Kohl (June 28, 2016). "Cigarette Candy". Short of the Week. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Eric Kohn (March 11, 2017). "Terrence Malick Meets Andrei Tarkovsky in Atmospheric Thriller 'The Strange Ones' — SXSW 2017 Review". IndieWire. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Matt Zoeller Seitz (January 5, 2018). "The Strange Ones". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- John Waters (December 1, 2017). "Film: Best of 2017". Artforum. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Your Distant Destiny (2018)
- "How Cloak & Dagger Makes the (Marvel Cinematic) Universe A Better Place". Den of Geek. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
- "Season 1, Episode 3: Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved January 12, 2020.