Lauren Wolkstein
Wolkstein in 2021
Lauren Wolkstein in June 2021
Born1982 (age 41–42)[1]
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
EducationDuke University (BA)
Columbia University (MFA)
Occupation(s)Director, writer, producer, editor
WebsiteOfficial website

Lauren Wolkstein is an American film director, writer, producer and editor. She is known for directing, writing, and editing the 2017 film The Strange Ones with Christopher Radcliff and serving on the directorial team for the third season of Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar, which she followed with a producing director role in the fifth season. She is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia.[2]

Early life and education

Wolkstein was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland.[3][4] She is the daughter of a schoolteacher and an Air Force Colonel.[4] Wolkstein has written that John Waters, David Lynch and Lukas Moodysson were early inspirations for her film career.[5] She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Film from Duke University, and won a Duke Undergraduate Filmmaker Award.[4] In 2010, she completed a Masters of Fine Arts in Directing from Columbia University.[4][6] She has said at Columbia, 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.”[3]

Career

Wolkstein's Columbia University thesis film, Cigarette Candy, based on the experiences of her father as an Air Force colonel, won the Short Film Jury Award for Best Narrative Short at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival.[7][3] In 2011, she co-directed the short The Strange Ones with Christopher Radcliff, which was described by Filmmaker as "a brilliantly unsettling drama about two travelers, a man and a boy, who create fear at a roadside motel."[3] In 2011, she was named as one of 25 emerging filmmakers in the Emerging Visions program by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Independent Filmmaker Project.[8] Her next film, Social Butterfly, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.[3] In 2013, Wolkstein was named one of 25 "New Faces of Independent Film" by Filmmaker.[9]

Wolkstein directed and wrote the screenplay for Beemus, It’ll End in Tears, a short included in the 2016 omnibus film collective:unconscious that was written with a premise described by The New York Times as "Five filmmakers transcribed their dreams; each description was then given at random to one of the others to direct as a short."[10][11] Sean L. Malin writes for The Austin Chronicle, "the five dream-renderings are unanimously virtuosic, especially those like Decker’s, Wolkstein’s, and Baldwin’s, that called for Lubezki-level single-shot photography."[12] Chuck Bowen writes for Slant Magazine that the film directed by Wolkstein "revels in the potential cleaning of an authoritarian slate, using nightmarishly symmetric imagery to relate a tale of a masculine hierarchy turned upside down by apocalypse."[13]

In 2017, Wolkstein and Radcliff adapted their 2011 short The Strange Ones into the feature-length film The Strange Ones. Katie Walsh at Los Angeles Times described the film as "an artful, boundary-pushing debut from Radcliff and Wolkstein,"[14] and Sheri Linden at The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein demonstrate an undeniable mastery of mood."[15] Eric Kohn at IndieWire writes, "Eventually, the feature-length debut of co-directors Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein reveals all its cards, and the full picture of this brief tone poem doesn’t match the level of engagement generated early on. But its atmospheric sophistication holds strong throughout, channeling a wonder for the natural world reminiscent of Terrence Malick with an air of existential dread straight out of Andrei Tarkovsky."[16] Matt Zoeller Seitz at RogerEbert.com described the film as a "frustratingly fractured but still-haunting drama from the filmmaking team of Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein."[17] Andrew Lapin at NPR writes, "this may not be fair to the directors, but the film's two best conceits have been done better elsewhere,"[18] and Variety described it as a "ponderously opaque and tediously elliptical drama."[19] Leah Pickett writes for Chicago Reader, "cowriter-directors Lauren Wolkstein and Christopher Radcliff, expanding on a 2011 short, seem more concerned with building an eerie mood around the boy than with revealing what actually happened to him."[20] David Edelstein writes for Vulture that the film is "a perfect demonstration of how the craft of storytelling is also the craft of withholding — of revealing as little as possible in carefully parceled-out amounts," and "Radcliff and Wolkstein maintain an atmosphere of paranoia and dread by what they don’t do."[21] Sean L. Malin writes for The Austin Chronicle, "Wolkstein’s and Radcliff’s direction and editing only extend outward in technical excellence from the actors with a tight orbit of handsome visual and aural contributions,"[22] and Andy Crump writes for Paste, "Radcliff and Wolkstein’s approach to editing and filming lends an eerie cadence to their picture, looping from day to night to morning with a tempo that’s as natural as it is thoroughly spooky."[23] John Waters named it one of the best films of 2017.[24]

Wolkstein was a 2017-2018 Women at Sundance fellow,[25] and her films have screened at a variety of festivals, including Cannes Film Festival,[26] Outfest LGBT Film Festival,[27] Sundance Film Festival,[28] and SXSW.

In 2018, Wolkstein began her work with Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar, joining the directing team in Season 3,[29][30] and becoming a directing producer for Season 5,[31][32] in which she directed 5 episodes.[33] In 2021, Wolkstein directed an episode of the American drama television series Y: The Last Man. Wolkstein has also directed episodes of Cloak & Dagger[34] and Dare Me.

Filmography

Short film

Year Title Director Writer Producer Editor Ref(s)
2005 Coney Island Catch Yes Yes Yes Yes [35]
2007 Dandelion Fall Yes Yes No No [36]
2007 Love Crimes Yes Yes Yes Yes
2009 Cigarette Candy Yes No No Yes
2011 The Strange Ones Yes Yes No Yes
2013 Social Butterfly Yes Yes No Yes [3][37]
2014 Jonathan’s Chest No No Yes Yes [7]
2016 Beemus, It’ll End in Tears

in collective: unconscious

 Yes Yes No Yes [12]

Feature film

Year Title Director Writer Editor Ref.
2017 The Strange Ones Yes Yes Yes [38]

Television

Year Title Episode Role Ref(s)
2018 Queen Sugar Season 3, Episode 3: Your Distant Destiny Director
2019 Cloak & Dagger Season 2, Episode 6: B Sides Director [34]
2020 Dare Me Season 1, Episode 3: Surrender at Discretion Director
2021 Queen Sugar Season 5, All episodes Producer
2021 Queen Sugar Season 5, Episode 1: Late-February 2020 Director
2021 Queen Sugar Season 5, Episode 3: Late-April 2020 Director
2021 Queen Sugar Season 5, Episode 5: May 19, 2020 Director
2021 Queen Sugar Season 5, Episode 9: In Summer Time to Simply Be Director
2021 Queen Sugar Season 5, Episode 10: Onward Director
2021 Y: The Last Man Season 1, Episode 7: "My Mother Saw a Monkey" Director
2022 A Friend of the Family Season 1, Episode 9: "Revelation" Director
2023 Dead Ringers Season 1, Episode 4: "Four" Director
2023 Dead Ringers Season 1, Episode 6: "Six" Co-Director

Honors and awards

Personal life

Wolkstein is married, and she and her wife have one daughter.[33]

References

  1. ↑ "Curriculum Vitae". Lauren Wolkstein. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Lauren Wolkstein Associate Professor". School of Theater, Film, and Media Arts. Temple University. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "People: Lauren Wolkstein". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Lauren Wolkstein 09SOA". Columbia University School of Arts FILM. Archived from the original on January 27, 2012. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  5. ↑ Wolkstein, Lauren (November 20, 2017). "A Letter to My 14 Year-Old Self". Talkhouse. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Van Kann, Felix (September 30, 2019). "Faculty and Alumni Filmmakers Join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences". Columbia University School of the Arts. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 Neha Aziz (February 1, 2018). "25 Years of SXSW Film Festival – Lauren Wolkstein". SXSW. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  8. ↑ Labzda, Chris; Duke, Bon (September 3, 2014). "A Montage of Iconic New Wave Movies, Via the New York Fashion Film Festival". T. The New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  9. ↑ Paula Bernstein (July 18, 2013). "Filmmaker Magazine Names 2013's '25 New Faces of Independent Film'". IndieWire. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  10. ↑ Kenigsberg, Ben (August 4, 2016). "Review: 'collective:unconscious,' the Stuff of Dreams Reinterpreted". The New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  11. ↑ "Film Review: 'Collective:Unconscious'". Variety. April 4, 2016. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  12. 1 2 Malin, Sean L. (March 14, 2016). "SXSW Film Review: collective:unconscious". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  13. ↑ Bowen, Chuck (August 3, 2016). "Review: collective:unconscious". Slant Magazine. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  14. ↑ Walsh, Katie (January 4, 2018). "Review: 'The Strange Ones' is an odyssey and a mystery". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  15. ↑ Linden, Sheri (December 6, 2017). "'The Strange Ones': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  16. ↑ Eric Kohn (March 11, 2017). "Terrence Malick Meets Andrei Tarkovsky in Atmospheric Thriller 'The Strange Ones' — SXSW 2017 Review". IndieWire. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  17. ↑ Matt Zoeller Seitz (January 5, 2018). "The Strange Ones". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  18. ↑ Lapin, Andrew (January 5, 2018). "'The Strange Ones': A Road Trip With An Enigmatic Destination". NPR. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  19. ↑ "Film Review: 'The Strange Ones'". Variety. March 16, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  20. ↑ Pickett, Leah. "The Strange Ones". Chicago Reader. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  21. ↑ Edelstein, David (January 5, 2018). "The Strange Ones Is an Arty But Suspenseful Drama That Evokes Serious Dread". Vulture. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  22. ↑ Malin, Sean L. (March 12, 2017). "SXSW Film Review: The Strange Ones". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  23. ↑ Crump, Andy (January 2, 2018). "The Strange Ones". Paste. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  24. ↑ John Waters (December 1, 2017). "Film: Best of 2017". Artforum. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  25. ↑ "Meet the 2017-2018 Women at Sundance Fellows". Sundance Institute. November 2, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  26. ↑ 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.
  27. ↑ "The Strange Ones-2017 Outfest". Outfest. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  28. ↑ "Sundance Institute Announces Program of Films, Panels and Workshops for First-Ever NEXT WEEKEND". Sundance Institute. July 16, 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  29. ↑ Dominic Patten (June 6, 2018). "'Queen Sugar' Unveils Final Set Of Directors For All-Female-Helmed Season 3 Of Oprah Winfrey-Ava DuVernay Drama". Deadline.com. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  30. ↑ Craig Elvy (March 22, 2018). "Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar Has All Women Directors For Third Season". Screen Rant. Retrieved February 19, 2019.
  31. ↑ Will Thorne (September 30, 2020). "Queen Sugar' Resumes Production on Season 5, Sets Pandemic, Black Lives Matter and Election Storylines". Variety. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  32. ↑ Denise Petski (September 30, 2020). "'Queen Sugar' Resumes Production On Revamped Season 5 With COVID-19, Black Lives Matter & Election Storylines". Deadline.com. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  33. 1 2 Anderson, Tre’vell (April 14, 2021). "Meet the three queer women who directed all of 'Queen Sugar' this season". Xtra. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  34. 1 2 "How Cloak & Dagger Makes the (Marvel Cinematic) Universe A Better Place". Den of Geek. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  35. ↑ "CIFF 2005 Schedule". Coney Island Film Festival. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  36. ↑ "Films by Title: "S"". Black Film Center/Archive. Indiana University Bloomington. Archived from the original on May 2, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2021. She Likes Girls 3 (2008) - Eight lesbian short films. Multiple genres, 92 min., DVD, dir: multiple directors. [DV 772]
  37. ↑ "Social Butterfly". SXSW. 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  38. ↑ "Alex Pettyfer Dishes on the Dynamic of Having Two Directors on 'The Strange Ones'". Variety. October 30, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  39. ↑ "'Dinner' takes Palm Springs short award". The Hollywood Reporter. Associated Press. June 30, 2009. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
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