This article contains promotional content .(January 2024) |
Ellen Kuras | |
---|---|
Born | Cedar Grove, New Jersey, U.S. | July 10, 1959
Alma mater | Brown University |
Occupation | Cinematographer |
Years active | 1987–present |
Ellen Kuras (born July 10, 1959) is an American cinematographer whose work includes narrative and documentary films, music videos and commercials in both the studio and independent worlds. One of few female members of the American Society of Cinematographers, she is a pioneer best known for her work in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). She has collaborated with directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Lee, Sam Mendes, Jim Jarmusch, Rebecca Miller, Martin Scorsese and more. She is the three-time winner of the Award for Excellence in Dramatic Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, for her films Personal Velocity: Three Portraits , Angela and Swoon , which was her first dramatic feature after getting her start in political documentaries.
In 2008, she released her directorial debut, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), which she co-directed, co-wrote, co-produced and shot. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2009. In 2010, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Non-Fiction Filmmaking for the film.
Kuras grew up in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. [1] Kuras had a fever as an infant, leaving her almost deaf in one ear and with about 20% hearing in the other. [2]
She attended Cedar Grove High School, where she served as president of the school's chapter of the National Honor Society. [3] After earning a double degree in anthropology and semiotics at Brown University, she studied photography at RISD and 8mm filmmaking in New York, with the plan to become a documentary filmmaker. In the early 1980s, Kuras planned to study on a Fulbright grant at a film school in Poland but was unable to go due to the introduction of martial law. [4] She is of Polish descent on her father's side and the family surname was originally Kuraś. [5]
Kuras began her film career in 1987, shooting Ellen Bruno's Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia, the first US movie filmed in Cambodia after the Vietnam War. In 1990 she won the Eastman Kodak Best Cinematography Focus Award for her work on Samsara.[ citation needed ] The film got notice from the Student Academy Awards [ citation needed ] and the Sundance Film Festival where it received Special Jury Recognition.[ citation needed ]
That same year, she was asked by producer Christine Vachon to shoot her first dramatic film ( Swoon ) for director Tom Kalin. The film won her the Sundance Award for Excellence in Cinematography in 1992.[ citation needed ] This was the start of work with Killer Films, which includes Postcards From America and I Shot Andy Warhol .[ citation needed ]
She worked for political documentaries, and, later, other genre of film and TV, such as big-budget movies ( Blow, Analyze That ), independent films ( Angela , Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ), documentaries ( Unzipped , 4 Little Girls ), concert films (Lou Reed's Berlin , Shine a Light), successful TV movies ( If These Walls Could Talk ), commercials and music videos for musicians like Bjørk, The White Stripes.[ citation needed ]
In 1999, [6] she was invited to join the American Society of Cinematographers, the fifth female member to join more than 400 male peers.[ citation needed ]
She has received accolades, including the Women in Film Kodak Vision Award in 1999 and was honored at the 2006 Gotham Award for her entire body of work.[ citation needed ] In 2003 she was the first film technician to receive the NY Women In Film and TV Muse Award, traditionally is given to actresses.[ citation needed ] In 2009 she was a special Honoree at the Santa Fe Film Festival for her work in the field of cinematography.[ citation needed ]
She has served on the juries of several film festivals. In 1997 she was invited to be on the jury of the Sundance Film Festival. In 2013, she was a member of the jury at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival. [7] In 2015 she was on the Jury of the Belgrade Film Festival and the Camerimage. She has guest-lectured at film schools and festival panels, including SVA, NYU, BU University of Texas at Austin, Walker Art Center, Hamptons International Film Festival, Camerimage, Berlinale and Woodstock Film Festival.[ citation needed ]
Short film
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1990 | Traveling at Night | Chris Kraus | |
1992 | Nation | Tom Kalin | |
1993 | Geoffrey Beene 30 | ||
1996 | The Dadshuttle | Tom Donaghy | Segment of Boys Life 2 |
1997 | My Perfect Journey | Andrew D. Cooke | |
2003 | Renee | Jim Jarmusch | Segments of Coffee and Cigarettes |
No Problem | |||
2019 | Blasphemy | Melissa London Hilfers |
Feature film
Year | Title | Director |
---|---|---|
1992 | Swoon | Tom Kalin |
1993 | Romance de Valentía | Sonia Herman Dolz |
1994 | Post Cards from America | Steve McLean |
Roy Cohn/Jack Smith | Jill Godmilow | |
1995 | Angela | Rebecca Miller |
1996 | I Shot Andy Warhol | Mary Harron |
1998 | Just the Ticket | Richard Wenk |
1999 | The Mod Squad | Scott Silver |
Summer of Sam | Spike Lee | |
2000 | Bamboozled | |
2001 | Blow | Ted Demme |
2002 | Personal Velocity: Three Portraits | Rebecca Miller |
Analyze That | Harold Ramis | |
2004 | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Michel Gondry |
2005 | The Ballad of Jack and Rose | Rebecca Miller |
2008 | Be Kind Rewind | Michel Gondry |
2009 | Away We Go | Sam Mendes |
2014 | A Little Chaos | Alan Rickman |
Television
Year | Title | Director | Segment |
---|---|---|---|
1996 | If These Walls Could Talk | Nancy Savoca | "1952" |
Year | Title | Director |
---|---|---|
1989 | Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia | Ellen Bruno |
1992 | Guerrillas in Our Midst | Amy Harrison |
2003 | Asylum | Sandy McLeod |
2013 | Split | Ellen Bruno |
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1995 | Unzipped | Douglas Keeve | With Robert Leacock |
The Women Outside: Korean Women and the U.S. Military | Hye Jung Park J.T. Takagi | With Sandra Chandler, Herman Lew and Emiko Omori | |
1997 | Poverty Outlaw | Peter Kinoy Pamela Yates | With Carlos Aparicio, Frank Cardon Jr. and Mark Webber |
Scratch the Surface | Tara Fitzpatrick | With Phil Abraham, Niels Alpert, Robert Bennett, Sarah Cawley, Trish Govoni and Kyle Kibbe | |
4 Little Girls | Spike Lee | ||
2005 | Dave Chappelle's Block Party | Michel Gondry | |
2008 | The Betrayal – Nerakhoon | Herself Thavisouk Phrasavath | |
2010 | Public Speaking | Martin Scorsese | |
2014 | The 50 Year Argument | Martin Scorsese David Tedeschi | With Lisa Rinzler |
2016 | Monster in the Mind | Jean Carper | |
2017 | Jane | Brett Morgen | |
Trouble No More | Jennifer Lebeau | ||
2019 | Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese | Martin Scorsese | With Howard Alk, Paul Goldsmith and David Myers |
2022 | Personality Crisis: One Night Only | Martin Scorsese David Tedeschi | |
2024 | Beatles '64 | David Tedeschi |
Concert film
Year | Title | Director |
---|---|---|
2006 | Neil Young: Heart of Gold | Jonathan Demme |
2007 | Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse | Julian Schnabel |
2020 | American Utopia | Spike Lee |
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1995 | American Cinema | Alain Klarer | Episode "Film in the Television Age" |
2005 | American Masters | Martin Scorsese | Segment No Direction Home |
2009 | POV | Herself Thavisouk Phrasavath | Segment The Betrayal – Nerakhoon |
Miniseries
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1994 | A Century of Women | Chris Harty Barbara Kopple Judy Korin Sylvia Morales | |
2017 | Wormwood | Errol Morris | With Igor Martinovic |
2021 | Pretend It's a City | Martin Scorsese | |
Pride | Tom Kalin | Episode "1950s: People Had Parties" |
TV movies
Year | Title | Director |
---|---|---|
1991 | Danger: Kids at Work | Lyn Goldfarb |
2001 | A Huey P. Newton Story | Spike Lee |
2002 | Jim Brown: All-American |
Documentary film
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2008 | The Betrayal – Nerakhoon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-directed with Thavisouk Phrasavath |
Feature film
TV series
Year | Title | Episode(s) |
---|---|---|
2016 | Falling Water | "The Well" |
"No Task for the Timid" | ||
2017 | Ozark [8] | "Nest Box" |
"Kaleidoscope" | ||
2018 | Legion | "Chapter 12" |
2022 | The Son | "The Blue Light" |
"Somebody Get a Shovel" | ||
2019–2020 | The Umbrella Academy | "Man on the Moon" |
"Number Five" | ||
"A Light Supper" | ||
"Öga for Öga" | ||
2020 | Brave New World | "Soma Red" |
2022 | The Terminal List | "Encoding" |
2023 | Extrapolations | "2059 Part I: Face of God" |
Miniseries
Year | Title | Episode(s) |
---|---|---|
2019 | Catch-22 [9] | "Episode 2" |
"Episode 3" | ||
2022 | Inventing Anna | "Check Out Time" |
"Dangerously Close" |
TV movie
Academy Awards
Year | Category | Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|
2009 | Best Documentary Feature Film | The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) (With Thavisouk Phrasavath) | Nominated |
Primetime Emmy Awards
Year | Category | Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1994 | Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program | A Century of Women | Nominated |
1998 | 4 Little Girls | Nominated | |
2009 | Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking | The Betrayal – Nerakhoon | Won |
2018 | Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program | Jane | Won |
2021 | Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Special | American Utopia | Nominated |
Sundance Film Festival
Year | Category | Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1992 | Cinematography Award: Dramatic | Swoon | Won |
1995 | Angela | Won | |
2002 | Personal Velocity: Three Portraits | Won | |
2008 | Grand Jury Prize: Documentary | The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) | Nominated |
Independent Spirit Awards
Year | Category | Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1992 | Best Cinematography | Swoon | Nominated |
2002 | Personal Velocity: Three Portraits | Nominated | |
2008 | Best Documentary Feature | The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) | Nominated |
Online Film Critics Society
Year | Category | Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|
2005 | Best Cinematography | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Nominated |
The cinematographer or director of photography is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera and light crews working on such projects. They would normally be responsible for making artistic and technical decisions related to the image and for selecting the camera, film stock, lenses, filters, etc. The study and practice of this field are referred to as cinematography.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American science fiction romantic drama film directed by Michel Gondry, based on Charlie Kaufman's screenplay developed from a story by Gondry, Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth. Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, with supporting roles from Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood and Tom Wilkinson, it follows two individuals who undergo a memory erasure procedure to forget each other after the dissolution of their romantic relationship. The title of the film is a quotation from the 1717 poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope. It uses elements of psychological drama, science fiction and a nonlinear narrative to explore the nature of memory and love.
William Ashman Fraker, A.S.C., B.S.C. was an American cinematographer, film director and producer. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. In 2000, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) honoring his career. Fraker graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1950.
John Ira BaileyASC was an American cinematographer and film director known for his collaborations with directors Paul Schrader, Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Apted, and Ken Kwapis. In August 2017, Bailey was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was succeeded by casting director David Rubin in August 2019.
This Is That Productions was one of the leading independent feature film production companies. Established in 2002, and based in New York City, the company was founded and fully owned by Ted Hope, Anne Carey, Anthony Bregman, and Diana Victor. The four partners previously worked together at the groundbreaking Good Machine, which Ted Hope co-founded in 1991.
The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage is a festival that celebrates and awards cinematography and cinematographers. The festival is held in Toruń, Poland, at the end of November every year. It spans the course of one week, with multiple events at one time.
Nanette Burstein is an American film and television director. Burstein has produced, directed, and co-directed several documentaries including the Academy Award nominated and Sundance Special Jury Prize winning film On the Ropes.
Hanna Polak is a Polish director, cinematographer and producer. For her short documentary film, The Children of Leningradsky, about a community of homeless children living in the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow, she was nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy Award. In 2003, she was awarded Best Producer of Documentary Movies at the Kraków Film Festival for Railway Station Ballad.
Jennifer Fox is an American film producer, director, cinematographer, and writer as well as president of A Luminous Mind Film Productions. She won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for her first feature documentary, Beirut: The Last Home Movie. Her 2010 documentary My Reincarnation had its premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2010, where it won a Top 20 Audience Award.
Maryse Alberti is a French cinematographer who mainly works in the United States on independent fiction films and vérité, observational documentaries. Alberti has won awards from the Sundance Film Festival and the Spirit Awards. She was the first contemporary female cinematographer featured on the cover of American Cinematographer for her work on the Todd Haynes-directed Velvet Goldmine (1998).
Bradford Marcel Young, A.S.C is an American cinematographer. He is best known for his work on the films Selma, A Most Violent Year, Arrival (2016)—which earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography—and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), as well as the Netflix miniseries When They See Us (2019).
Arthur Reinhart is a Polish cinematographer, film editor and producer, recipient of two "Golden Frogs" from Camerimage festival, two Polish Film Awards for the best cinematography and three Polish Film Festival "Golden Lion" award for best cinematography, a member of Polish Society of Cinematographers.
Michael Bradley Barrett is an American cinematographer. He is known for his work on Bobby, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Ted.
Rachel Morrison is an American cinematographer and director. For her work on Mudbound (2017), Morrison became the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. She has twice worked with director Ryan Coogler, as cinematographer on the films Fruitvale Station (2013) and Black Panther (2018). Morrison's feature film directorial debut is the biographical sports drama The Fire Inside (2024).
Reed Morano is an American film director and cinematographer. Morano was the first woman in history to win both the Emmy and Directors Guild Award for directing a drama series in the same year for the pilot episode of The Handmaid's Tale. Morano is known for her cinematography work on feature films such as Frozen River (2008), Kill Your Darlings (2013) and The Skeleton Twins (2014).
Mahmoud Kalari is an Iranian cinematographer, screenwriter, film director, and photographer who has worked with number of renowned Iranian directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Asghar Farhadi, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Lee is a 2023 British biographical drama film directed by Ellen Kuras in her feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Liz Hannah, John Collee and Marion Hume, and story from Hume, Collee and Lem Dobbs, adapted from the 1985 biography The Lives of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose.
Bonnie Elliott is an Australian cinematographer. She has been nominated for and won numerous AACTA Awards in cinematography, including for Spear (2015), Seven Types of Ambiguity (2017), H Is for Happiness (2019), and Stateless (2020).
Kate McCullough is an Irish cinematographer. She is best known for working on The Quiet Girl for which she received the European Film Award for Best Cinematographer.
The 32nd International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage, also named EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2024 for its sponsorship from Polish power company Energa, is scheduled to take place from 16 to 23 November 2024 in Toruń, Poland, to recognize and reward the best in cinematography in film, television and music videos.
Her family life was happy enough while she was growing up in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, from which she left for Brown in 1977.