Erin Lee Carr | |
|---|---|
| Erin Lee Carr at SXSW | |
| Born | April 15, 1988 |
| Education | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Occupation(s) | Documentary filmmaker Writer |
| Years active | 2010–present |
| Parent | David Carr |
| Website | erinleecarr |
Erin Lee Carr (born April 15, 1988) [1] is an American documentary film director and producer. Her documentaries include Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop , Mommy Dead and Dearest , I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter , At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal [2] and the Netflix documentary Britney vs Spears. [3] [4]
She is also an author for VICE and her memoir called All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir. [5]
Carr was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to The New York Times media columnist David Carr and Anna Lee. [1] [6] [7] [8]
Carr and her twin sister, Meagan Carr, were born two and a half months early. Their parents lost custody of the twins because of their drug addiction. Carr and her sister went into foster care for a summer. When their father got out of rehab, he regained physical custody of the girls and in 1994 married Jill Rooney, who became Carr's step-mother. [1] [9]
In addition to her twin sister Meagan, [8] Carr has a half-sister named Maddie. [1] [7] The family lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then New Jersey. [10]
In 2010, Carr graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Arts. [11] In the Spring of 2010, Carr attended FAMU in Prague in the Czech Republic. [12]
In the summer of 2009, Carr was an intern at Fox Searchlight Pictures, working in the public relations department. [13] In the fall of 2009, Carr worked as a Media Assistant at the Instructional Media Center in the Communication Arts Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. [12] In November 2010, she worked as an office production assistant on Lena Dunham's TV show, Girls . [5] [12]
Carr worked as a college intern at VICE . In 2010, she got a full-time job at VICE where she worked up to an Associate Producer position for Vice Media's Motherboard , [14] In 2011, Carr co-produced the documentary Free The Network for Motherboard. [15] The film depicted the efforts of the Free Network Foundation to provide Occupy Wall Street protestors in Zuccotti Park with Internet connectivity. [16]
In 2012, Carr developed Spaced Out for Motherboard . [17] Spaced Out had twelve videos, nine of which Carr helped create. [18] [19] [17] In 2013, Carr developed My Life Online for VICE 's Motherboard . [20] [21] [22] Carr also produced a documentary for VICE called Click. Print. Gun. about Cody Wilson, the owner of Defense Distributed. [23] The film shows how 3D-printing is creating new issues with gun production. [23] The documentary won a 2014 Webby Award. [24]
In June 2013, she left VICE for Vox Media's The Verge to produce long and short stories. [25] [13] [16] In November 2013, Carr became a freelance director for HBO Documentary Films. [2] [16]
In 2015, Variety included Carr as one of its "10 Documakers To Watch". [26] Carr's first documentary for HBO, Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. [27] [28] The documentary received positive reviews [29] [30] and was a finalist for the 2016 Cinema Eye Honors in the non-fiction film for television category. [31]
In May 2017, Carr's documentary film Mommy Dead and Dearest was released. [32] [33] It was an official selection for SXSW, [34] Hot Docs and DocAviv and was one of the most-watched documentaries on HBO in 2017. [10] In 2018, Carr directed an episode of the Netflix documentary series Dirty Money called "Drug Short" which examines how big pharmaceutical companies exploit patients seeking life saving drugs. [35] Carr made the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list. [36]
In 2019, Carr's two-part HBO documentary I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth Vs. Michelle Carter premiered at SXSW. [37] [38] [39] It was also an official selection at Hot Docs [40] and the Montclair Film Festival. [41] Carr's film At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal, premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, [42] [43]
Carr directed the limited series, How to Fix a Drug Scandal , that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. [44] [45] [46] [47] [48]
After the February 2021 release and public reaction to Framing Britney Spears , a New York Times presentation on FX, Bloomberg announced that Carr was working on an additional documentary to be streamed on Netflix. [4] Carr directed and produced the documentary Britney vs Spears about the Spears family and Britney Spears's attempts to challenge her 13-year conservatorship by her father Jamie Spears and former business manager Lou M. Taylor. [3]
In 2023, Carr directed and produced The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring . [49] [50]
In 2024, Carr directed and produced I Am Not a Monster: The Lois Riess Murders . [51]
Carr, along with Lena Dunham, was the executive producer of Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste, released on Netflix in November 2022. [52] The film came out to mixed reviews and controversy, including hundreds of women and men claiming that that film used their image against their consent, filing a lawsuit against Netflix to disallow the film, signing petitions, and creating viral videos protesting the violation. [53] [54] [55]
In 2024, Carr served as an executive producer on Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini . [56] In the first week of the series release, 3.6 million viewers watched the series, making it Hulu's most viewed documentary. [57] That same year, Carr directed and produced Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara . [58] In 2025, Carr was an executive producer on Trophy Wife: Murder on Safari . [59]
Carr was creator and executive producer on the scripted series Murdaugh: Death in the Family starring Jason Clarke and Patricia Arquette. [60] [61] [62]
In April 2019, Carr published a memoir called All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir for Random House. [63] All That You Leave Behind started out as a self-published Medium article called Still Rendering that Carr wrote a year after her father's death. [5] The book describes Carr's growth in her career as a documentary filmmaker and is a celebration of her father, David Carr, that includes emails and GChat and other records that documented her relationship with him. [13] [64]
Carr lives in New York City. [10] Carr has discussed her struggles with alcohol and becoming sober. [8] Erin is an openly queer artist. [65]
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Spaced Out [17] [18] | Yes | Documentary series; 9 episodes | |
| 2012 | Free the Network: Hackers Take Back the Web [66] | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2012 | First Animal to Survive in Space [19] | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2012 | The World's Hottest Taxidermist [67] | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2013 | My Life Online [21] [22] | Yes | Documentary series; 3 episodes | |
| 2013 | Click. Print. Gun. [23] | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2013 | Picnic Table | Yes | Short | |
| 2015 | Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2015 | Remembering David Carr | Documentary; Self, special thanks | ||
| 2017 | Mommy Dead and Dearest | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2017 | Whirlybird | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2018 | Dirty Money: Drug Short | Yes | Yes | Documentary; episode: "Drug Short" |
| 2019 | I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth V. Michelle Carter | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2019 | At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2020 | How to Fix a Drug Scandal [68] | Yes | Documentary series; 4 episodes | |
| 2021 | Britney vs Spears [4] | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2022 | Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2023 | The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2024 | Stormy [69] | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2024 | Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini | Yes | Documentary | |
| 2024 | Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2024 | I Am Not a Monster: The Lois Riess Murders | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
| 2025 | Trophy Wife: Murder on Safari | No | Yes | Documentary |
| 2025 | Murdaugh: Death in the Family | No | Yes | Co-creator [70] |
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