Laura Moss (filmmaker)

Last updated

Laura Moss is an American director, screenwriter, and production designer. They are best known for their feature film debut, Birth/Rebirth , which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards.

Contents

Early life and education

Moss was born in New York City. They attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and received both their bachelor’s and master’s degree at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. [1]

As a college student, was evacuated from their dorm in lower Manhattan during the September 11 attacks, an experience which caused them to reconsider a career in the arts. They worked for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society as an EMT before returning to the U.S. and working as an art director and production designer.

Career

Moss production designed the Egyptian film Yomeddine , directed by A.B. Shawky. The film won the François Chalais Prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Moss and Shawky both studied directing at NYU’s graduate film program.

Moss’s thesis film at NYU, Fry Day, was set during a tailgate event that popped up in the hours leading up to Ted Bundy’s execution. It premiered at SXSW in 2017 and won the Student Visionary Award that year's Tribeca Film Festival. It is currently featured on the Criterion Channel.

They co-wrote their feature directorial debut, Birth/Rebirth, with their ex-husband, Brendan J. O’Brien. They have produced work together under their company name,  Retrospecter Films since 2015. [2]

Birth/Rebirth

Birth/Rebirth premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, opening the Midnight section. [3] The film, starring Marin Ireland and Judy Reyes, has been described as a modern reimagining of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. At a screening in Salt Lake City, three people fainted and local authorities stopped the screening out of "an abundance of caution." [4]

In that same year, Moss was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Someone To Watch. Birth/Rebirth received two additional Independent Spirit Award nominations: Best Screenplay, and Best Lead Performance for Judy Reyes. [5]

Birth/Rebirth was released theatrically by IFC Films in August, 2023.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judy Reyes</span> American actress

Judy Reyes is an American actress, model, and producer, best known for her roles as Carla Espinosa on the NBC/ABC medical comedy series Scrubs (2001–2009), as Zoila Diaz in the Lifetime comedy-drama Devious Maids (2013–2016), and as Annalise "Quiet Ann" Zayas in the TNT crime comedy-drama Claws (2017–2022). Reyes also appeared in the films All Together Now (2020), Smile (2022), and Birth/Rebirth (2023), for which she received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Performance nomination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maggie Greenwald</span> American filmmaker (born 1955)

Maggie Greenwald is an American filmmaker.

Heather Rae is an American film and television producer and director. She has worked on documentary and narrative film projects, specializing in those with Native American themes, and is best known for Frozen River, Trudell, and Tallulah.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamara Jenkins</span> American filmmaker

Tamara Jenkins is an American filmmaker and occasional actress. She is best known for her feature films Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), Private Life (2018), and The Savages (2007). She received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nomination for the latter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Kuras</span> American cinematographer (born 1959)

Ellen Kuras 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cary Joji Fukunaga</span> American filmmaker (born 1977)

Cary Joji Fukunaga is an American filmmaker. A director of TV and film, he first came to wide prominence by directing the first season of the HBO series True Detective (2014). He is known for directing critically acclaimed films such as the thriller Sin nombre (2009), the period drama Jane Eyre (2011), the war drama Beasts of No Nation (2015) and the 25th James Bond film, No Time to Die (2021). He also co-wrote the Stephen King adaptation It (2017).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundance Film Festival</span> Annual film festival in the United States

The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.

<i>Pariah</i> (2011 film) Film by Dee Rees

Pariah is a 2011 American drama film written and directed by Dee Rees. It tells the story of Alike, a 17-year-old Black teenager embracing her identity as a lesbian. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Excellence in Cinematography Award.

Jared Moshe is an American director, screenwriter and producer of independent films. He wrote and directed the films Dead Man's Burden (2012), The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017) and Aporia (2023). He has also produced the features Destricted (2006), Kurt Cobain: About a Son (2006), Low and Behold (2007), Beautiful Losers (2008), Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011), and Silver Tongues (2011).

Sarah Green is an American film producer. She currently sits on the National Board of Directors for the Producers Guild of America. On January 24, 2012, she was nominated for an Academy Award for the film The Tree of Life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Athina Rachel Tsangari</span> Greek filmmaker (born 1966)

Athina Rachel Tsangari is a Greek filmmaker. Some of her most notable works include her feature films, The Slow Business of Going (2000), Attenberg (2010) and Chevalier (2015) as well as the co-production of Yorgos Lanthimos' films Kinetta (2005), Dogtooth (2009), and Alps (2011). In her versatile work for cinema, she has also founded and been director of the Cinematexas International Short Film Festival. In 2014–2015, she was invited to Harvard University's Visual and Environmental Studies department as a visiting lecturer on art, film, and visual studies.

Mynette Louie is an American film producer of Chinese descent. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and Critics Choice Award in 2018 for HBO's The Tale, won the 2015 Independent Spirit Awards John Cassavetes Award for Land Ho!, and won the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards Piaget Producers Award. She was also nominated twice for "Best First Feature" at the Independent Spirit Awards for I Carry You With Me and The Tale. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Blume</span> American filmmaker

Lawrence Andrew Blume is an American filmmaker. He was named among the "Ten Rising Stars of Comedy" by The Hollywood Reporter for his first feature-length film, Martin & Orloff, which premiered at the 2002 US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and made its television debut on Comedy Central.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi</span> American film director

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017. Their first scripted film venture was Nyad, a biopic chronicling Diana Nyad's quest to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Phang</span> American filmmaker

Jennifer Phang is an American filmmaker, most known for her feature films Advantageous (2015) and Half-Life (2008). Advantageous premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning a Special Jury Award for Collaborative Vision, and was based on her award-winning short film of the same name. Half-Life premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won "Best Film" awards at a number of film festivals including the Gen Art Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival as well an "Emerging Director Award" at the Asian American International Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josh Mond</span> American film director

Josh Mond is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He is known for producing the feature films Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) and Simon Killer (2012), and for writing and directing James White (2015).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maite Alberdi</span> Chilean film director

Maite Alberdi Soto is a Chilean film producer, director, documentarian, screenwriter, and film critic. She is the founder of Micromundo Producciones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abu Bakr Shawky</span> Egyptian-Austrian writer and director

Abu Bakr “A.B.” Shawky is an Egyptian-Austrian writer and director. His first feature film, Yomeddine, was selected to participate in the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was screened in the Main Competition section and compete for the Palme d'Or. The film also won the Silver Tanit Award for Best Feature Film at the Carthage International Film Festival.

<i>Birth/Rebirth</i> 2023 film by Laura Moss

Birth/Rebirth is a 2023 American psychological horror film directed by Laura Moss in their feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Moss and Brendan J. O'Brien and starring Marin Ireland, Judy Reyes, A.J. Lister, Breeda Wool, and LaChanze.

References

  1. ↑ Macaulay, Scott. "25 New Faces of Independent Film - Laura Moss". filmmakermagazine.com.
  2. ↑ Moss, Laura (August 17, 2023). "Making a Brain Baby with Your Ex-Husband". talkhouse.com.
  3. ↑ Roepke, Michele. "Sundance Film at Midnight at The Ray: Birth/Rebirth". townlift.com.
  4. ↑ Ruimy, Jordan (January 22, 2023). "Sundance: 'Birth/Rebirth' Screening Stopped, Theater Evacuated, After Audience Sickened By Horror Scenes". worldofreel.com.
  5. ↑ Sederholm, Jillian (December 5, 2023). "2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominations". ew.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.