Lucy Walker is an English film director. She has directed the documentaries Devil's Playground (2002), Blindsight (2006), Waste Land (2010), Countdown to Zero (2010), and The Crash Reel (2013). She has also directed the short films The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011) and The Lion's Mouth Opens (2014).
Walker's 2014 documentary The Lion's Mouth Opens focuses on filmmaker-actor Marianna Palka's attempt to discover if she has inherited Huntington's disease, the incurable degenerative disorder that took Palka's father. Nick Higgins worked with Walker as cinematographer for the documentary. Walker premiered The Lion's Mouth Opens at Sundance on 26 January 2014.
Walker was inspired to make the 2013 documentary The Crash Reel when she met Kevin Pearce (snowboarder) at a retreat organized by David Mayer de Rothschild. The Crash Reel premiered at Sundance on 19 January 2013 as the Opening Night Gala film. The film chronicles the rivalry between Kevin and Shaun White, which culminates in Kevin's life-changing crash. Outside featured Lucy in a cover story, "Lucy Walker Will Change Winter Sports". [1]
Walker's 2011 documentary The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom focuses on the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and its survivors' struggle to survive. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011, and it went on to screen at festivals, including Sundance, in 2012.
Waste Land focuses on Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and a group of catadores—pickers of recyclable materials—who transform recyclable materials from the world's largest dump in Rio de Janeiro into contemporary art sold at the most prestigious auction house in London. Waste Land premiered at Sundance in 2010. Waste Land was released theatrically in the US by Arthouse Films, in Canada, in the UK by E1 Entertainment, and in Australia/NZ by Hopscotch Films.
Blindsight premiered at Toronto. It follows the journey of six blind Tibetan teenagers who climb up the north side of Mount Everest with blind American mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer and their teacher, Sabriye Tenberken, who founded the only school for the blind in Tibet, Braille Without Borders. Both Waste Land and Blindsight won the Audience Award at Berlin Film Festival.
Devil's Playground, Walker's first feature documentary, examined the struggles of Amish teenagers during their period of experimentation (rumspringa). It premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.
Countdown to Zero, an exposé of the present-day threat of nuclear proliferation, also premiered at Sundance 2010. It also played in the Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival, before being released in the US by Magnolia Pictures, in the UK by Dogwoof, and in Japan by Paramount.
Walker's credits in television include directing over a dozen episodes of Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues , her first job out of film school, for which she was twice nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing. Her content and commercial work includes directing "Project Daniel" for Intel, which was awarded an AICP Curator's Award and three Bronze Lions at the Cannes Festival of Creativity [2]
Walker was named one of the "Top 25 New Faces in Independent Film" by Filmmaker and called "the new Errol Morris" by The Hollywood Reporter . Variety has profiled her as a notable "Femme Filmmaker", praising her ability to connect with audiences. [3]
Bring Your Own Brigade which follows the aftermath of the Camp Fire (2018) had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 29 January 2021. [4] Walker served as a producer on Why Did You Kill Me? directed by Fredrick Munk, which was released on 14 April 2021 by Netflix. [5]
| Year | Film | Award | Ceremony | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Waste Land | Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (with Angus Aynsley) | 83rd Academy Awards | Nominated | [6] |
| 2011 | The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom | Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) (with Kira Carstensen) | 84th Academy Awards | Nominated | [6] |
Devil's Playground is a 2002 American documentary film directed by Lucy Walker about the experiences of several Amish youths who decide whether to remain in or leave their community and faith during the period known as rumspringa. The film follows a few Amish teenagers in LaGrange County, Indiana who enter the "English" (non-Amish) world and experience partying, drinking, illegal drugs, and pre-marital sex. Some teens in the film profess that they will eventually become baptized as adults in the Amish community. If they are baptized, then leave the church, they will be shunned by family and friends; one girl recounts her experience of this.
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.
Samir Mallal is a Canadian filmmaker whose work touches commercials, virtual reality, and documentaries. Samir is based in Los Angeles, California.
Blindsight is a 2006 documentary film directed by Lucy Walker and produced by Sybil Robson Orr for Robson Entertainment. It premiered at 2006 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the category Real to Reel.
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 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital is the largest environmental film festival in the world. The festival is held annually March in Washington, D.C., presenting more than 100 films to an audience of over 30,000. Often combined with thematic discussions and social events, the films screen at museums, embassies, libraries, universities and local theaters.
Marianna Bronislawa Barbara Palka is a Scottish actress, producer, director, and writer. She is the writer, director and star of the film Good Dick, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
Countdown to Zero is a 2010 documentary film by British filmmaker Lucy Walker. The film argues that the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons has increased since the end of the Cold War due to terrorism, nuclear proliferation, theft of nuclear materials and weapons, and other factors.
Waste Land is a 2010 British-Brazilian documentary film directed by Lucy Walker, co-directed by João Jardim and Karen Harley, and produced by Angus Aynsley and Hank Levine. The music for the film was created by Moby, who is a friend and frequent collaborator of Walker. The film follows artist Vik Muniz as he travels to the world's largest landfill in Jardim Gramacho, just outside Rio de Janeiro, to collaborate with a lively group of "catadores" to make contemporary art using some of the materials they have "picked". Muniz donated the proceeds from the sale of his pictures of the artworks to the ACAMJG, which is a co-operative founded and led by Sebastião "Tião" Carlos Dos Santos, one of the catadores involved in the art project; the prize money from the awards won by the film was also donated to the organization.
Michael P. Nash is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He is the founder of Beverly Hills Productions.
The Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) was founded in 2005 by Kelley Vickery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The four-day festival features independent films for filmmakers and film aficionados, with showings of features, documentaries, shorts, and animation—as well as panel discussions and special events focusing on filmmakers and talented artists from both sides of the camera.
The 2012 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 until January 29, 2012 in Park City, Utah.
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom is a 2011 American-Japanese documentary film directed by Lucy Walker. The film was nominated for the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
The Crash Reel is a documentary film directed by Lucy Walker which premiered as the Opening Night Gala film on 19 January 2013 at the Sundance Film Festival.
Sterlin Harjo is a Seminole filmmaker. He has directed three feature films, a feature documentary, and the FX comedy drama series Reservation Dogs, all of them set in his home state of Oklahoma and concerned primarily with Native American people and content.
The Lion's Mouth Opens is a 2014 short documentary film. It follows actress and filmmaker Marianna Palka as she pursues testing to learn whether she inherited the genetic mutation that causes Huntington's disease, an incurable neurodegenerative disease.
Julia Bell Reichert was an American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist. She was a co-founder of New Day Films. Reichert's filmmaking career spanned over 50 years as a director and producer of documentaries.
Kimi Takesue is an experimental filmmaker. Her films have screened widely, including at Sundance Film Festival, Locarno Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Los Angeles Film Festival, South by Southwest, ICA London, Cinéma du Réel, DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, Krakow Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, and the Walker Art Center. Her films have been broadcast on PBS, IFC, and the Sundance Channel. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship, and two NYFA fellowships. She is associate professor at Rutgers University–Newark.
Hans-Werner Maria Levy, better known as Hank Levine, is a German director, documentary filmmaker and writer based in Berlin, Germany. He is known for producing Academy Awards nominated films such as City of God and Wasteland.
When We Were Bullies is a 2021 short documentary film written, directed, produced, and edited by Jay Rosenblatt.
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