The Joy of Life is a 2005 experimental landscape documentary film by filmmaker Jenni Olson about the history of suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge, and the adventures of a butch lesbian in San Francisco, California. Following its January 2005 premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, the film played a pivotal role in renewing debate about the need for a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge and garnered praise and awards for its unique filmmaking style.
Wave Twisters is a 2001 American animated film directed by Eric Henry and Syd Garon and based on DJ Q-Bert's album of the same name. It is known as the first turntablism-based musical. It is a mix of live-action, computer graphics, and cel animation.
Ramona Lofton, better known by her pen name Sapphire, is an American author and performance poet.
Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history, in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.
Mark Finch was an English promoter of LGBT cinema. Having founded and expanded several international film festivals he created the first LGBT film market for distributors, sales agents, and independent film producers.
Donna Deitch is an American film and television director, producer, and writer best known for her 1985 film Desert Hearts. The movie was the first feature film to "de-sensationalize lesbianism" by presenting a lesbian romance story with positive and respectful themes.
Jennifer Lynn Siebel Newsom is an American documentary filmmaker and actress who is the current first partner of California as the wife of Governor Gavin Newsom. She is the director, writer, and producer of the film Miss Representation, which premiered in the documentary competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The film examines how the media has underrepresented women in positions of power. The Mask You Live In, her second film which she wrote, produced and directed, scrutinizes American society's definition of masculinity.
The Missing Person is a 2009 American drama-mystery film written and directed by American independent filmmaker Noah Buschel and starring Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. and was distributed by Strand Releasing to a limited number of theaters on November 20, 2009.
William Eubank is an American film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. On his first feature film, Love, released in 2011, in addition to directorial and director of photography duties, Eubank also served as production designer. His second feature film, The Signal, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was released in theaters by Focus Features on June 13, 2014. His third feature film, the science-fiction horror film Underwater, was released in January 2020 by 20th Century Fox.
Nickolas Perry is an American film director, writer, editor, photographer, and film instructor who began his career working as a camera assistant and assistant director on independent films in San Francisco before becoming Francis Ford Coppola's editing assistant on Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The Mill and the Cross is a 2011 drama film directed by Lech Majewski and starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling, and Michael York. It is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting The Procession to Calvary, and based on Michael Francis Gibson's 1996 book The Mill and the Cross. The film was a Polish-Swedish co-production. Filming on the project wrapped in August 2009. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2011.
A River Changes Course is a 2013 documentary by Kalyanee Mam. The film explores the damage rapid development has wrought in her native Cambodia on both a human and environmental level. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2013 and won the Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary. The film also received the Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2013 San Francisco International Film Festival.
Umrika (transl. America) is a 2015 Indian Hindi comedy-drama film written and directed by Prashant Nair, and produced by Swati Shetty and Manish Mundra. It features Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Smita Tambe, Rajesh Tailang, Pramod Pathak, Adil Hussain, Amit Sial, Sauraseni Maitra and Prateik Babbar.
Listen to Me Marlon is a 2015 British documentary film written, directed and edited by Stevan Riley about the movie star and iconic actor Marlon Brando.
Maggie's Plan is a 2015 American romantic comedy-drama film directed and written by Rebecca Miller, based on the original story by Karen Rinaldi. The film stars Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Travis Fimmel, Wallace Shawn, Monte Greene, Ida Rohatyn, and Julianne Moore.
Ivy is a 2015 Turkish drama film written and directed by Turkish filmmaker Tolga Karaçelik. After premiering in-competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the film continued its festival circuit, screening at more than 30 international film festivals, including Toronto IFF, Karlovy Vary IFF, São Paulo IFF and Sydney FF. The film won four awards at the Antalya International Film Festival including Best Film and Best Director, making Karacelik one of the youngest directors to ever receive the Golden Orange.
3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets, also known as 3 1/2 Minutes, is a 2015 American documentary film written and directed by Marc Silver. The film is based on the events surrounding the 2012 murder of Jordan Russell Davis and examines the shooting itself, as well as the subsequent trial, media coverage and protests that resulted from the shooting.
Sean Olson is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. He began as an editor for KPHO-TV, KMGH-TV, Extra-TV and Crime Watch Daily and the feature films How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer (2005) which was in dramatic competition at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and Wyatt Earp's Revenge (2012) starring Val Kilmer. He edited the Hallmark original movie Christmas Under Wraps. Christmas Under Wraps was the highest rated telecast in Hallmark Channel history and the second highest rated cable movie in 2014. Olson has directed The Contractor (2013), The Dog Who Saved Easter (2014), The Dog Who Saved Summer (2015), A Christmas Reunion (2015), The Other Mother (2017), F.R.E.D.I. (2018), Mommy Be Mine (2018) and Christmas Wonderland (2018) for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. Olson's feature film F.R.E.D.I. won Best of Fest at the 2018 Bentonville Film Festival founded by Geena Davis and Best Family Film at the Burbank International Film Festival.
Britta H. Sjogren is an independent filmmaker and academic.
