Varda Bar-Kar

Last updated

Varda Bar-Kar
Occupation(s)Film director, writer, producer
Years active2005–present

Varda Bar-Kar is a film director, writer, and producer based in Santa Monica, California. [1] [2] She is best known for her short film Window, her viral video What Kind of Planet Are We On?, her documentary Big Voice, 9-1-1 (TV series), and her documentary Fandango at the Wall . [3] [4] [5]

Contents

Life and career

Varda was born in London, England to a South African mother and Romanian father. [6] She holds a BA in theater arts from Cornell University and an MFA in film studies from the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). [7] She worked as a script supervisor for directors Jim Jarmusch, Wayne Wang and Carroll Ballard. [8]

In 2015, Varda's feature documentary, Big Voice, won Best Premiere Documentary at the Heartland Film Festival and the 2018 PBS SoCal broadcast of Big Voice won a Bronze Telly Award. [9] [10] She is a member of the DGA, Film Fatales and the Alliance of Women Directors. [2] [11]

Filmography

YearTitleDirectorWriterProducerNotes
2005WindowYesYesNoShort Film
2006Visiting ShaneYesYesNoDocumentary
2006Moon (The 1,000 Sides of the Moon)YesYesNoShort Film
2008LisetteYesYesNoShort Film
2008Runaway StarsYesYesNoTV series
2008SprungYesNoNoShort Film
2009Race to the SkyYesNoNoShort Film
2010What Kind of Planet Are We On?YesYesNoShort Film
2010A Million SpokesYesNoNoDocumentary
2011Journey to SafetyYesYesNoShort Film
2011Ode to Los AngelesYesYesYesShort Film
2013ForgiveOneYesYesYesShort Film
2015Big VoiceYesYesYesDocumentary
2018 9-1-1 YesNoNo1 episode [12]
TBAFandango at the WallYesYesNoDocumentary

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnès Varda</span> French photographer, artist, film director and screenwriter

Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Her films focused on achieving documentary realism, addressing women's issues, and other social commentary, with a distinctive experimental style.

Martha Coolidge is an American film director and former President of the Directors Guild of America. She has directed such films as Valley Girl, Real Genius and Rambling Rose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Kopple</span> American film director

Barbara Kopple is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic french style to a modern American audience.

<i>The Gleaners and I</i> 2000 French film

The Gleaners and I is a 2000 French documentary film by Agnès Varda that features various kinds of gleaning. It was entered into competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, and later went on to win awards around the world. In a 2014 Sight & Sound poll, film critics voted The Gleaners and I the eighth best documentary film of all time. In 2016, the film appeared at No. 99 on BBC's list of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century. The film was included for the first time in 2022 on the critics' poll of Sight and Sound's list of the greatest films of all time, at number 67.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ondi Timoner</span> American film director

Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a full-service production company located in Pasadena, California. Timoner is a two-time recipient of the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for her documentaries Dig! (2004) and We Live in Public (2009). Both films have been acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art for their permanent collection.

Sharron Miller is an American television and film director, producer, and screenwriter. She is one of the pioneering women directors who worked regularly in mainstream Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1984 she was the first woman ever to win the coveted Directors Guild of America Award for directing a narrative (non-documentary) work.

Randa Jo Haines is a film and television director and producer. Haines started her career as a script supervisor on several low-budget features in the 1970s, including Let's Scare Jessica to Death and The Groove Tube. She is most famous for directing the critically acclaimed feature film Children of a Lesser God (1986), which starred William Hurt and Marlee Matlin, for which Matlin won the 1987 Academy Award as Best Actress, and which was nominated 5 Academy Awards including Academy Award for Best Picture. Haines also won the Silver Bear at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1989 she was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2002 she was a member of the jury at the 24th Moscow International Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimmy Chin</span> American mountain climber and film director

Jimmy Chin is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, film director, and author.

Juan Cabral is an Argentine writer and director, whose work includes short and feature films, music videos and commercials.

Lindsey Dryden is a British film director, producer and writer.

Motto Pictures is a documentary production company based in Brooklyn, New York specializing in producing and executive producing documentary features. Motto secures financing, builds distribution strategies, and creatively develops films, and has produced over 25 feature documentaries and won numerous awards.

Dana Nachman is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Northern California. She has written, directed, and produced six feature documentaries including the 2020 film Dear Santa and the 2018 Pick of the Litter and Witch Hunt, The Human Experiment, Love Hate Love, Batkid Begins and Pick of The Litter.

Miles Jay is a Canadian filmmaker whose work includes Super Bowl commercials and music videos. He won an Emmy Award in 2018 for his work on a Squarespace advertisement featuring actor John Malkovich and was nominated for a Grammy Award for his work on Leon Bridges' "River" music video. He was nominated for Best Commercial Director at the Directors Guild of America Awards in 2016 and 2018.

<i>Faces Places</i> (film) 2017 film

Faces Places is a 2017 French documentary film directed by Agnès Varda and JR. It was screened out of competition at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival where it won the L'Œil d'or award. The film follows Varda and JR traveling around rural France, creating portraits of the people they come across. It was released on 28 June 2017 in France and 6 October 2017 in the United States. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 90th Academy Awards. The film was Varda's second-to-last work, preceding Varda by Agnès in 2019.

<i>RBG</i> (film) 2018 American film

RBG is a 2018 American documentary film focusing on the life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States after Sandra Day O'Connor. After premiering at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, the film was released in the United States on May 4, 2018. The film was directed and produced by Betsy West and Julie Cohen.

Robert Allan Black is an American writer and director, who began his career as an advertising copywriter. His film writing and directing work includes the feature documentary, Loving Henri (2017), about freed Nazi slave turned philanthropist, Henri Landwirth (1927-2018), which was shot over the span of 14 years.

<i>My Octopus Teacher</i> 2020 documentary film by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed

My Octopus Teacher is a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, which documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest. At the 93rd Academy Awards, it won the award for Best Documentary Feature.

<i>Nocturne in Black</i> 2016 short film

Nocturne in Black is a 2016 short film written and directed by Jimmy Keyrouz. The film premiered at Telluride Film Festival and won the gold medal at the Student Academy Awards, the Bafta Student Film Awards, the Directors Guild of America Student Film Awards. The BBC has described it as an "immaculately shot, high-energy short drama".

Sue Vicory is an American writer, producer and filmmaker and is two-time Emmy nominated and five-time Telly Award winning filmmaker who has received a lifetime achievement award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Vaill</span> American film and television editor, director and producer

Susan Vaill, ACE, is an American film and television editor, director and producer. She is best known for her work on the television series Hacks, This Is Us, and Grey's Anatomy.

References

  1. "BIG VOICE Director Varda Bar-Kar On Creativity, The Wisdom Of Teenagers And Women In The Film Industry". filminquiry.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  2. 1 2 "Varda Bar-Kar". allianceofwomendirectors.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  3. "Award Winning Director Varda Bar-Kar's Musical Documentary 'BIG VOICE' Picked Up For North American Distribution By Gravitas Ventures". shootonline.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  4. "BIG VOICE". queensworldfilmfestival.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  5. Tangcay, Jazz (3 September 2020). "'Fandango at the Wall,' Music Doc Produced by Quincy Jones and Carlos Santana, Lands at HBO (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
  6. "NFMLA". newfilmmakersla.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  7. "CC LA – Free Screening and Q&A with Director/Producer Varda Bar-Kar '82". alumni.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  8. "Varda Bar-Kar". filmfatales.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  9. "Heartland Film Festival Unveils 2015 Winners, Awards More Than $120,000 to Independent Filmmakers". heartlandfilm.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  10. "BIG VOICE". pbssocal.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  11. "Membership Report - March 2019". dga.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  12. "Trailer For "9-1-1" Episode Directed By Varda Bar-Kar". shootonline.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.