Lucy Walker
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Lucy Walker (born in London, United Kingdom) is a screenwriter and film director, mostly of theatrical feature documentaries.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Lucy was born in London, United Kingdom and graduated with first class honours from New College, Oxford with an MA Oxon in Language and Literature, and directed theatre. She won a Fulbright Scholarship to attend the graduate film program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she won a contest to direct a video for Cowboy Junkies, directed three award-winning short films and received an MFA. She has three sisters: Emma, Sophie and Beth.
[edit] Career
Lucy's directing credits include Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues, for which she was twice nominated for Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Directing, and Devil's Playground - Amish Teenagers in the Modern World, a feature-length documentary about the struggles of Amish teenagers during the period of rumspringa. Financed by HBO, Wellspring and Channel 4, Devil's Playground premiered at Sundance Film Festival and went on to many accolades and awards, including winning Sony-AFI digital Best Documentary Award as well as overall Best Film Award, a Special Jury mention at Karlovy-Vary Film Festival, Audience Award at Sarasota International Film Festival, and nominations for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, and for three Emmys (for Best Documentary, Best Directing, and Best Editing). She was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show and was named one of the "Top 25 New Faces In Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine. In 2006, her second documentary feature film Blindsight (2006 film) premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the American Film Institute AFI festival in Los Angeles, the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards. Lucy Walker also was the first woman to climb the Matterhorn in Switzerland in the year 1871.
[edit] Trivia
While at NYU film school, Lucy moonlighted as a DJ, performing both solo and as a member of illbient ensemble Byzar, most frequently at the Soundlab. Lucy's brunch set at the 24HourSound at Tim Sweet's RV on 6th and B became a classic 90s mix tape. The album "Gaiatronyk Vs. The Cheap Robots" was a CMJ chart hit, and John Peel once played the 12" record "Beings from the B'yond Wythyn" at two different speeds on his Radio 1 show, and announced that he liked it both ways.
[edit] External links
- Lucy Walker at the Internet Movie Database
- "Notes On Completing Devil's Playground" by Lucy Walker
- Variety review of Devil's Playground by Dennis Harvey
- "Blindsight Training Day" on the Toronto International Film Festival Doc Blog
- Ten Burning Questions: Lucy Walker at AFI by John Wildman
- "Failure IS An Option: Our Obsession With Success Puzzles Tibetans, Who Prefer To Walk Around Mountains" by Lucy Walker in the Toronto Star
- "Eye On The Oscars: Documentaries" Blindsight at Variety.com by Kathy A. McDonald