Lucy Walker (director)

Lucy Walker (born in London, United Kingdom) is a screenwriter and film director, mostly of theatrical feature documentaries.

Biography

Early life

Lucy was born in London, United Kingdom and graduated with first class honours in English from New College, Oxford, 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.

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. 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.

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 Panorama Publikumspreis, the Audience Award for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Audience Award 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.

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