Annie Silverstein is an American film director and screenwriter.

Early life

Annie was born and raised in Oakland, California. She graduated from

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

. with a BA in American History, and in 2013 received an MFA in Film Production from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Career

Silverstein's short documentary Noc na Tanečku: Night at the Dance premiered at

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

in 2011. She returned to SXSW the following year with her fiction short Spark. In 2014 Silverstein's short film Skunk premiered at the Cannes Film Festival - Cinefondation and won the first place jury award, presided over by

Abbas Kiarostami Abbas Kiarostami ( fa, عباس کیارستمی ; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of ...

. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Indie Film in 2014. Silverstein's feature debut ''Bull'' was selected for the 2016 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and Directors Lab. ''Bull'' premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival - Un Certain Regard, and went on to screen at the

Deauville American Film Festival The Deauville American Film Festival (french: Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville, link=no) is a yearly film festival devoted to American cinema, which has taken place since 1975 in Deauville, France. It was established by Lionel Cho ...

where it won the Grand Prize, Revelation Prize, and Critics’ Prize. Bull premiered in the US at Film Independent's ‘New Wave,’ and was selected to screen in the Festival Favorites section at SXSW 2020. Bull was acquired by

Samuel Goldwyn Films Samuel Goldwyn Films is an American film company that licenses, releases and distributes art-house, independent and foreign films. It was founded by Samuel Goldwyn Jr., the son of the Hollywood business magnate/mogul, Samuel Goldwyn. The curre ...

(domestic) and Sony Pictures Worldwide (international). Silverstein often cites the 10 years she spent as a youth worker prior to film school as her greatest influence. In 2004, Silverstein co-founded

Longhouse Media Longhouse Media is a Washington state non-profit indigenous media arts organization, based in Seattle. It was established in January 2005 by Executive Director, Tracy Rector and former Artistic Director, Annie Silverstein, with the support of the ...

, a non-profit indigenous media arts organization, based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, in partnership with the

Swinomish The Swinomish are an historically Lushootseed-speaking Native American people in western Washington state in the United States. The Tribe lives in the southeastern part of Fidalgo Island in northern Puget Sound, near the San Juan Islands, in ...

Indian Tribal Community. Longhouse Media's “Native Lens” program teaches

Native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

youth in rural and urban settings filmmaking as a form of inquiry, community development, and cultural pride and preservation. In 2007 Silverstein received a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

to spend a year in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

, teaching a weekly filmmaking and media literacy course at an orphanage for teenage boys. For her work with Longhouse Media, Silverstein received the National Association for Media Literacy Award for outstanding contributions made in the field of media education in 2009.

Personal life

Annie is married to screenwriter and producer Johnny McAllister. They frequently collaborate on scripts together, and co-wrote ''Bull''. They have two children. Annie is the sister of

Jake Silverstein Jake Silverstein (born 1975 in California) is an American writer and magazine editor. He is the editor-in-chief of ''The New York Times Magazine'' and the author of ''Nothing Happened and Then It Did'', a novelized memoir. Early life Silverstein ...

, editor of the

New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

Filmography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverstein, Annie American women film directors American women screenwriters Screenwriters from California Film directors from California 21st-century American women writers Writers from Oakland, California Macalester College alumni University of Texas at Austin alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American screenwriters