Britta H. Sjogren (born December 21, 1958) is an independent filmmaker and academic.

Biography

Britta Sjogren was born in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

and attended

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

for her undergraduate and

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, where she earned degrees in both a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

in film production and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in critical theory. Her films have received awards from a number of independent film circuits including

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

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 ...

Dallas International Film Festival The Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF), presented by Dallas Film, is an annual film festival that takes place in Dallas, Texas. About Dallas Film Dallas Film, established as Dallas Film Society, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization ...

Aspen Shortsfest The Aspen Shortsfest is an annual Oscar® qualifying short film festival held in Aspen, Colorado. The internationally-recognized festival began in 1979. In 2003, director Lionel Bailliu was given the Shortfest Award for the 2002 French short fi ...

and special showcases at

Créteil International Women's Film Festival The Créteil International Women's Film Festival (in French Festival international de films de femmes de Créteil) is an annual event in Créteil, France, founded by Jackie Buet in 1978 to showcase the directing talents of female filmmakers who, ...

and the

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...

. Sjogren is a recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leade ...

Independent Filmmaker grant and the

Cinereach Cinereach is a nonprofit film funding organization in New York, NY, founded in 2006, which provides grants, awards, an annual fellowship, and in-house film production. The organization also has partnerships with other film development organization ...

award for Best Screenplay - Best Minority Protagonist, among other honors. She has programmed film series for the

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...

and the

. Furthermore, Sjogren continues her academic work as a professor of Cinema at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

. As the Director of

Cinema Department at San Francisco State University The School of Cinema is housed in the College of Liberal & Creative Arts at San Francisco State University. It is located in San Francisco, California, USA and offers a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts, and Master of Fine Arts in cinema. The pro ...

from 2015-2019, she launched a significant curricular initiative to spotlight the contributions of women in film and oversaw capital improvements, including the renovation of the renowned Coppola Theater. Additionally, Sjogren is the author of ''Into the Vortex: Female Voice and Paradox in Film'' a scholarly book that focuses on female subjectivity, feminine voice and sound in film through the psychoanalytic, narratological and discursive contradictions of 1940s film. As a filmmaker, her films are unorthodox narratives that center upon the subjective experience of women. ''Jo-Jo at the Gate of Lions'', Sjogren's modern Joan-of-Arc tale, premiered at competition at

and screened at

. Her 1996 work, '' A Small Domain'', won the Grand Jury Prize at

for Best Short Film and SXSW Competition Award at the

SXSW Film Festival 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 addition to other awards. Sjogren's latest film, '' Redemption Trail'' is a contemporary feminist Western set in Marin and Oakland. This film premiered at the

Mill Valley Film Festival The Mill Valley Film Festival is an annual American film festival founded in 1977. History In October 1977, Mark Fishkin, Rita Cahill and Lois Cole organized a three-day film festival. It featured three film tributes, Francis Ford Coppola's ''T ...

, winning the audience award. She co-founded the production company Dire Wolf in 2007.

Filmography

Exhibition

In the Fall of 2021, Sjogren's work was featured in an exhibition at Stanislaus State, in which her filmography, photography, and career were highlighted. A catalogue accompanied the exhibit titled, "Britta Sjogren - The Gaze Returned".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sjogren, Britta Living people American film production company founders 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople American women company founders 1958 births San Francisco State University faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni Filmmakers from Portland, Oregon