Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann are film writers and directors who have made five films together. Buck is also an actress and has directed the documentary '' Best Kept Secret'' solo. They are best known for the 2019 film ''

Sister Aimee ''Sister Aimee'' is a 2019 American biographical film written and directed by Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann and starring Anna Margaret Hollyman as Aimee Semple McPherson. It is a fictionalized account of McPherson's 1926 disappearance. C ...

''.

Personal life and education

Buck and Schlingmann are married, having met at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Both have 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 from Columbia, and it is in this program that they created their first short films together. The pair have won various grants for female directors. Schlingmann is from

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, and though she is German, she writes screenplays in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, saying that her "creative brain" is in this language.

Career

In her acting career, Buck played Det. G. Lynn Bishop in ''

Law & Order: Criminal Intent ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent'' is an American police procedural drama television series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 20 ...

'' and Amy on the comedy series ''

Stella Stella or STELLA may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media Comedy *Stella (comedy group), a comedy troupe consisting of Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain Characters *Stella (given name), including a list of characters with th ...

''. She became interested in film production when starring on ''Big Apple''; the showrunner made the cast take writing workshops and encouraged her talents. She explained that it took her several years after this to follow through, because at the time there were very few actresses who had made the transition to behind the camera. She did not begin with writing, but took up documentary in the cinéma vérité style where she was "basically writing in the edit room with 100 hours of footage". In 2013 she directed the Gotham Award-nominated and

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

-winning documentary film '' Best Kept Secret''. During the production of ''Best Kept Secret'', Buck applied and was accepted to Columbia's film program. The couple first made films together at Columbia University, directing two award-winning short films: ''Canary'' and ''The Mink Catcher''. The latter of these was shown at both Telluride Film Festival and

South by Southwest 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 Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

. Their first feature film as a duo was slated to be an adaptation of the young adult novel ''Need'' in 2016, as a thriller financed by Covert Media. This year they also began development of the feature film ''The Big D'', something which they were still developing in 2019. Both ''The Mink Catcher'' and ''The Big D'' are set in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. Their breakthrough feature came a few years later in 2019's ''

'', which is loosely based on the story of

Aimee Semple McPherson Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (née Kennedy; October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee or Sister, was a Canadian Pentecostalism, Pentecostal Evangelism, evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s,Ob ...

. ''Sister Aimee'' screened at

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 ...

in 2019, and is planned to have a theatrical run and

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

release in 2020.

Production filmography

Buck acting filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Buck, Schlingmann, Samantha, Marie Filmmaking duos Living people 1974 births People from Dallas VJs (media personalities)