Lana Wilson

Lana Wilson
Born c. 1983
Nationality American
Occupation Filmmaker
Home town Kirkland, Washington
Awards

Lana Wilson is an American filmmaker. She directed the feature documentaries After Tiller and The Departure.[1] Both films were nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.[2][3]

Life and career

Originally from Kirkland, Washington, Wilson graduated from Lake Washington High School in 2001.[4]

She received a BA from Wesleyan University, where she majored in Film Studies and Dance.[5] Before becoming a director, Wilson was the Film and Dance Curator for Performa, the New York biennial of new visual art performance.[6]

Wilson's first film After Tiller follows the four most-targeted abortion providers in the country. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013[7] and was picked up by arthouse distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories.[8] The film was released in theaters in fall 2013, and received critical acclaim for taking a complex and compassionate look at one of the most challenging issues of our time.[9] It holds a 95% positive "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus, "After Tiller applies empathy, honesty, and graceful understatement to a discussion that all too often lacks them all."[9]

In 2015 After Tiller was won the News and Documentary Emmy Award for Best Documentary.[10] It was also nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary,[11] four Cinema Eye Honors,[12] a Satellite Award, and the Ridenhour Prize, and was named one of the Top Five Documentaries of the Year by the National Board of Review.[13]

Wilson’s second film, The Departure, is about a Japanese punk rocker-turned-Buddhist priest who works to prevent suicide in Japan.[4] In the film the priest confronts his own mortality. The Departure premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival[14] and was picked up by distributor FilmRise.[15] In fall 2017 it was released in US theaters to extensive critical acclaim.[16] In 2018, it was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.[17]

The Washington Post wrote that the film "explores life’s toughest and most transcendent moments with tenderness, honesty, and care."[18] The San Francisco Chronicle called it "a beautiful meditation on the value of life" and "a work of art."[19] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 100% approval rating.[16] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim."

Wilson is a MacDowell Fellow and a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute.[5][20]

Profiling Wilson in the inaugural issue, Doxx magazine says that Wilson "asks philosophical questions about life and death, and observes the struggles that may yield their elusive answers."[21]

Influences

Wilson has cited many influences for her work, including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Frederick Wiseman, Lixin Fan, Heddy Honigmann, and William Wyler. She has said that all filmmakers should see Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man and Jacques Tati's Playtime.[22][21]

Filmography

Feature films

YearFilmDirectorProducerWriterOtherNotes
2013 After Tiller Yes Yes Yes
2017 The Departure Yes Yes Yes

Television

Awards

After Tiller won a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Best Documentary in September, 2015.[25] Wilson was awarded the "Champion of Choice Award" by NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2014 for her work on the film.[26]

Wilson was selected by Sundance Institute as a Women at Sundance Fellow in 2017.[27][28]

References

  1. ↑ Macaulay, Scott (April 25, 2017). "Tribeca '17: Director Lana Wilson on Her Wise, Empathetic Suicide Prevention Doc, The Departure". Filmmaker.
  2. ↑ Kilday, Greg (November 26, 2013). "'12 Years A Slave', 'Nebraska' Dominate Spirit Nominations". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  3. ↑ Nolfi, Joey (November 21, 2017). "Independent Spirit Awards 2018 nominations position Get Out, Call My By Your Name in Oscar race". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  4. 1 2 Samantha Pak (October 18, 2017), "Kirkland native tackles difficult subjects in documentaries", Kirkland Reporter, Sound Publishing
  5. 1 2 Pratt faculty and staff directory accessed 2017-10-29
  6. ↑ "Lana Wilson". Tribeca Film Institute. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  7. ↑ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky-business/sundance-2013-abortion-doc-tiller-413633
  8. ↑ https://deadline.com/2013/02/oscilloscope-picks-up-sundance-documentary-after-tiller-431680
  9. 1 2 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/after_tiller_2013
  10. ↑ https://www.pbs.org/pov/blog/pressroom/2015/09/pov-films-win-two-news-documentary-emmy-awards
  11. ↑ https://www.filmindependent.org/press/press-releases/the-29th-annual-film-independent-spirit-awards-nominations-announced
  12. ↑ https://cinemaeyehonors.com/press/cinema-eye-honors-announces-nominees-for-7th-annual-nonfiction-film-awards
  13. ↑ http://www.nationalboardofreview.org/2013/12/national-board-review-announces-2013-award-winners
  14. ↑ http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/tribeca-film-festival-17-movies-to-see-this-year.html
  15. ↑ http://filmrise.com/film/the-departure
  16. 1 2 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_departure_2017
  17. ↑ https://deadline.com/2017/11/2018-film-independent-spirit-award-nominations-1202213125
  18. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/in-the-documentary-the-departure-a-buddhist-monk-occupies-the-thin-place-between-life-and-death/2017/10/31/eecd36ae-b9bb-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html
  19. ↑ https://www.sfgate.com/g00/movies/article/The-Departure-An-ex-punk-rocker-s-12325037.php?i10c.encReferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNhLw%3D%3D&i10c.ua=1&i10c.dv=14
  20. ↑ "Fellowships", MacDowell, p. 8, Summer 2017
  21. 1 2 "Director Lana Wilson on courage and micro-level change", Doxx, October 12, 2017
  22. ↑ Handler, Joshua (2014-08-13). "Roboapocalypse: From the Mouths of Filmmakers: Lana Wilson". Roboapocalypse. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
  23. ↑ Robert Allen (June 6, 2016), "Ex-Detroiter behind infamous 1972 skyjacking tells his story", Detroit Free Press
  24. ↑ Joseph Allen, "Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Lana Wilson — "The Departure"", Women and Hollywood (blog), Medium
  25. ↑ 36th ANNUAL NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY AWARDS (PDF), National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, retrieved 2017-10-27
  26. ↑ Movie Screening and Discussion -- After Tiller (PDF), New York County Lawyers Association
  27. ↑ Meet the 2017-2018 Women at Sundance Fellows, Sundance Institute, November 2, 2017
  28. ↑ "3 filmmakers receive Women in Film grants: Jordana Spiro, Martha Shane, Lana Wilson recognized by org at Sundance", Variety, January 22, 2013
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