Lauren Wolkstein

Lauren Wolkstein is a NYC-based filmmaker originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Her award-winning short films include SOCIAL BUTTERFLY (2013 Sundance Film Festival), CIGARETTE CANDY (2010 SXSW Grand Jury Prize) and THE STRANGE ONES co-directed with Christopher Radcliff (2011 Sundance Film Festival). Lauren and Christopher adapted THE STRANGE ONES into their first feature film of the same name, starring James Freedson-Jackson and Alex Pettyfer, which world premiered to critical acclaim at the SXSW Film Festival in 2017. 

Lauren also recently completed COLLECTIVE: UNCONSCIOUS, a collaborative feature spearheaded by Dan Schoenbrun (with directors Josephine Decker, Lily Baldwin, Daniel Carbone, and Frances Bodomo), which was the first omnibus to premiere in the Narrative Feature Competition at SXSW in 2016.

She was named one of the top twenty-five emerging filmmakers through The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Independent Filmmaker Project’s inaugural Emerging Visions program at the 2011 New York Film Festival. Filmmaker Magazine listed her as one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2013. Lauren received her MFA in film directing from Columbia University and is an assistant professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University.