Benh Zeitlin
Zeitlin at theDeauville American Film Festival, September 2012
Born	Benjamin Harold Zeitlin[1] (1982-10-14)October 14, 1982 (age 42) New York City,New York, U.S.
Occupation	Filmmaker
Notable work	Beasts of the Southern Wild
Relatives	Eliza Zeitlin (sister)[2]

Benjamin Harold Zeitlin (/ˈbɛnˈzaɪtlɪn/;^[3] born October 14, 1982)^[4] is an American filmmaker, best known for directing and co-writing the 2012 filmBeasts of the Southern Wild, for which he received twoAcademy Award nominations.

Zeitlin was born in Manhattan and raised inSunnyside, Queens, New York, and in suburbanHastings-on-Hudson, NY.^[5] He is a graduate ofHastings High School^[6] andWesleyan University.^[7] He was born to writers andfolklorists Mary Amanda Dargan and Steven Joel Zeitlin, who founded the NYC non-profit cultural organizationCity Lore.^[1][8][9] His father, who isJewish, spent most of his childhood in Brazil; his mother comes from a rural,Protestant background inDarlington, South Carolina.^[10][11][12] His younger sister is screenwriter and artist Eliza Zeitlin.^[2]

In 2004, Zeitlin co-founded the Court 13 independent collection of filmmakers, named after a neglected Wesleyan University squash court that he and his friends had once commandeered as a filming location.^[13] His younger sister Eliza Zeitlin and he moved toNew Orleans while he was making his first short film,Glory at Sea, in 2008.^[2]

In 2012, Zeitlin's first feature,Beasts of the Southern Wild, adapted from a play entitledJuicy and Delicious byLucy Alibar, won theCaméra d'Or award at theCannes Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at theSundance Film Festival,^[14] and the Grand Jury Prize at the2012 Deauville American Film Festival. The film went on to earn theLos Angeles Film Festival's Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature and theSeattle International Film Festival's GoldenSpace Needle Award for Best Director.^[15] Zeitlin was also given a Humanitarian Award for his work on the film at theSatellite Awards 2012.^[16] Notably, Zeitlin both directedBeasts of the Southern Wild and co-composed the score.^[17]

For his directorial work and screenplay inBeasts of the Southern Wild, Zeitlin collected several additional awards and nominations.^[18][19][20] At theGotham Independent Film Awards in 2012, he won theBreakthrough Director Award. At the same awards ceremony, Zeitlin received the inauguralBingham Ray Award, which honors the independent filmmaker who died in 2012.^[21] Zeitlin also won aHumanitas Prize (as co-writer/director; shared with Alibar as co-writer), amongst other awards.^[22][23] He has also received two nominations at the85th Academy Awards:Best Director andBest Adapted Screenplay (shared withLucy Alibar), and the film itself was nominated forBest Picture.

In 2019, it was revealed that Zeitlin was directing his next featureWendy in Montserrat, an island south ofAntigua. Inspired byPeter Pan, Zeitlin described the film as "a friendship-love story-adventure of her and a joyous, reckless, pleasure-mongering young boy as they swirl in and out of youth and as the ecosystem around them spirals toward destruction."^[24]

Short film

• Egg (2005)
• Origins of Electricity (2006)
• Glory at Sea (2008)

Feature film

• Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
• Wendy (2020)

Zeitlin was the 2012 recipient ofSmithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award in the Visual Arts category.

• List of accolades received byBeasts of the Southern Wild

Wikimedia Commons has media related toBenh Zeitlin.

• Benh Zeitlin Update inThe New York Times
• Court 13 history
• Benh Zeitlin atIMDb

• 1982 births
• American male screenwriters
• American people of Russian-Jewish descent
• Directors of Caméra d'Or winners
• Film directors from New York City
• Living people
• Nebula Award winners
• People from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
• People from Sunnyside, Queens
• Screenwriters from New York (state)
• Sundance Film Festival award winners
• Wesleyan University alumni
• Writers from Manhattan

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