Jennie Livingston | |
|---|---|
 Livingston at the Here! Network/Outfest Queer Brunch during theSundance Film Festival in 2006. | |
| Born | (1962-02-24)February 24, 1962 (age 63) |
| Education | Yale University (BA) |
| Occupation | Film director |
Jennie Livingston (born February 24, 1962) is an Americandirector best known for the 1990documentaryParis Is Burning.[1]
Livingston was born inDallas, Texas and grew up inLos Angeles, where her family moved when she was two years old. She is the youngest of three siblings, with two older brothers.[2] Her mother was the poet, children's book author and anthologistMyra Cohn Livingston.[3] Her father Richard Livingston was an accountant and author of the children's bookThe Hunkendunkens. Her brother Jonas was a music executive[4] atGeffen Records and atMCA Records,[5] and directed the video forEdie Brickell & New Bohemians' 1988 hit songWhat I Am.[6] She has another brother, Joshua.[7]
Livingston attendedBeverly Hills High School[8] and graduated fromYale University in 1983, where she studied photography, drawing, and painting with a minor in English Literature. One of her teachers at Yale was the photographerTod Papageorge. Livingston took a summer filmmaking class atNew York University in 1984.[9]
Livingston moved to New York City in 1985, and was an activist with the AIDS activist group ACT UP. She is an outlesbian and lives inBrooklyn.[10] She isJewish.[11]
Livingston's father died of heart disease in 1990, her mother and her grandmother both died of cancer within months of each other in 1996. Two years later, her uncleAlan J. Pakula died in a car accident,[12] and Livingston's brother Jonas died suddenly in early 2000.[13] The loss of her family and her experience of grief led her to start work on her filmEarth Camp One.[13]
She worked in the art department on the 1987 filmOrphans; director Alan J. Pakula, her uncle, encouraged her to make her first film.[14]
Livingston's documentary about a New York gay andtransgender Black and Latinball culture won the 1991Sundance Grand Jury Prize. In 2016, it was included in the Film Archive at theLibrary of Congress.
The main speakers inParis is Burning includeOctavia St Laurent, Carmen Xtravaganza, Brooke Xtravaganza,Willi Ninja,Dorian Corey, Junior Labeija,Venus Xtravaganza,Freddie Pendavis,Sol Pendavis, Kim Pendavis, andPepper Labeija.
Two of Livingston's short films,Hotheads andWho's the Top?, explorequeer topics.Hotheads, a 1993 documentary created through theAIDS research-friendlyRed Hot Organization, explores two comedians' responses to violence against women: cartoonistDiane Dimassa, and writer/performer Reno.Hotheads was shown on MTV and KQED and released on Polygram Video as part of Red Hot'sNo Alternative compilation.
Who's the Top?, Livingston's first dramatic short film, premiered atBerlin International Film Festival in 2005, and starsMarin Hinkle,Shelly Mars, andSteve Buscemi.[9][15] The film, a lesbian sex comedy with musical numbers, also features 24Broadway dancers choreographed by Broadway choreographerJohn Carrafa. The film screened at more than 150 film festivals on nearly every continent, including theatrical runs atBoston'sMuseum of Fine Arts andLondon'sInstitute of Contemporary Arts.
Through the Ice is a digital short, commissioned in 2005 for public television stationWNET-New York, about the accidental drowning of Miguel Flores inProspect Park, Brooklyn and about the dog-walkers who tried to save him; the film was also seen at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
In 2011, Livingston set up aKickstarter campaign to support her film projectEarth Camp One. A non-fiction feature-length film, it is a memoir/essay about grief, loss, and a hippie summer camp in the 1970s, also a broader exploration of how Americans view loss and impermanence, including collective political loss, and queer identity in relation to loss. Livingston first started working on the project in 2000,[16] wanting to explore the topics of loss and grief after having lost her father, mother, grandfather, uncle, and brother between 1990 and 2000.[13] The film's status has been "post-production" on imdb.com since December 2014.[17]
Livingston has also been developingPrenzlauer Berg, an ensemble episodic project set in the art worlds of New York andEast Berlin in the late 1980s.[18]
In 2011, Livingston directed a video forElton John's showThe Million Dollar Piano atCaesar's Palace inLas Vegas; the piece is a series of black and white moving-image portraits of a variety of New Yorkers that accompanies the song "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters". The show ran for 7 years.
Livingston has taught and lectured worldwide, including teaching courses at Yale,Brooklyn College, and Connecticut College. Fellowships have included theGuggenheim Foundation, theGetty Center, the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), TheMacDowell Colony, and theNational Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Since 2018, Livingston has been a consulting producer on theFX tv drama seriesPose, which is "heavily inspired" by her documentaryParis Is Burning.[19][20][21]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
