Mary Sweeney | |
|---|---|
| Born | Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1983–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Awards | BAFTA Award for Best Editing 2001Mulholland Drive |
Mary Sweeney is an Americandirector,writer,film editor andfilm producer. She was briefly married to American film directorDavid Lynch, with whom she collaborated for 20 years. Sweeney worked with Lynch on several films and television series, most notably the originalTwin Peaks series (1990),Lost Highway (1997),The Straight Story (1999), andMulholland Drive (2001). Sweeney is the Dino and Martha De Laurentiis Endowed Professor in the Writing Division of the School of Cinematic Arts at theUniversity of Southern California. She was formerly the chair of theFilm Independent board of directors.[1]
Sweeney graduated from theUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison, with a BA in History. She earned a Certificate of Fine Arts from theCorcoran School of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. After completing a master's in cinema studies atNew York University, Sweeney worked her way up the ranks of film editing in New York and San Francisco, on films such asReds byWarren Beatty,Tender Mercies byBruce Beresford,Places in the Heart byRobert Benton,Little Drummer Girl byGeorge Roy Hill, andThe Mean Season byPhil Boursos.
From 1985 to 2006, Sweeney collaborated as producer, writer, script supervisor and editor with filmmakerDavid Lynch fromBlue Velvet toInland Empire. Her editing credits includeBlue Velvet (1986),Wild at Heart (1990),Twin Peaks (1990),Industrial Symphony (1991),Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992),On the Air (1992),Hotel Room (1993),Lost Highway (1997),The Straight Story (1999),Mulholland Drive (2001) andBaraboo (2009). Sweeney is a consulting producer/writer onMatthew Weiner's anthology seriesThe Romanoffs.
She won theBritish Academy Award for Best Editing forMulholland Drive. As producer, she won theCésar Award for Best Foreign Film, and theNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film. She developed, produced, wrote and editedThe Straight Story, for whichRichard Farnsworth received an Academy Award nomination. As a producer, she won theEuropean Film Award For Best Foreign Film, and the film received four nominations for theIndependent Spirit Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best First Screenplay and Best Actor. Her producing credits date from 1995 and includeLost Highway,The Straight Story,Mulholland Drive andInland Empire, directed by Lynch, and Baraboo (2009), her directorial debut based on her original screenplay.
Sweeney continued to write screenplays while collaborating with Lynch. These includeThe Surprise Party for Paramount Pictures, andTwo Knives, a martial arts film for directorWong Kar-Wai andFox Searchlight Pictures.
Sweeney wrote, directed, produced and edited a short silent film,In the Eye Abides the Heart, filmed inBuenos Aires, which premiered at the2006 Venice Film Festival, and then played the international festival circuit. In 2009, she went on to write, direct, produce and edit her debut feature,Baraboo, which premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival and won Best First Feature awards at the Galway Film Fleadh and the Wisconsin Film Festival.
Sweeney had been on the board of directors of Film Independent for over two decades since 2000, and was elected chair of the board in 2013, and served nine years in that position before stepping down.[2] Film Independent is a non-profit arts organization that produces the Independent Spirit Awards, the Los Angeles Film Festival, and the Film Independent Series at LACMA.
In 2003, Sweeney joined the faculty of the Division of Writing for Screen and Television in the University of Southern California'sSchool of Cinematic Arts. She was installed as the Dino and Martha De Laurentiis Endowed Professor in 2012.
Between 2010 and 2015, Sweeney was a Fulbright Film Specialist and traveled for the State Department on Fulbright grants to Jordan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Myanmar and Cuba to mentor filmmakers in those countries.
She is vice president and founding member of theDesert X non-profit's board of directors. Desert X is a site-specific art exhibition in the Coachella Valley.
She is a member of theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,British Academy of Film and Television Arts,Directors Guild of America, andWriters Guild of America, where she is on the WGA Independent Writers Committee.
