| Menkes Bio |
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Called “Brilliant, one of the most provocative artists in film today” by The Los Angeles Times, Nina Menkes's radical and pioneering work synthesizes inner dream-worlds with harsh, outer realities. Her seven films are a body of work Sight and Sound has called “Controversial, intense and visually stunning.” Menkes has produced, written, directed, shot and edited her own 35mm features, for many years working closely with her sister and creative collaborator, Tinka Menkes. Their films have shown widely in major international film festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Locarno, London, Viennale, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Cairo, Toronto as well as at La Cinematheque Francaise, The British Film Institute, the ICA in London, the Beijing Film Academy in China, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MOCA and LACMA in Los Angeles. Menkes’ many honors include a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Annenberg Foundation Independent Media Grant, an American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award, three Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships and two Senior Fulbright Research Awards--one to the Middle East/North Africa, and one to India. Menkes was also a recipient of a DAAD Artist in Residence in Berlin Award. In addition, her work has been listed on many periodicals “Top Ten Films of the Year” lists, including Film Comment and, repeatedly, The Los Angeles Times. In 2002 Menkes shot and co-created a feature length, experimental documentary in Beirut, Lebanon, MASSAKER, about the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, which premiered at the Berlinale in 2005 and received a FIPRESCI Award. In addition, she won a Media Arts Award from the Rockefeller Foundation for her new feature script, HEATSTROKE, Executive produced by Gus Van Sant and Mark Romanek. NINA's latest beautiful fiction feature film, PHANTOM LOVE (35mm, black and white, 87 minutes, 2007), starring Marina Shoif and Juliette Marquis, premiered at SUNDANCE 2007 to rave reviews and has been touring the world. Please click on PRESS to read more about this highly acclaimed new work. LATEST NEWS/DECEMBER 2009--Menkesfilm is currently in POST- PRODUCTION on a new feature film, "DISSOLUTION", which was shot in Tel Aviv in summer 2009. The film is produced by Marek Rozenbaum and Itai Tamir at Transfax Film Productions, Tel Aviv. The film stars Didi Fire. Executive Producer is Rebecca Hartzell. Menkes' work shows theatrically, is available on DVD on AMAZON.COM (search nina menkes) and has also been broadcast on PBS, the Sundance Channel, as well as on WDR German Television and other foreign networks. Since 1996, retrospectives of her work have shown in Los Angeles and most European capitals. In 2000, she created her first digital work: an interactive CD-ROM, commissioned by the Annenberg Center for Communications in Los Angeles. Menkes' work has been favorably reviewed in The Los Angeles Times, Film Quarterly, American Cinematographer, The New York Post, The New York Times, Art Forum, Sight and Sound, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, The LA Weekly, The Village Voice and numerous other periodicals. Nina Menkes has an MFA with honors from the UCLA Film School. She has taught film directing at the USC film school, and at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) —Bollywood’s premiere film academy. For the past two years Menkes has served as a nominator for the Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Awards. She is member of the Directors Guild of America, and a faculty member at California institute of the ARts. Filmography
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