Hilary Brougher

Hilary Brougher is a screenwriter and director living and working in N.Y.C. She says that the reason she is inspired to make films is that " [she] was interested in the connection that happens among audience members via a shared screen, and the collaboration that happens in making films. That was three decades ago. [She] is still interested." She wrote and directed her first feature, The Sticky Fingers of Time in 1996. She wrote and directed her second feature, Stephanie Daley in 2006. The film starred Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn, Melissa Leo, Tim Hutton and Denis O’Hare. In 2006, the film won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival [1] and Brougher won Best Director at the Milan International Film Festival,[2] while actress Amber Tamblyn won Best Actress from The Locarno International Film Festival in 2006. The film was bought by Lifetime Television and the title changed to What She Knew.[3] In 2014 Brougher was credited as co-writer with Tristine Skyler and director of an adaptation of Jane Mendelsohn’s novel, Innocence. In 2017, Brougher wrote and directed an original film, South Mountain [4] which premiered at SXSW 2019 in the Narrative Features Competition.[5] The film was highly regarded by critics including The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Indiewire.[6] In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Brougher discussed her micro-budget experience, "This was the smallest budget I've worked with and yet it felt the most ample."[7]

Brougher also is a full time member of Faculty in the MFA Film Program, at Columbia University School of the Arts.[8] She has also just accepted the position of Film Division Chair at Columbia University as well as being a professor. Brougher describes herself as an introvert making it hard making it hard to start conversations with students, but uses her work experience to relate and teach new filmmakers and students in her classes saying that it feels like she is “directing — when [she] is doing it right.” She says her job at the university “has been interesting” and is very happy to be able “to see the journey of our alum filmmakers more holistically.

She is currently working on a new documentary “STRIPPER” which will be co-directed by Maria Rosenblum, who is an award winning film director, screenwriter, editor and producer, as well as being the daughter of the subject of the film. This new documentary “examines the art and life of Jay Rosenblum, an artist killed in a cycling accident with a city bus in 1989. The film follows Jay’s surviving family and friends as they confront the sudden gentrification of their East Village neighborhood and the future of the paintings that fill the attic studio of the building they bought in 1971. It explores the dissonance between art making as a personal experience within a family and as a commercialized product. At the core of the story is a family struggling to care for each other — years after a profound loss.”

Films

Director

Writer

South Mountain, 2019
Wake O Wake (Short), 2016
Innocence, 2013
Stephanie Daley, 2006
The Sticky Fingers of Time, 1997

Editor

Jabberwocky, West Shokan (Short), 2015
The Sticky Fingers of Time, 1997

Awards and nominations

Awards

Sundance Film Festival 2006, Waldo Scott Screenwriting Award
Milan International Film Festival, 2006 Best Director
Jackson Hole International Film Festival, 2006 Best Director
Midlife Achievement Award – Maine International Film Festival, 2019

Nominations

Deauville Film Festival- Grand Special Prize, 2006
Locarno International Film Festival- Golden Leopard, 2006
Sundance Film Festival- Grand Jury Award, 2006
Mar del Plata Film Festival- Best Film, 2019
SXSW Film Festival- Grand Jury Award, 2019