Katie Bender (filmmaker)

Kate Rebecca "Katie" Bender (born 5 October 1985) is an Australian film producer, and director. She made her feature-length directing debut with the 2016 documentary The Will To Fly about Australian Olympic freestyle skier gold medalist Lydia Lassila.

Katie Bender
Born (1985-10-05) 5 October 1985
Geelong, Victoria, Australia
NationalityAustralian
EducationMethodist Ladies College
Alma materFashion Institute of Design & Merchandising
OccupationDirector, producer, athlete

Life and education

Bender is a former gymnast and freestyle skier, and trained on the Australian freestyle aerial ski team. Bender attended Methodist Ladies College in Victoria, Melbourne where she could study and train at a high-performance gymnastics center based on campus. At 16 years old, Bender was recruited by The Olympic Winter Institute of Australia to join an athlete talent pathway program which converted gymnasts into freestyle aerial skiers.[1]

Bender studied film and digital media at Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising based in Los Angeles, California. After graduation, she began working in the movie trailer industry at Trailer Park Inc, a motion picture marketing firm in Hollywood.[2][3]

Bender was the producer and director of the 2016 feature documentary The Will To Fly about Australian Olympic freestyle skier gold medalist Lydia Lassila. Bender is an ex-teammate of Lydia and was inspired to make The Will To Fly in 2012 while visiting Lydia at a training camp in Utah. Lydia was the defending Olympic champion at the time and had just returned to the sport as a first-time mother. Bender realised the potential for a feature-length film when Lydia explained her sporting aspirations to narrow the gap between male and female capabilities by performing a "quad triple twisting, triple somersault" at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.[4][5][6]

In February 2017, Bender performed at the TED conference "Finding Our Fire" in Canberra. Her talk "Conquering Uncertainty With Tenacity" was about her life, missed Olympic dreams, and re-discovering the "driving force that exists within all of us when we find that one thing we truly love".[7][8][9]

Film

The Will To Fly

The Will To Fly was five years in the making and one of Australia's first feature-length sports documentaries about the life and tumultuous sports career of freestyle aerial skiing Olympic Champion, Lydia Lassila. The film made its Australian premiere in Melbourne on International Women's Day (8 March) 2016 followed by a theatrical release, where it was positively received by critics.[10][11] The film was quoted "The Most Inspirational Movie of the Year" by The Huffington Post Australia.[12]

Impact

In October 2015, before the release of The Will To Fly, the film was used as a catalyst in convincing the Government of New South Wales to invest in a $10 million Olympic training facility so that the Australian Winter Olympic team could train on home soil.[13][14]

In August 2017, Olympic champion hurdler Sally Pearson made headlines worldwide after coming out of retirement to win the 2017 world championship title. Pearson told the media that her comeback to the sport was motivated after watching The Will To Fly on a plane in 2016.[15][16][17][18][19]

Filmography
Year Film Director Producer Writer Notes
2016 The Will To Fly
N
N
N

Film awards and nominations
The Will To Fly

References
  1. "Theme: Finding Our Fire". TEDx Youth @ Canberra. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  2. "Q&A with FIDM Grad Katie Bender: Documentary Filmmaker". FIDM. Archived from the original on 18 April 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  3. "FIDM Grad Directs 'The Will to Fly' Inspirational Documentary". FIDM. Archived from the original on 2 September 2018. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
  4. Bizzaca, Caris. "With her history in women's sport, aerial skier turned filmmaker Katie Bender became the perfect person to tell Lydia Lassila's inspirational story". Screen Australia: The Screen Blog. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  5. "Victorian creative team Katie Bender and Leo Baker are soaring to great heights with their project The Will to Fly, released nationally on 10 March". Film Victoria Australia. Film Victoria. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
  6. Saurine, Angela. "Winter Olympian Lydia Lassila stars in new ski film The Will To Fly". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 12 March 2016.
  7. "Theme: Finding Our Fire". TEDx Youth @ Canberra. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  8. "TEDx YOUTH CANBERRA". Her Canberra. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  9. "Formative Years: Finding our fire with TEDxYouth". qthotelsandresorts. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  10. Hall, Sandra. "The Will to Fly review: inside the elite world of aerial skiing". Sydney Morning Herald / The Age. Fairfax media. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  11. Paatsch, Leigh. "The Will To Fly is a surprisingly compelling story of triumph". Herald Sun. News Corp. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  12. Sharwood, Anthony. "The Will To Fly Featuring Australian Aerial Skier Lydia Lassila Is The Most Inspirational Movie of the Year". HuffPost. Retrieved 12 March 2016.
  13. Jeffery, Nicole. "Australia's Winter Olympic hopes ramped up". The Australian. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  14. Turnball, Samantha. "Snowless Lennox head to become Winter Olympic training ground with ski jump ramp". ABC News. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  15. Gulluan, Scott. "Sally Pearson credits aerial skier Lydia Lassila as key motivation for comeback". Herald Sun. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  16. "Lassila movie inspired Sally Pearson". SBS News. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  17. "The film that inspired my comeback". BBC World. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  18. Jeffery, Nicole. "World Athletics championships Sally Pearson, 21st Century Golden Girl". The Australian. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  19. "Lassila movie inspired Sally Pearson". Australian Olympic Committee. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
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