Laramie Dennis

I made my directorial debut at 16, in pre-tech boom San Francisco, with an autobiographical stage production steeped in heartbreak and punk rock. I went on to spend a decade in New York directing and developing new plays, most notably at Jim Simpson and Sigourney Weaver’s Flea Theater, where I was a resident director, and at “the downtown powerhouse” Soho Rep, where I co-founded and chaired (for six seasons) the Soho Rep Writer Director Lab. Now based in Los Angeles, my primary focus is film, though my background in theater continues to inform my directing style. I prioritize working closely with my actors and my cinematographer to capture grounded performances and uncover emotional truth. Where in the Hell, a dialogue-driven, dry comedy set in a semi-post-apocalyptic world, marks my feature film debut as a writer and director. Life on sMars, a feature project inspired by a real-life NASA experiment, earned me a spot at THROUGH HER LENS: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program, along with a development grant from The Tribeca Film Institute. With sMars, I made finalist for the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund, the SFFILM Sloan Fellowship, and the Women in Film Production Program. My shorts have screened at venues including the Vancouver International Film Festival and the Short Film Corner at Cannes, and have been presented and distributed by Boyish, Shorts International, and Sprint. As a union script supervisor for features and episodic television, I often work behind the scenes as well.