Lucy Walker (director) - Life and Career - Film Career

Film Career

Lucy Walker is best known for directing four feature documentary films:Devil's Playground (2002), Blindsight (2006), Waste Land (2010) and Countdown to Zero (2010), as well as one documentary short film The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011).

The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom is described as "a visual haiku for Japan" documenting the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the survivors' struggle to survive and continue, and as a personal, poetic film about the ephemeral nature of life, and the process of healing after grief and loss. Walker was originally planning to be in Japan during the sakura cherry blossom season as she had always wanted to visit Hiroshima and had always loved photographing cherry blossoms and she had been invited to visit Japan for a press junket to support Countdown to Zero, which was being released by Paramount Pictures. However due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster the release of that film was postponed and the press junket cancelled. Initially Walker was concerned that it would be too difficult to film at that time, but then decided that it was a more important time than ever to make a film in Japan and to express solidarity and support for Japanese people and culture at such an extremely challenging time, and so she traveled to Japan with longterm collaborator cinematographer Aaron Phillips to shoot in March and April 2011, mostly in the devastated Tōhoku region, as well as in Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima. The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2011 and went on to screen at festivals including BFI London Film Festival, the Hamptons International Film Festival, DocNYC, and at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival where it was awarded both the Women In Film National Geographic All Roads Award and the Short Film Jury Prize: Non-Fiction on the same day that its Academy Award nomination was announced.

Waste Land premiered at Sundance 2010 and is the first film ever to win the Audience Awards at both Sundance and Berlin, as well as more than 30 other festival awards, and a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. On 3 December 2010, at the International Documentary Association Awards, presenter Morgan Spurlock handed Walker the Pare Lorentz Award and the Best Documentary Feature Award for WASTE LAND inside a garbage bag Previously Walker had worn a black garbage bag to the New York theatrical premiere of WASTE LAND on 26 October 2010. Waste Land is the uplifting story of Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and a lively group of catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, who find a way from the world's largest garbage dump in Rio de Janeiro to the most prestigious auction house in London via the surprising transformation of refuse into contemporary art. It was released theatrically in the USA by Arthouse Films, in Canada and in the UK by E1 Entertainment, and in Australia and New Zealand by Hopscotch Films.

Four years earlier, Walker's film Blindsight had been among the fifteen films competing for the Academy Award nomination in the Best Documentary Feature category at the 79th Academy Awards. Blindsight premiered at Toronto and won further Audience Awards at Berlin, Ghent, AFI and Palm Spring film festivals and nominations for Best Documentary at the 2007 Grierson Awards and British Independent Film Awards. It was released in theaters in several countries including and was short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Blindsight follows the emotional journey of six blind Tibetan teenagers who climb up the north side of Mt. Everest with their hero, blind American mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer, and their teacher, Sabriye Tenberken, who founded Braille Without Borders, the only school for the blind in Tibet. Both Waste Land and Blindsight won the Panorama Publikumspreis (Audience Award) at the Berlinale, making Walker the only filmmaker to have won the Audience Award at Berlin with two different films.

Devil's Playground, Walker's first feature documentary, examined the struggles of Amish teenagers during their period of experimentation (rumspringa). It premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win awards at the Karlovy Vary and Sarasota film festivals, three Emmy Award nominations for Best Documentary, Best Directing and Best Editing and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Documentary.

Countdown to Zero, an exposé of the present-day threat of nuclear terrorism and proliferation, also premiered at Sundance 2010 a day after the world premiere of Waste Land – the first time a director has had two feature documentaries in one year at this festival. It also played in the Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival before being released in the US by Magnolia Pictures, and being broadcast in the USA on The History Channel. In the UK it was released by Dogwoof, and in Japan it was released by Paramount and this release was postponed due to the disaster of 11 March. It was Executive Produced by Global Zero (campaign) and Jeff Skoll's Participant Media and contributed to the debate building to the ratification of the New START Treaty. Walker and her collaborators were nominated for 2010 Arms Control Person(s) of the Year for raising public awareness and understanding of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons in the 21st century and helping mobilize support for practical steps to reduce those danger.

Walker's directing credits also include Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues, for which she was twice nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing.

She was named one of the "Top 25 New Faces In Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine.