Kirsten Johnson

Director

October 12, 1965 (60 years)

Seattle, Washington, USA

Biography

Kirsten Johnson (born 12 October 1965, Seattle) is a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker. She graduated from Brown University in 1987, with a BA in Fine Arts and Literature. After two years in West Africa working on local fiction and documentary film projects, she attended the FEMIS (the French National Film School) in Paris. Her film "Cameraperson" premiered at Sundance 2016 and her short "The Above" premiered at 2015 New York Film Festival. Her work as a cinematographer appears in Oscar-…

Filmography

6.7

Cameraperson

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

7.1

Dick Johnson Is Dead

With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.

8.8

Deadline

In 2000, Illinois Gov. George Ryan ordered a moratorium on the death penalty after university students uncovered new evidence proving the innocence of 13 men on death row. This documentary follows the hearings held by a panel Ryan appointed to study the issue and interviews activists, scholars and prisoners, while examining the history of the American death penalty. As Ryan's time in office comes to an end, he must decide what steps to take to reform the judicial system.

9.0

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

James Forman, a 31-year-old public defender and son of a civil rights leader, provides representation for black youth in Washington, D.C., who can't afford their own attorneys in this riveting documentary that goes inside the criminal justice system. Director Kirsten Johnson's award-winning film also sheds light on the difficulties that ex-offenders face when trying to break the cycle of crime and imprisonment.

9.0

Bintou in Paris

A "fictional documentary" concerning the volatile topic of female excision, Bintou In Paris tells the story of a young Malinese mother faced with the critical decision of whether or not to excise her baby daughter.

6.3

The Above

A U.S. military surveillance balloon floats on a tether high above Kabul, Afghanistan. Its capacities are both highly classified and deeply mysterious.

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