Annie Sundberg

What do ‘Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing’, ‘The Devil Came On Horseback’, ‘ Joan Rivers Joan Alexandra Molinsky was born on 8th June 1933 >> Read More... : A Piece of Work’, ‘The Trials of Darryl Hunt’ and ‘In My Father's House’ have in common? All these had female directors who managed to create unique content and amaze the audience. These are two wonderful ladies Annie and Ricki Stern. They are heading Break Thru production nominated by Emmy. She was making documentaries since her college days and landed into a task of associate producer for PBS series. She grasped major sustainable stuff at Telluride Film Festival and created some imperishable relationship with Pax Wassermann who works with the duo as a collaborator and editor. Her first act all on her own was ‘The Trials of Darryl Hunt’ which took almost 11 years to make and in that time, she with Ricki developed an Oscar-winning movie.

‘The Trials of Darryl Hunt’ was, by the way, the recipient of 20 film festival audience-choice awards including two in Bend Film Festival in 2006, the best documentary in Independent Spirit Awards and Seattle International Festival. ‘Burma Soldier’, another out-of-the league movie was premiered at Full Frame Festival in North Carolina where the duo went to receive Career Achievement Award in 2011. ‘Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work’ , a dangerously funny story about a 75-year Joan Rivers, is kept in high regard by both the directors. This interesting piece of work got awarded under US Documentary Prize for Best Editing in 2010 Sundance Film Festival and best documentary in Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards and Cinema Eye Honours Awards in 2011. They also directed a six-part series of The Fashion Fund in 2012 for Vogue.

They are rocking the show with their work and have worked quite a few times for the UN helping the world to achieve their Millennium Goals. She, with Ricki Stern, have produced movies with a dynamic theme. When she has once taken up a very small and innocent topic of depicting a father-son relationship in ‘In my father’s house’ (she is the writer as well) in 2015, she has responded to civil rights violation by speaking out to her people through her documentary ‘The End of America’ based on a book by Naomi Wolf in 2008. She was recognized by ‘Independent Spirit Awards’ under Documentary Competition in 2015 for a film depicting the importance of elders in a child life in ‘In my father’s house’.

Her recent direction could be seen in ‘Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing’ an illustrated retelling of terrorist attacks at Boston Marathon in 2013 picturing the complete setback like it was ‘real’ faced by the survivors through the news clips, interviews, home movies and much-needed passion in collaboration with The Boston Globe; so real that the film went on to receive Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the bombing. The film was made such that the onlookers take away a ‘hope’ of survival in the worst of conditions; the film has won ‘Tribeca Film Festival’ under the category Best Documentary in 2016. When an amputee due to the attack chooses to run at the climax of the movie, what more ‘hope’ can one ask to get going.

Initially, she took up making films because she couldn’t just stay outdoors on her own, she thinks a lack of resources bring out the best in a person, and it is either the lack of money or of time which brings out the best in her. Annie Sandberg and Ricki Stern are epic film-makers, churning out great movies as if they have a factory and a very versatile one given the ambidextrous movies they together have directed. They compete each year at the Sundance Festival and keep doing better and better with each year.

She believes in going into the characters to give the perfect pictures to her watchers, and thus they strike out everybody by her award-winning works. Her story shows what it takes to follow her passion and her awards (apart from the mentioned above) depicts the consequences of what happens when one actually follows their zeal with a full heart. She has received the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award, San Diego Film Festival’s Best Female Filmmakers Award, Adrienne Shelly Excellence’s Filmmaking Award and Lena Sharpe/Women’s Cinema Persistence of Vision Award–Seattle International Film Festival.