With over 45,000 people in attendance in 2016, Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the United States. So imagine how selective they must be in choosing what films make it into the festival. Now imagine winning the award for best documentary in 2004. Then submitting another documentary and winning the award again in 2009...and if that was not enough to keep you busy you have a full production company on the side.
That is the life of Ondi Timoner. Get the chance to ask her how she does it in a virtual Zoom call, along with some special memorabilia straight from her personal collection.
More about Ondi -
Ondi Timoner has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at the SundanceFilm Festival twice - for her 2004 documentary, DIG! and WE LIVE IN PUBLIC (2009).Both films were acquired by MoMA, NY for their permanent collection. Otheraward-winning features include: THE NATURE OF THE BEAST (1994), JOIN US(2007), COOL IT (2010) and BRAND: A SECOND COMING (2015). In addition todocumentaries, Ondi has also produced and directed music videos for The DandyWarhols, The Vines, Paul Westerberg, Lucinda Williams, Vanessa Carlton, The JonasBrothers, and Run DMC, among others. In 1999, Ondi was Grammy-nominated for BestLong Form Music Video for an EPK she directed about the band Fastball. In 2017, Ondicreated and produced the critically-acclaimed 10-hour nonfiction series JUNGLETOWNabout the building of "the world's most sustainable town" for Viceland.
Ondi wrote, directed, produced and edited her first scripted film, MAPPLETHORPE,starring Matt Smith which won an audience award at nearly every festival it played,including Tribeca, and was distributed theatrically in 2019.
Ondi has also produced & hosted BYOD (Bring Your Own Doc) for thelip.tv, creating300 episodes with top documentary filmmakers over five years. She is the Founder &CEO of A TOTAL DISRUPTION, an online network dedicated to telling the stories ofentrepreneurs & artists who are using technology to innovate new ways to live. Subjectsinclude Amanda Palmer, Shepard Fairey, Russell Brand, Moby, Jack Dorsey, KevinSystrom, and Tony Hsieh. Ondi has released two master classes for filmmakers, "LeanContent" with Eric Ries & "How to Make a Great Documentary (In My Opinion)." In2014, she gave a popular TEDxKC talk entitled "When Genius and Insanity Hold Hands"about why she tells the stories of "impossible visionaries." Ondi has produced & hostedWeTalk, a traveling talk show about the women shaping our culture with the mission oftaking #MeToo to #WeDo, since 2018.
Ondi is currently helming a new film called CONTROL OPTION ESCAPE, which looksthrough the eyes of scientists and artists at how technology is transforming our ways ofconnecting and loving, given the societal trend towards increasing physical isolation,accelerated by the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Ondi Timoner is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the DGA,the PGA, the International Documentary Association, Film Fatales and Women in Film.
