Series

Dee Rees: Choosing The Hard Things

Regrettably, Dee Rees has cancelled her trip to Indiana on November 16 due to an unforeseen shift in her schedule around the release of her film Mudbound. IU Cinema's screenings of Mudbound (2017) and Pariah (2011) will continue as scheduled without her attendance. The Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Program on November 16 at 3:00 p.m. is cancelled.

IU Cinema is excited to be one of a very small number of venues given the opportunity to screen Mudbound theatrically before it premieres on Netflix on November 17. Regretting her absence, Dee Rees will provide a special video introduction to the film.  

An alumna of New York University’s graduate film program and the Sundance Screenwriting and Directing Lab, Dee Rees is a writer/director whose feature film Pariah premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Pariah was honored with Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Competition Excellence in Cinematography Award, the Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award, and the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Director. Rees chooses to create characters and worlds that we have not seen on screen before, often taking the hard path to deliver her stories.

In 2015, her film Bessie, starring Queen Latifah, premiered on HBO and won four Primetime Emmy® Awards. Her episodic television work includes episodes for Empire and Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, an upcoming science fiction television anthology series. Her new film, Mudbound, premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to much acclaim and will be available on Netflix. Rees has received several honors in recent years, including being named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and noted among The New York Times’ list of “Directors to Watch.” The success of Mudbound will certainly expand upon these accolades exponentially as Rees continues to tell audiences the hard stories that need to be told. Special thanks to Brian Graney, Walton Muyumba, and Netflix.