Olivia Newman

Olivia Newman is the director of the box office hit adaptation of the New York Times bestseller Where the Crawdads Sing for Sony. She is also set to direct and co-executive produce the series The Last Thing He Told Me for Apple through Twentieth, based on the mystery-thriller novel by Laura Dave and starring Jennifer Garner and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Olivia’s debut feature film, First Match, was financed and distributed by Netflix and premiered at SXSW in 2018. The film garnered her the Audience Award for Best Feature at the festival. 

Olivia is an alum of the prestigious Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs, and was chosen to be in the inaugural Female Forward program at NBC. She is also the recipient of the IFP/Durga Foundation Filmmaker Award, the Adrienne Shelly Foundation filmmaker grant, and the Maryland Filmmakers fellowship. Additionally, Olivia has received funding from the Sundance Institute, HBO, the Tribeca Film Institute, the San Francisco Film Society, and The Caucus Foundation, as well as support from IFP and Film Independent. Her short films have screened at dozens of festivals internationally including the New York Film Festival, Palm Springs International Shortsfest, and Aspen Shortsfest, and have been broadcast on PBS, Shorts HD, and TV4. Olivia received her MFA from Columbia University and her BA from Vassar College. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and two children, but still calls New York home.