Ian Olds
Ian Olds was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work as director of both narrative and documentary films. Directing credits include Burn Country (winner Best Actor Award at the Tribeca Film Festival and released by Samuel Goldwyn Films), the Iraq war doc Occupation: Dreamland (short-listed for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and winner of the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award), and Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi (winner of top jury prizes at Tribeca and Madrid, acquired by HBO Documentary Films and nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism). Olds’ short films have screened at numerous festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Los Angeles and his feature work has been supported by a MacDowell Fellowship, the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, the San Francisco Film Society, a Princess Grace Award, and a Media Arts Fellowship sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Editing credits include Power (Sundance 2024), Slow Machine (New York Film Festival), As I Lay Dying (Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard) and Cul De Sac: A Suburban War Story (Toronto International Film Festival). He currently teaches directing at Columbia University’s graduate film program.
The MoMA PS1 show Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011 features works by artists who respond to the legacies of American military involvement in Iraq, beginning with the Gulf War in 1991.
Twenty-eight Columbia filmmakers participated at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, with several winning top honors, several won.
The Alumni Spotlight is a place to hear from the School of the Arts alumni community about their journeys as artists and creators.
Numerous Columbia filmmakers will screen this year at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The crop of films selected for this year’s Tribeca truly show the collaborative nature of the Columbia film program: Each film has multiple alumni and faculty working in all facets of production.