Female Directors of Riverdale
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Maggie Kiley is an award-winning director and executive producer. She directed the pilots and first block episodes for Dr. Death, Katy Keene, Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story and Breathe. Kiley started her career as an actress and later transitioned to writing and directing micro budget indies including her debut feature Some Boys Don't Leave (2009). Prior to directing pilots, Kiley directed many hours of television dramas for such prolific artists as Ryan Murphy, Greg Berlanti, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and Lauren LeFranc among many others.
An alumna of AFI's DWW, Film Independent's Directing Lab and several diversity programs, Kiley was signed to an exclusive overall deal at Warner Brothers Television.
She is married to composer/songwriter Matthew Puckett. They have two children.- Director
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Dawn Wilkinson is an award-winning director and screenwriter born in Montreal and raised in Toronto. She is an alumni of the 'Norman Jewison' Canadian Film Centre and a graduate of the University of Toronto.
Wilkinson combined comedy, fantasy and scathing social satire in her visually stylized short film Instant Dread (1998) which had its broadcast premier on CBC's Canadian Reflections.
Like her mentor 'Norman Jewison' (she was his apprentice on The Hurricane (1999)) Dawn Wilkinson is an actor's director who knows how to get the best performances out of her cast. Her short drama Girls Who Say Yes (2000) showcased the complicated emotional journey between two young women whose friendship ends in a menage a trois. Girls Who Say Yes (2000) had its premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2000.
In 2005 Dawn wrote, produced, and directed her first feature film Devotion (2005) which stars 'Jasmine Richards' Camp Rock (2008). Devotion (2005) is a coming of age story about eleven year old Alice Hope who struggles to deal with her mother's death and her father's alcoholism. The fictional film is based on her personal experiences growing up biracial in small town Ontario. Wilkinson explored the universal human themes of her specific ethnic experience by making visible the perspective and emotional journey of her characters. (Her mother is from Jewish Montreal and her father was born in Barbados, West Indies).
Devotion (2005) went on to win the the Star! Audience Award at Toronto's Reel World Film Festival in 2005 and Best Feature at the San Francisco Black Film Festival's Urban Kidz Program in 2005.
Dawn grew up watching films by 'Steven Spielberg' and shares his vision that movies can be entertaining and enlightening. Wilkinson's feature film script "Love Child" won Best Screenplay at the African American Women in Cinema Film Festival.
Dawn went on to direct the short films "Instant Dread", "Dandelions", "Wilderness", and "Girls Who Say Yes." Dawn was awarded the WIFT and DGC Emerging Television Director Award, and she directed many of Canada's top drama series including "Heartland", "Murdoch Mysteries", and "Degrassi", which she was nominated for a DGC award for Best Family TV Series, in addition to comedies "Sunnyside", and "Kim's Convenience" in which Dawn was nominated for a Best Directing DGC Award.
In addition to being a member of the Directors Guild of Canada, and the Writers Guild of Canada, Dawn became a member of the Directors Guild of America and has went on to directed a number of hit television series. Some of the shows she has directed include: Empire (2015), How to Get Away with Murder (2014), All American (2018), All American: Homecoming (2022), Locke & Key (2020), Nashville (2012), Dynasty (2017),Greenleaf (2016), Riverdale (2017), Power Book II: Ghost (2020) and the Starz series Step Up: High Water (2018) (Season 3) in which Dawn served as executive producer and director for numerous episodes.
Dawn received rave reviews for Hallmark's TV movie A Nashville Christmas Carol (2020) was filmed during the height of the global pandemic. In 2022 Dawn Wilkinson directed the BET+ Original film Block Party (2022) the first ever Juneteenth Family Comedy. The film is the first of its kind to have a theatrical, streaming, and linear release in the same month of its release.- Director
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Pamela Romanowsky is known for The Adderall Diaries (2015), Dash & Lily (2020) and Riverdale (2017).- Director
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Rachel Talalay was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents, Paul and Pamela, moved to Baltimore to work/teach at Johns Hopkins when she was 6 years old. After graduation from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, she met Director John Waters and entered the movie business as a production assistant on his 'Polyester', starring Divine. She worked on the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films as assistant, production manager, producer and culminated with directing "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare". From there she continued her directing career, moving into television, and working on a wide variety of projects from family entertainment "Wind in the Willows" to Horror "Supernatural" to Comedy "Ally McBeal". In 2014 she became the first American and seventh woman to direct "Doctor Who".- Director
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Anders weathered a rough childhood and young adult life which not only encouraged an escapist penchant for making up characters but also an insider's sympathy for the strong but put-upon women who people her films. Growing up in rural Kentucky, Anders would always remember hanging onto her father's leg at age five as he abandoned her family. Traveling frequently with her mother and sisters, Anders would later be raped at age 12, endure abuse from a stepfather who once threatened her with a gun, and suffer a mental breakdown at age 15. Venturing back to Kentucky from Los Angeles at 17, she would soon move to London to live with the man who would father her first child. Upon her return to the US, Anders finally began to pick up the pieces of her life. She enrolled in junior college and later the UCLA film school and managed when a second daughter came along. Enchanted with _Wim Wenders_' films, she so deluged the filmmaker with correspondence that he gave her a job as a production assistant on his film Paris, Texas (1984). After graduating from UCLA, Anders made her feature writing and directing debut, Border Radio (1987), a study of the LA punk scene, in collaboration with two former classmates. Her first solo effort, Gas Food Lodging (1992), telling of a single mother and her two teenage daughters, and her followup, My Crazy Life (1993), looking at girl gangs in the Echo Park neighborhood of LA where Anders settled, have shown her to be a deeply personal filmmaker who has used her own experience to make grittily realistic, well-observed, gently ambling studies of women coming of age amid tough, sterile social conditions.- Producer
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Ellen S. Pressman is known for Thirtysomething (1987), L.A. Law (1986) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).- Director
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Lee Rose started as a member of both The Ensemble Studio Theater and The Los Angeles Actors Theater before moving into film and television. She worked for many years in production and then started to write scripts . Lee went on to produce many of the movies she wrote, before moving into directing. Her first film as a director was invited to the Chicago film festival and was based on the civil rights case Sipes vs McGhee . She has won multiple awards including the GLAAD media award ...and The GLAAD fairness award and The Gay and lesbian centers Fairness award along with being a Humanitas finalist. She has and continuous to direct many different genres , from Grace and Frankie to Star Trek.....- Director
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Cherie Nowlan is known for Introducing the Dwights (2007), Marking Time (2003) and Lucinda, 31 (1995).- Director
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A Berkeley-born daughter of Chinese-Malaysian and Vietnamese heritage, Jennifer Phang is a graduate of the MFA Directing program at the American Film Institute.
Her sophomore feature Advantageous won a Jury Prize at Sundance 2015 and was based on her award winning Futurestates short Advantageous (2012) Her award-winning feature film "Half-Life" premiered in 2008 at Sundance and Tokyo International, screened at SXSW, and was distributed by the Sundance Channel.
The film was then nominated for a 2016 Film Independent Spirit Award. Advantageous (2015) was the feature adaptation of Phang's short film by the same name, originally commissioned by ITVS's FutureStates anthology series. Phang is one of six women selected for the 2016 Women at Sundance Fellowship. She was selected for the 2016 Warner Bros. TV Directors' workshop and is being personally mentored by Emmy-winning producer/director Michelle MacLaren (Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones.) Additionally Phang is also a recipient of the inaugural San Francisco Film Society Women's Filmmaker Fellowship and Grant.
Jennifer also wrote and directed "Glass Butterfly," a visual effects-intensive narrative music video.- Producer
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Julie Plec was born on 26 May 1972 in Park Forest, Illinois, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for The Vampire Diaries (2009), Legacies (2018) and Cursed (2005).- Director
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- Additional Crew
- Script and Continuity Department
- Script and Continuity Department
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Alexandra La Roche is known for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), The X Files (1998) and Eureka (2006).- Director
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Tawnia McKiernan is known for Blindspot (2015), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008) and Warehouse 13 (2009).- Director
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Roxanne Benjamin is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. She is known for directing the horror films Body at Brighton Rock and There's Something Wrong with the Children and producing the horror anthology films V/H/S, V/H/S/2 and Southbound. She also wrote and directed segments of the horror anthologies Southbound and XX.
Roxanne Benjamin was born and raised in Bradford, Pennsylvania. She began her film career producing V/H/S and its sequel V/H/S/2. Benjamin wrote and directed segments for Southbound and XX. She also wrote and directed her first feature film, Body at Brighton Rock, and has worked as a director on such television series as Creepshow, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Nancy Drew, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and One of Us Is Lying. Her second feature film There's Something Wrong with the Children is due in 2023.
In July 2021, Benjamin signed on to direct an American remake of the Spanish horror and thriller film La Cueva titled Fall Into Darkness.
She is very reserved about her personal and private life.- Director
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Catriona McKenzie is a critically-acclaimed, award-winning Indigenous Australian director and writer of both Film and Television.
Raised in Sydney, McKenzie studied screenwriting and directing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. McKenzie's film, 'Satellite Boy,' which she wrote, directed and produced, won multiple awards at prestigious festivals including the Berlinale, and was nominated for the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Award (AACTA) for Best Film. McKenzie received her second AACTA nomination for her series 'Kiki and Kitty.'
Equally adept at drama and comedy, McKenzie has shot pilots for Australia's ABC and SBS networks and has directed episodes for Hulu, Netflix, NBC, Freeform and all of Australia's major broadcasters throughout her prolific career.
A member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Australian Directors Guild, McKenzie is a recipient of the ADG/DGA Finders Series Award.
Dedicated to developing emerging filmmakers, McKenzie has mentored in various film education initiatives including the Sundance Native Lab.
Before her career in Entertainment, McKenzie played rugby, swam for Australia, started a circus and sought out her birth parents in the midst of her pursuit of a Ph.D. McKenzie credits her upbringing and wide-ranging life experience with developing her keen eye for people and their stories. When McKenzie is not directing, writing, or producing, she enjoys spending time with her son, beekeeping, and restoring classic cars.- Director
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- Script and Continuity Department
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Alexis Ostrander is an award-winning and Emmy nominated director. Since graduating from Syracuse University, she has worked consistently in film and television, starting out in documentaries before segueing into narrative storytelling. In 2014 she was a participant in the 40th annual AFI Directing Workshop for Women.
Alexis received the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant, Creative District Grant, Impact First Films Grant, and The Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors Foundation Grant to enable her to make her first short film, THE HAIRCUT, premiering at AFI Fest in 2014. It has since played over 45 festivals, garnering 13 awards. In 2016 Alexis was selected for the Ryan Murphy Half Foundation Mentorship Program and subsequently directed the penultimate episode of AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ROANOKE for FX. She was a participant in the Fox Filmmakers Lab and Fox Global Directors Initiative and was a drama fellow for the apprenticeship program on HOMELAND.
Alexis was one of five directors in the inaugural Warner Bros. Emerging Film Directors Workshop, leading her to direct the grounded sci-fi short film, SENSUM, which premiered on HBO Go. After completing the 2017 Warner Bros. Television Directors' Workshop, she has gone on to direct over 30 episodes of television including RIVERDALE, SHADOWHUNTERS, THE ARRANGEMENT, DEADLY CLASS, PEARSON, SUPERGIRL, SERVANT, SWAMP THING, IMPULSE, CONDOR, SEAL TEAM, NANCY DREW, SWEET TOOTH, CRUEL SUMMER, TRUTH BE TOLD, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, THE CONSULTANT and MAYFAIR WITCHES. In 2018 Alexis directed the pilot episode of LIGHT AS A FEATHER on Hulu, for which she received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Digital Drama Series.
In January 2020, The Alice Initiative named Alexis one of twenty "Emerging Female Directors" in The Hollywood Reporter. She is currently in development on a tv series for SB Projects, CEDE for Star Thrower Entertainment, MEMPHIS DYNAMITE for Range Studios and RED ROSE CREW for The Gotham Group, which she is set to direct and executive produce. She has written a guest post for Indiewire: "Here's Why Female-Driven Films Are Important Right Now."
Alexis is represented by CAA and Range Media.