Biography
Short Bio
Joanna Priestley has produced, directed and animated 21 award winning films about relationships, plants, magic, menopause, abstraction and prison. She has had retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Center for Contemporary Art (Warsaw, Poland) and the Stuttgart Animation Festival (Stuttgart, Germany).
Priestley received an MFA Degree and the Louis B. Mayer Award from Cal Arts and has received felllowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, the MacDowell Colony, Fundación Valparaíso and Creative Capital.
She was founding President of ASIFA NW, co-founder and co-director of FILMA: Women's Film Forum and Regional Coordinator of the Northwest Film Center and is also a medicinal herbalist and plant lover.
Long Bio
Joanna Priestley has made 21 award winning films about subjects dear to her heart: relationships, plants, magic, menopause, abstraction and prison. Her work has won awards in film festivals all over the world, including the National Educational Film Festival (First Prize), National Independent Film and Video Festival (Grand Prix), Big Muddy Film Festival (Best of Festival), Canadian International Animation Festival (Special Merit Award), Athens Film and Video Festival (First Prize) and the Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival (First Prize).
Retrospectives of Priestley's films have been shown on PBS (USA) and the BBC (UK) and at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), American Cinematheque (Los Angeles, CA), Center for Contemporary Art (Warsaw, Poland), Stuttgart International Animation Festival (Germany), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN) and High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell Colony (Elodie Osborn Fellow), American Film Institute, Djerassi Foundation (Rothenberg Award) and the Fundación Valparaíso in Spain and was recently awarded the Media Arts Fellowship from the Regional Arts and Culture Council. Her films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Priestley studied painting and printmaking at Rhode Island School of Design and at UC Berkeley, where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honors. She also attended California Institute of the Arts where she received an MFA Degree and the Louis B. Mayer Award. Her background includes Coordinator of the Northwest Film and Video Festival, Director of Strictly Cinema, Editor of "The Animator", Regional Coordinator of the Northwest Film Center, Co-Director and Co-Founder of FILMA: Women's Film Forum and founding President of ASIFA Northwest.
Priestley teaches animation workshops worldwide and she has run an apprenticeship program since 1986. She has served on numerous juries and selection committees, including Stuttgart International Animation Festival, Canadian International Animation Festival, Texas Filmmakers Production Fund, Big Muddy Film Festival and the Annie Awards. Priestley also enjoys medicinal herbalism, gardening and Burning Man. Her films are available at www.primopix.com and www.microcinema.com.
Joanna Priestley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia