67
by Lucia Davis ’04
Success in show business is notoriously
elusive. And in an industry dominated by
male executives, the odds have always
been longer for women. But recent rev-
elations about Hollywood’s pay gap and
a massive federal investigation into
discrimination against female directors
have brought these challenges into sharp
Young
director takes
HOLLYWOOD
by storm
“Photography is a very solitary art
form,” Bianco says of her transition from
photography to filmmaking. “I missed
working with people.”
She quickly shifted gears, changing
her major and taking jobs on various
independent films, including
Higher
Ground
and
Bachelorette
. She also
earned her first professional writing
credit on Martin Scorsese’s
Bleed for
This.
Meanwhile, in New Haven, Bianco’s
2011 graduation film, a short Spanish-
language road movie titled
Jornalera
,
received the Lamar Prize for the best
Film Studies thesis and the Pearson Prize
for the best American Studies thesis.
After writing and producing a series
of music videos for Beyonc
é
Knowles’s
Parkwood Entertainment in 2014, Bianco
was chosen as one of nine filmmakers
for the American Film Institute’s (AFI)
Women’s Directors Program fellowship.
The fellowship played a crucial part in
the making of
Share,
providing financial
support, gear, and editing suites.
“I don’t know that I would have taken
time off work and tried to raise $30,000
without the AFI infrastructure,” she says.
The AFI fellowship also brought Bianco’s
formidable talent into the spotlight, and
the industry took note. Both the Vice
television network and the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art enlisted her
services. The latter commission,
Pictur-
ing Barbara Kruger
, was also accepted
to South by Southwest (along with
Share
), a feat in and of itself, as the
festival rarely accepts two films by the
same director.
Bianco shows no signs of slowing
down. In addition to adapting
Share
into a feature-length screenplay
(which, thanks to her Cin
é
fondation
win, will automatically screen as a
Cannes’ Official Selection), Bianco has
several new ideas in development. She
spent the first two weeks of 2016 as
filmmaker-in-residence at Yaddo, the
prestigious artist community in Saratoga
Springs, N.Y., before heading to Utah
for the Sundance Institute’s Screen-
writers Lab, an immersive writers’
workshop. Stay tuned.
focus, which is what makes the ascent of
promising director and filmmaker Pippa
Bianco ’07 that much more impressive.
Recently identified by
Filmmaker
Magazine
as one of the “25 New Faces
of Independent Film,” the 27-year-old’s
first short film,
Share
, snagged awards at
a host of prestigious festivals. In addition
to taking home a Special Jury Recognition
Award at Austin’s South by Southwest,
Bianco won the top prize in the 2015
Cannes Film Festival’s Cin
é
fondation
Selection, the world’s highest-profile film
school student competition.
“St. Paul’s is where I started approach-
ing art as a form of study, rather than
hobby or outlet,” Bianco says. Beginning
with her Third Form “Vis Dis” require-
ment through a double concentration in
painting and photography as a Sixth Former,
Bianco dove headfirst into the SPS fine
arts curriculum. She quickly became a
fixture at Hargate, honing her skills in
the darkroom and hosting screenings for
the Film Society, which she founded. The
former arts building is also where Bianco
found her true calling behind the lens of
a camera.
“I was very much in love with photog-
raphy, which I attribute to [SPS teacher
Charlie] Lemay,” Bianco says. “He urged
us to go outside and take pictures, to
surprise him with the way we view the
world.”
Bianco also credits SPS fine arts fac-
ulty members, including Lemay and
Colin Callahan, for her rigorous method
of filmmaking.
“SPS took a very academic approach
to art,” she explains. “You study master-
works, familiarize yourself with master
artists, and hone your skills, starting with
the basics. With that foundation, you can
reproduce the process for making art.”
After graduation, Bianco matriculated
at Yale, drawn to the University’s re-
spected arts program. As a fine arts
major, she became enamored with the
investigative essence and sprawling
landscapes of road photography, which
is also how she fell in love with road
movies (films in which the main charac-
ter is traveling).
COURTESY PIPPA BIANCO ’07
