BRIAN M. CASSIDY + MELANIE SHATZKY

The films of Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky have screened at the Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Locarno and Rotterdam film festivals, The Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery of Art, Le Musée de la Civilisation, ICA London, The Museum of the Moving Image, Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art, and Lincoln Center. In 2012, they were nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director and won Best New Director from Quebec/Canada at the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM). They've held fellowships at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. Their feature debut, Francine, starring Academy Award winner Melissa Leo, was called "raw, intimate and observed with penetrating acuity" by The Hollywood Reporter and was selected as a New York Times Critics' Pick. Their documentary, The Patron Saints, was called "one of the most powerful Canadian documentaries of recent years" by POV Magazine.

Cassidy & Shatzky also maintain an active photography practice and have had their work featured in GUP Magazine, Der Greif, ZEITmagazin, It's Nice That, Wired, FlakPhoto, and Slate, among others. In 2015, The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) invited the duo to guest curate "A Photographer's Eye: Photography & The Poetic Documentary", a special program about the intersection of photography and documentary film, which was showcased at La Cinémathèque Québécoise. Both Cassidy & Shatzky hold an MFA from The School of Visual Arts in NYC.