Unnamed Road, Sherman Oaks, CA 91401, United States
In her early 20s, Anders enrolled in junior college, Los Angeles Valley College while working odd jobs.
Gallery of Allison Anders
Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Anders applied to the University of California at Los Angeles Film School, where she produced her first sound film and in 1986, got her bachelor's degree in Motion Picture-Television.
Career
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Allison Anders, Britta Morgan, Caitlin Mccarthy and Michael des Barres
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Gallery of Allison Anders
Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
In 2003, Anders became a Distinguished Professor at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Anders applied to the University of California at Los Angeles Film School, where she produced her first sound film and in 1986, got her bachelor's degree in Motion Picture-Television.
(This highly-acclaimed film tells the story of a strugglin...)
This highly-acclaimed film tells the story of a struggling single mother, Brooke Adams, as she attempts to guide her teenage daughters, Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk, through the difficulties of growing up in a desolate New Mexico truck stop.
(Riveting tale about an aspiring singer, Edna Buxton (Deni...)
Riveting tale about an aspiring singer, Edna Buxton (Denise Waverly) wonderfully played by Illeana Douglas, who sacrifices her own singing career to write hit songs that launch the careers of other singers.
(In the wake of a sudden loss, Eddy skips town leaving his...)
In the wake of a sudden loss, Eddy skips town leaving his friends to mourn for him. A vagabond musician, Eddy runs until there is nowhere left to run to but home.
Allison Anders is an American film director, producer and screenwriter, mostly known for her films Gas Food Lodging, Mi Vida Loca and Grace of My Heart and resides in Santa Barbara, California.
Background
Ethnicity:
Anders' paternal side has ancestry that traces back to the Southern Hatfield family and, more distantly, to George Washington's spy, Caleb Brewster, while her maternal side includes another Washington spy, Abraham Woodhull.
Mary Allison Anders was born on November 16, 1954, in Ashland, Kentucky, to mother Alberta (Steed) Anders and father Robert Anders. Growing up in rural Kentucky, Anders would always remember hanging onto her father's leg at age five as he abandoned her family. Travelling frequently with her mother and four 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. When she came out of the psychiatric ward, she was placed into foster care but ran away. She hitchhiked across the country, at one point ending up in jail. After turning 17, Anders dropped out of her Los Angeles high school and moved back to Kentucky. She later moved to London with the man who fathered her first child.
Education
In her early 20s, Anders moved back to Los Angeles, where she enrolled in junior college, Los Angeles Valley College while working odd jobs. Due to constant relocation as a child, Anders had not had a steady education. Inspired by the films of Wim Wenders and other filmmakers, Anders applied to the University of California at Los Angeles Film School, where she produced her first sound film and in 1986, got her bachelor's degree in Motion Picture-Television.
Enchanted with Wim Wenders films, Anders so deluged the filmmaker with correspondence that he gave her a job as a production assistant on his film Paris, Texas (1984). Two years later, she also wrote a script called Lost Highway that she devoted to her father. However, Anders' debut as a film director was in 1987 with the punk music-heavy Border Radio that was co-written and co-directed with Kurt Voss and Dean Lent and was made while they were at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Anders' second feature was in the 1992 film Gas Food Lodging, a coming-of-age story about a truck stop waitress and her two daughters, three vibrant, restless women in an isolated Western town, which won many awards and honours. It was then followed by her next film, Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life) that was about girl gangs in the poor Hispanic Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles, where Anders lived. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993 and saw wide release in 1994. The story features a female perspective on growing up in the inner city.
Anders' 1996 film, Grace of My Heart, was a musical drama executive produced by Martin Scorsese, about a songwriter (played by Illeana Douglas) and her career over several years, including work in the early 1960s in music publishing and production offices, a setting based on the Brill Building.
In 1999, Anders began directing shows for broadcast and cable television, including several episodes in the second and third seasons of Sex and the City, as well as episodes of Grosse Pointe, Cold Case, The L Word, Men In Trees, The Mentalist, and What About Brian? The same year, Anders and Kurt Voss co-wrote and co-directed Sugar Town, about the Los Angeles film and music industry. The film starred several musical friends of Anders', including Taylor, X singer John Doe, Spandau Ballet bassist Martin Kemp, and singer/actor Michael Des Barres.
In 2001, Anders continued her career with the autobiographical film, Things Behind the Sun, that deals with the long-term aftermath of Ander's rape. It was released on the Showtime cable TV network and was shot in the same location in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where the gang rape occurred.
In 2003, Anders became a Distinguished Professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she still teaches in the Film And Media Studies Department one quarter each year. She has also taught courses on topics including autobiographic writing, rock and roll films, and music supervision.
In 2011, she directed an episode of the John Wells production, Southland, which involved a car chase scene. Anders directed an episode of Turn: Washington's Spies, which was especially interesting to her because she has distant relatives on both sides of her family who were spies for George Washington.
Anders' 2012 film, Strutter, co-directed with Kurt Voss, completed a loose trilogy of films about Southern California musicians that began with Border Radio and Sugar Town. The film was funded by a Kickstarter campaign.
In 2013, Anders released the Lifetime-produced TV movie Ring of Fire, a June Carter Cash biopic that featured the musician, Jewel. The film was inspired by John Carter Cash's book, Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash.
Among the recent Ander's works are the documentary, Rock N Roll Mamas, and the 2013 film, I Believe in Unicorns. The same year, Anders interviewed 94-year-old actress and Hollywood legend Marge Champion, who appeared at a 2013 Hollywood film festival screening of 1968 cult film The Swimmer, which starred Burt Lancaster. The interview was featured among behind-the-scenes supplementary material on a 2014 Blu-ray/DVD release of the film by Grindhouse Releasing/Box Office Spectaculars Blu-ray/DVD restoration of the film.
Allison Anders is best known as an independent filmmaker who is notable for her stores about women capable of caring for themselves. She directs true to life films featuring women who smart, resourceful, gritty, and strong. Her stories do not deal with glamour girls. They are about working class people, women in relationship to men, and women trying to care for their children without a male partner.
Ander's major works include such films as Gas Food Lodging, Mi Vida Loca, Grace of My Heart, Sugar Town, Things Behind the Sun, and Ring of Fire.
Her film, Border Radio, was nominated for Best Feature of 1988 by the Independent Feature Project for Best First Feature. In 2007, it was given a special release on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection and was lauded as groundbreaking independent cinema.
The 1992 film, Gas Food Lodging, earned her a New York Film Critics Circle Award and National Society of Film Critics honours for Best New Director; and nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Director.
Her film Sugar Town received two Independent Spirit Award nominations, for Best Film and Best Newcomer (Jade Gordon). The film also won Anders and Voss the Fantasporto award for Best Screenplay.
Anders' 2001 autobiographical film, Things Behind the Sun, earned an Emmy nomination for actor Don Cheadle as Best Supporting Actor; and three Independent Spirit Award nominations: Cheadle for Best Supporting Actor, Kim Dickens for Best Actress, and Best Film. Anders and co-writer Kurt Voss also received a nomination for an Edgar Award.
Anders and her musician daughter, Tiffany Anders, started the Don't Knock the Rock Film and Music Festival in 2003 in Los Angeles. In 2006, she also appeared in the road-trip documentary Wanderlust. Anders has also contributed to the web series Trailers from Hell.
In 2013, Anders bid on and won a rock and roll record collection formerly owned by the actress Greta Garbo. She created a website called "Greta's Records" to curate and share the collection of 50 records.
Quotations:
"Theory is important. It breaks down the language of cinema and shows us how to create meaning."
Interests
Artists
Wim Wenders
Connections
Anders is single and has three children. Her two daughters are Tiffany Anders, a musician and music supervisor, and Devon Anders. Her son, Ruben Goodbear Anders, was fostered (and eventually adopted) by the Anders family for three years after the death of his mother, Nica Rogers.
