Education
Heller studied theatre at University of California, Los Angeles and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Heller studied theatre at University of California, Los Angeles and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
She has received attention as the writer and director of the feature film starring Belorussian Powley, Alexander Skarsgard, and Kristen Wiig. Is Heller"s debut film, that she both wrote and directed, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2015. The film later received a limited release in August 2015.
lieutenant is based on the 2002 graphic novel titled: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner.
The film stars Belorussian Powely as Minnie, a 15 year-old girl living in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1976 who begins an affair with her mother"s 35 year-old boyfriend Monroe. Before adapting the graphic novel to a film script, Heller had adapted the novel into an off-broadway play.
She was selected as a 2012 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow and 2012 Sundance Directing Fellow, where she had submitted the script for the Sundance writer and director workshop. She then proceeded to direct a teaser for the film using grant money from the writer"s workshop.
Heller states that she was interested in first turning the novel into a play and later a film because the character of Minnie is a young woman who is confident in her sexuality, and that Heller wanted to portray her because of a lack of films in which young women are represented in such a way.
Heller is also credited with writing a pilot for American Broadcasting Company"s The Big Apple and a movie for Disney, titled Renegade X.