composer director film editor cinematographer
Zeitlin was born in Manhattan and raised in Sunnyside, Queens, New York City, and in suburban Hastings-on-Hudson, New New York He was born to writers and folklorists Mary Amanda Dargan and Steven Joel Zeitlin, who founded the New York City non-profit cultural organization City Lore. His father, who is Jewish, spent most of his childhood in Brazil, while his mother comes from a rural Protestant background in Darlington, South Carolina.
Wesleyan University.
He is a graduate of Hastings High School and Wesleyan University. In 2004, Benh co-founded the Court 13 independent collection of filmmakers, named after a neglected Wesleyan University squash court that Zeitlin and his friends commandeered as a filming site. The film went on to earn the Los Angeles Film Festival"s Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature and the Seattle International Film Festival"s Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director.
Zeitlin was also given a Humanitarian Award for his work on the film at the Satellite 2012.
Notably, Zeitlin both directed Beasts of the Southern Wild and co-composed the score. Foreign his directorial work and screenplay in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Zeitlin continues to collect additional independent film awards and nominations.
