Introduction
Anna Boden is an American film director, cinematographer, editor, and screenwriter best known as the co-writer of the 2006 film Half Nelson. She is known for her collaborations with fellow filmmaker Ryan Fleck.
Life and career
While studying film at NYU, Boden met Fleck on the set of a student film. Soon they began dating and decided to collaborate. (Other sources indicate that Fleck was at NYU and Boden was at Columbia.) Together they made the short documentaries Have You Seen This Man? and Young Rebels before they wrote and he directed the short film Gowanus, Brooklyn, a sample feature aiming to attract potential financiers to their undeveloped script Half Nelson. The short won a prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Boden and Fleck then made the film Half Nelson, starring Ryan Gosling, in 2006.
Boden and Fleck have since co-written and co-directed the 2008 film Sugar, which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, about a 19-year-old Dominican who immigrates to the United States to play minor league baseball. They wrote the screenplay together after doing extensive research about Dominican immigrants who arrive in America to play in minor league towns.
Filmography
Director
- Have You Seen This Man? (2003)
- Gowanus, Brooklyn (2004)
- Young Rebels (2005)
- Sugar (2008)
- It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010)
- Mississippi Grind (2014)
Writer
- Gowanus, Brooklyn (2004)
- Half Nelson (2006)
- Sugar (2008)
- It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010)
- Mississippi Grind (2014)