Kanbar Graduate Filmmaker Wins First Lifetime Movie Network Student Award

By Richard Pierce

    Liliana Greenfield-Sanders, a second year student in the Graduate Film Division of the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at the Tisch School of the Arts, recently took first place in the inaugural Lifetime Movie Network’s (LMN) Student Filmmaker Competition, co-sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter, New York Women in Film & Television, the William Morris Agency and Women In Film Los Angeles. 

      Greenfield-Sanders’ winning film, Anna, is about a peculiar young woman who struggles to connect with the people she encounters in the East Village of New York City.  It will premiere on LMN, the second most popular women’s network on basic cable, and will also be shown on LMN’s website, www.lmn.tv.  The filmmaker received a cash prize of $5,000 and will have the opportunity to meet with representatives of the William Morris Agency.  The film was also screened in October’s 2007 Hamptons International Film Festival.

      The LMN Student Filmmaker Competition is a new national contest designed to encourage and discover the next generation of female filmmakers.  Greenfield-Sanders’ first film, Ghosts of Grey Gardens, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005, was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, and made its television debut on PBS in 2006. An elite panel of producers, directors, executives, and actors from the Hollywood community, including Lauren Shuler Donner, producer of hits such as the X-Men movies and "You've Got Mail;" Gale Anne Hurd, producer of box office favorites such as the Terminator movies; Mimi Leder, veteran director of television series such as "ER" and "L.A. Law;" actress and producer Jennifer Lopez; and Catherine Olim, managing  director of PMKHBH Public Relations, assessed nearly 70 short films produced by female film students from across the country. The contest was open to all female film students, including executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors.