Biography
Kathleen Gyllenhaal is an award-winning filmmaker, former Vassar film professor, and co-founder of Upstream Pictures. After graduating from Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, Kathleen earned a B.A. in Film Studies from Yale with honors and distinction, winning the Yale Film Prize for her essay on feminist film. She was an Iowa Fellow at the University of Iowa, where she earned a dual M.A./M.F.A. degree in Film Studies / Film Production. From there, she moved to Paris as a Fulbright Fellow, where she wrote and directed an award-winning French-language short film based on the Franz Kafka short story, "The Interview".
During her time teaching film production at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Kathleen directed "Sita: A Girl from Jambu", which won the Artivist Film Festival Award for Best Documentary in Children's Advocacy, the Audience Award at the San Diego Women's Film Festival, the Award of Commendation from the Society for Visual Anthropology, and Best Documentary at the University Film/Video Association Jury Awards, Moondance Film Festival and Bare Bones International Film Festival. Kathleen also co-directed the award-winning "Beauty Mark", an educational documentary about a champion triathlete's struggle with anorexia.
While a professor at Vassar College, Kathleen returned to her Hawaiian roots and wrote and directed the Academy-qualifying short film, "Lychee Thieves", which won numerous awards and was an official selection at over 40 film festivals. "Lychee Thieves" was described by critic Burl Burlingame as "a film with a complex ethos, and beyond that, it's likely the most accurate depiction of life in Hawaii yet committed to film."
After obtaining tenure at Vassar, Kathleen left academia for Hollywood and co-produced the feature film "Grassroots", based on the true story of unemployed music critic Grant Cogswell's unlikely campaign for Seattle City Council. "Grassroots" stars Jason Biggs and Lauren Ambrose, and was released by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
Now based in Hollywood, Kathleen develops documentary and dramatic series and features, exploring themes of motherhood, multiculturalism, empowerment, and social change. She is the writer/director of "In Utero", an award-winning feature documentary that explores how emotional traumas endured by pregnant mothers can cause lifelong complications in their children. "In Utero" won the Breakthrough Documentary Award at the San Diego International Film Festival and a Social Media Impact Award (SIMA), and was screened at the prestigious CPH: DOX, Docville and Docs Against Gravity film festivals.
