Ian Olds is an American film director. His directing credits include the documentary Occupation: Dreamland, which follows the 1/505 company of the 82nd Airborne Division in Fallujah, Iraq in early 2004 during the Iraq War. Olds also created the documentary Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, which depicts the working relationship between American journalist Christian Parenti and his Afghan colleague Ajmal Naqshbandi during the War in Afghanistan.

Occupation: Dreamland won a 2006 Independent Spirit Award.[1] Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi earned Olds the Best New Documentary Filmmaker award at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival[2] and won Best Feature-Length Documentary at the 2009 Madrid International Documentary Film Festival. The film was nominated for a 2009 Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.[3] HBO Documentaries acquired rights to the film.[4]

In 2012 Olds and actor James Franco co-directed the film Francophrenia: (or: Don't Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is), which repurposes footage taken of Franco on the set of the American soap opera General Hospital.[5]

Olds has also directed several short narrative films that were screened at the Sundance Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

Olds edited Franco’s split-screen feature adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying, which premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.[6]

Olds was awarded a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship,[7] a 2011 San Francisco Film Society/Hearst Screenwriting Grant,[8] and a 2006 Media Arts Fellowship sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.[9]

Olds received his MFA from Columbia University’s Film Division in 2006. He was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2009[10] and was a 2011 Fellow at the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab.[11]

Filmography

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References

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  1. ^ "2013 Twenty-Eight Years of Nominees & Winners" (PDF). Film Independent Spirit Awards. 7 November 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 March 2014. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  2. ^ "Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi | Tribeca Film Festival". tribecafilm.com. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  3. ^ "The Emmy Awards - - 31st Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards nominations". emmyonline.org. Archived from the original on 2013-12-29. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  4. ^ "HBO: Fixer: Home". hbo.com. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  5. ^ "'Francophrenia': James Franco Takes on Media and His Critics, Reveals Career Master Plan". hollywoodreporter.com. 17 April 2012. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  6. ^ "AS I LAY DYING - Festival de Cannes 2014 (International Film Festival)". festival-cannes.fr. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  7. ^ "2013 Fellows in the United States and Canada - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". gf.org. Archived from the original on 2014-03-31. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  8. ^ "San Francisco Film Society Awards 2011 SFFS/Hearst Screenwriting Grant to Ian Olds and Paul Felten for Script Development of 'The Western Habit' - San Francisco Film Society". old.sffs.org. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  9. ^ "MCN Press Release: 22 Media Artists Given Fellowships". moviecitynews.com. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  10. ^ "25 New Faces - Filmmaker Magazine - Summer 2009". filmmakermagazine.com. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
  11. ^ "SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES TWELVE FEATURE FILM PROJECTS FOR JANUARY SCREENWRITERS LAB" (PDF). 15 December 2010. Retrieved 2014-07-07.