Courtney Hunt (born 1964) is an American Film director and screenwriter. She is best known for directing ''
Frozen River'', which won the Grand Jury Prize at the
2008 Sundance Film Festival,
and was nominated for two
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
.
Early life and education
Hunt was raised in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee by a single mother. Hunt attended
The Field School in
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
and graduated from
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...
before following her mother's educational path and attending law school at
Northeastern University
Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...
.
She then graduated in 1994 from New York's
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
in film when she realized law was not an interest for her.
Even though law was not a field she would be going into, it gave her a new perspective on the world. In an interview with Film Catcher on
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
, Hunt stated that law school gave her the opportunity and experience of attending co-op jobs that allowed her to work for a federal judge and a criminal defence firm. Her husband would give her murder appeals from which she learned about dialogue and point of view from the transcripts which built onto her knowledge of film and how to write screenplays. Shortly after graduating from her film class, Hunt began to write and develop the story for her film ''Frozen River'', by researching the
Mohawk people
The Mohawk, also known by their own name, (), are an Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous people of North America and the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the Five Nations or later the ...
.
Career
''Frozen River''
Hunt directed and wrote the screenplay for ''
Frozen River'', a film starring
Melissa Leo,
Misty Upham, and
Charlie McDermott
Charles Joseph McDermott Jr. (born April 6, 1990) is an American retired actor and folk musician. After making his film debut in '' The Village'' (2004), McDermott had his breakout with a starring role in the crime drama film '' Frozen River'' ...
in 2008.
''
Frozen River'' received 2 nominations at the
81st Academy Awards, an
Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award (also known as an Oscar) for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best ...
nomination for Hunt, and an
Best Actress nomination for Leo.
Hunt is a film screenwriter and director, but she also wants to be seen as a director for hire so that filmmakers could see her in control of both aspects.
''Frozen River'' was originally a short film and it first premiered in 2004 at the
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...
.
The development and writing of ''Frozen River'' was a lengthy process for Hunt. She began writing the film after her graduation from college, but put the story away since she was not convinced that she had found the right angle for the story at that moment. Many years later, she turned her initial idea into a poem and enlarged it into a screenplay for a short film and then for a feature-length film.
At first, her idea of the story was going to be about the Mohawk People trafficking cigarettes across the Canada–US border, but it then became a story about smuggling illegal immigrants from Canada into America. Hunt has said in an interview with Women and Hollywood that this film is based on a real situation where the smugglers drive across the St. Lawrence River when it is frozen.
In this film, she believes that she is able to show people rural communities that they may have forgotten about. ''Frozen River'' was an independent film that had achieved commercial success at the box-office in the United States, as well as in France and Spain.
The film was pushed back by a few years due to the 9/11 attack on the
World Trade Center. She did not want to make and release the film around this time because she believed that people would not sympathize with these immigrants or smugglers and that the audience members would see it as a way for people to help others into the country.
''The Whole Truth''
She directed ''
The Whole Truth'' (2016), a thriller film starring
Keanu Reeves,
Renée Zellweger
Renée Kathleen Zellweger ( ; born April 25, 1969) is an American actress. The recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Renée Zellweger, various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and four ...
,
Gugu Mbatha-Raw,
Gabriel Basso and
Jim Belushi. Reeves is a defense attorney in the film which follows the court case of a murder. The film was originally supposed to star ''
Skyfall
''Skyfall'' is a 2012 spy thriller film and the twenty-third in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. The film is the third to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond and features Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva, ...
'' actor,
Daniel Craig, but he abruptly dropped out of the film. The lead role then went to Reeves.
Personal life
Hunt is married to Donald Harwood, who raised nearly $1 million to fund the film ''
Frozen River''.
She has a daughter.
On her views of women in the film business, she believes women can be talked out of becoming a director. She finds that it is easier for women to do smaller roles on the film set rather than become a director.
Influence
Hunt has said in an interview with David Jenkins that Argentinean director
Lucrecia Martel is a filmmaker who inspires her. She met Martel at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023.
The festival has acted ...
.
She has also cited
Paper Moon as an influence.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Courtney
1964 births
Film directors from Tennessee
American women film directors
Living people
American women screenwriters
Sundance Film Festival award winners
The Field School alumni
21st-century American women
Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
Sarah Lawrence College alumni
Northeastern University School of Law alumni