Kimberly Ane Peirce (born September 8, 1967) is an American filmmaker, best known for her debut feature film, '' Boys Don't Cry'' (1999), which won Hilary Swank her first

Academy Award for Best Actress The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a lead ...

. Peirce's second feature, '' Stop-Loss'', was released by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

in 2008. Her third film '' Carrie'' was released on October 18, 2013. In addition to directing and writing, she is a governor of the

Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...

and a National Board member of the

Directors Guild of America The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is an entertainment guild that represents the interests of Film director, film and Television director, television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad. Founded as the Screen Dir ...

Early life and education

Peirce was born on September 8, 1967, in

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg ( ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,099 as of 2020, Harrisburg is the ninth-most populous city in Pennsylvania. It is the larger of the two pr ...

, to Sherry and Robert A. Peirce (originally Materazzi), who owned a construction company. When Peirce was three, she and her family moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, and at age eleven, they moved to

Miami, Florida Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, where she eventually graduated from Miami Sunset Senior High School. While attending the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, Peirce moved to

Kobe, Japan Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

for two years to work as a photographer and teach English. She then moved to New York City to work as a photography intern for ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine under photojournalist

Alfred Eisenstaedt Alfred Eisenstaedt (December 6, 1898 – August 23, 1995) was a German-born American photographer and photojournalist. He began his career in Germany prior to World War II but achieved prominence as a staff photographer for ''Life'' magazine af ...

. She returned to the University of Chicago to graduate with a degree in English and

Japanese Literature Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboring Asian literatures, most notably China and its literature. Early texts were often written in pure Classical Chinese or , a Chinese-Japa ...

. Peirce then enrolled at

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 ...

to pursue an MFA in film.''Stop-Loss'' press notes, Paramount Pictures While at Columbia, Peirce completed an experimental short film called ''The Last Good Breath'', where two star-crossed lovers are caught amidst a world war in which one lover always lives and the other always dies. The short screened as part of the Leopards of Tomorrow program at the

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

Career

''Boys Don't Cry''

While at Columbia working on an idea for her thesis film about a female soldier in drag during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, Peirce read a ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

'' article about the life and death of

Brandon Teena Brandon Teena (December 12, 1972 – December 31, 1993) was an American transgender man who was raped and later, along with Phillip DeVine and Lisa Lambert, murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska, by John Lotter and Tom Nissen. His life and death are ...

, a

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

man from Nebraska who was brutally raped and murdered when his gender history was discovered. Switching from her original thesis project, Peirce traveled to

Falls City, Nebraska Falls City is a city in and the county seat of Richardson County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 4,133 at the 2020 census, down from 4,325 in 2010 and 4,671 in 2000. History The site of Falls City is located on the north side of ...

, where she conducted research, interviewed a number of people from the town, including Lana Tisdale (Brandon's girlfriend) and Lana's mother, and attended the murder trial of the two homicide suspects. The subsequent

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

she made for her thesis in 1995 was nominated by Columbia faculty for a Princess Grace Award, and received an Astrea Production Grant. After film producer Christine Vachon saw a version of the short, Vachon and Peirce began working on a feature film. In order to fund the writing and development of the feature, Peirce worked as a paralegal on the midnight shift, as a 35mm film projectionist and received a New York Foundation for the Arts grant. With help from the Sundance Institute's Filmmakers, Writers and Producers Labs in 1997, Peirce completed the feature film in 1999. Peirce said, “To make a movie like Boys, I had to be classically trained in film, but I also had to be schooled in terms of gender and sexual identity.” Upon its release, '' Boys Don't Cry'' became one of the most acclaimed and talked about films of the year, opening at the Venice, Toronto and New York Film Festivals and earning many honors, including the Best Actress Oscar, Golden Globe, Independent Spirit award and many other awards for the film's star, Hilary Swank.

Chloë Sevigny Chloë Stevens Sevigny ( ; born November 18, 1974) is an American actress. Known for her work in independent films with controversial or experimental themes, her accolades include a Golden Globe Award, in addition to a nomination for an Acade ...

was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, a Golden Globe and won the Independent Spirit Award, among many other awards for her role as Lana Tisdale. The film received the International Critics prize for Best Film at both the London and Stockholm Film Festivals, the Satyajit Ray Foundation Award for Best First Feature at the London Film Festival, and was named "Best American Feature," by

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, who served as a film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1977 to 1999, serving as chief critic for the last six years, and then a literary critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, M ...

. Peirce won honors as Best Debut Director from the National Board of Review and Best New Filmmaker from the Boston Society of Film Critics.

''Stop-Loss''

In 2005, inspired by the real-life stories of American soldiers, including her own brother, fighting in Iraq and coming home, Peirce began work on '' Stop-Loss''. Peirce traveled the country interviewing soldiers about their experiences and worked with novelist and screenwriter Mark Richard to turn the research into a screenplay. Released in 2008, ''Stop-Loss'' received positive reviews from critics. Peirce was honored with the Hamilton Behind the Camera True-Grit Directing Award as well as the Andrew Sarris Directing Awards for the film.The 2008 Behind the Camera Awards
In association with the film, Peirce created a website calle
SoundOff
and gave soldiers and their families cameras to record and share their stories and opinions. Shortly after the film's release, Peirce spoke before the National Press Club and members of Congress on behalf of Soldiers and the Stop-Loss Compensation Act, which financially compensated soldiers for multiple tours of duty served because of the stop-loss policy. The measure subsequently passed. Much of the inspiration for her two films was said to come from her love of ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American Epic film, epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling The Godfather (novel), 1969 novel. The film stars an ensemble cast inc ...

'': "It showed me that I can take that love of the gangster movie and I can screen it through a family drama. In both my movies family is really important, violence is really important. I'm really interested in the psychological and the authentic portrayal of violence—particularly violence that comes out of emotions. Before ''The Godfather'', I don't know that you could have such a violent psychological film that was that broadly entertaining."

''Carrie''

Peirce directed a

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...

of the 1976 horror film '' Carrie'', which was released on October 18, 2013. An adaptation of

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

's novel of the same name, it starred Chloë Grace Moretz in the lead role, with

Julianne Moore Julie Anne Smith (born December 3, 1960), known professionally as Julianne Moore, is an American actress and children's author. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in independent ...

and

Ansel Elgort Ansel Elgort (born March 14, 1994) is an American actor and singer. He began his acting career with a supporting role in the horror film '' Carrie'' (2013). He gained wider recognition for starring as a teenage cancer patient in the romantic d ...

in supporting roles. The film won the 2014 People's Choice Award for Favorite Horror Movie. It grossed at $35,266,619 in the US and Canada and at $84,790,678 worldwide.

Television

Kimberly Peirce has directed episodes of John Ridley's '' American Crime,'' AMC's '' Halt and Catch Fire'' and '' Turn'', WGN's ''

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

'', Bill Broyle's A&E History Channel's '' Six'', Joey Soloway's ''

I Love Dick ''I Love Dick'' is an epistolary novel with autofiction elements by American artist and author Chris Kraus. It was published in 1997 by Semiotext(e). ''I Love Dick'' merges fiction and memoir formats to explore the writer's psycho-sexual o ...

'', Justin Simien's '' Dear White People,''Starz' '' P-Valley, Game of Silence, Halt and Catch Fire, and Kidding.''

Other projects

On February 16, 2011, it was announced that Peirce would direct the crime thriller ''The Knife'', about two men from opposite sides of the law who must overcome their mistrust of one another and risk their lives in order to infiltrate the organization of a ruthless gang leader threatening to spread armed violence across Los Angeles and the urban centers of America. Peirce was also in negotiations to direct and executive-produce ''The Enclave'', a limited series for USA Network written by

Andre Jacquemetton Andre Jacquemetton is an American television writer and producer. He served as a producer for the first and second season of '' Mad Men''. He and his wife, Maria, co-wrote episodes of the first and second seasons. Alongside his colleagues on the ...

and

Maria Jacquemetton Maria Jacquemetton ( Mastras) is an American television writer and producer. She graduated from Lehigh University in 1983. She served as a producer for the first season of '' Mad Men'' and co-wrote, with her husband, Andre, three episodes of th ...

(''

Mad Men ''Mad Men'' is an American historical drama, period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on cable network AMC (TV channel), AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, with seven seasons ...

''). Peirce co-wrote the script for ''Silent Star'', a murder mystery about the 1922 death of Hollywood director

William Desmond Taylor William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner; 26 April 1872 – 1 February 1922) was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Cinema of the United States, Hollywood motion picture colony o ...

and the scandals that nearly destroyed the film industry. However, the project stalled. Peirce is set to direct a new Amazon movie titled ''This is Jane''. The storyline is about an activist in Chicago who is unsatisfied with the state of health services available in the US during the 1960s who forms a group that provides education and counseling for women seeking abortions.

Activism

Peirce is a founding member of ReFrame, an industry-wide effort to end discrimination against women and people of color in Hollywood as well as the head of the Diversity Committee for Directors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She gave the 2014 Yale Transgender Week keynote, the 2015 Outfest keynote, and the 2016 AFI Keynotes, and spoke at the 2017 Women's March in Park City. She received the GLAAD Media, Lambda Legal Defense, People for the American Way, Lesbian Anti-Violence Project and the 2013 OUTFEST Career Achievement Awards. In 2018, she was honored with a Women in Film award for her activism.

Personal life

Peirce is

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and

genderqueer Non-binary or genderqueer gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gender that is differ ...

Filmography

Short film Feature film Television

Appearances

* ''

This Film Is Not Yet Rated ''This Film Is Not Yet Rated'' is a 2006 American documentary film about the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system and its effect on American culture, directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Eddie Schmidt. It premiered at the ...

'' – Peirce talks about the trouble ''Boys Don't Cry'' had with the MPAA, particularly the censoring of the sex scenes. Peirce was frustrated over the fact that the MPAA wanted the sex scene between Brandon and Lana removed but were satisfied with the overall brutality and violence in the murder scene.Dick, Kirby (director). (2006). ''

''. Motion Picture (DVD).

IFC Films Independent Film Company (formerly IFC Films) is an American film production and distribution company based in New York City, New York. It is an offshoot of IFC (U.S. TV channel), IFC, owned by AMC Networks. It mainly distributes independent fil ...

* ''

Raging Bull ''Raging Bull'' is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Theresa Saldana, Frank Vincent and Nicholas Colasanto (in his final film role). The film ...

'' – 30th Anniversary Release, Special Features * ''

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

'' – Centennial Collection DVD, Special Features * ''

'' – The Coppola Restoration, Special Features, "The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't" * '' Queer for Fear'' – 2022 television mini-series includes interviews with Peirce

Awards and honors

* Second place, Canada International Film Festival – ''The Last Good Breath'' * Golden Award, Experiment Division,

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

– ''The Last Good Breath'' * First place, Suffolk Film Festival * Best Debut Director –

National Board of Review The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures is a non-profit organization of New York City area film enthusiasts. Its awards, which are announced in early December, are considered the first major harbinger of the film awards season that ...

* Best New Filmmaker –

Boston Society of Film Critics The Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC) is an organization of film reviewers from Boston, Massachusetts. History The BSFC was formed in 1981 as a society of film critics in the New England area. It was founded to make “Boston’s unique critic ...

* Young Hollywood Best Director and Best Screenwriter Awards * Las Vegas Film Critics Society Sierra Award, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay *

Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, author, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligraphy, calligrapher, and composer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influ ...

Award, 1999 * London Film Festival, FIPRESCI Prize * Stockholm Film Festival, Best Screenplay and FIPRESCI Prize * St. Louis International Film Festival, Audience Choice Award * Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Award, Best Limited Release * Lambda Legal Liberty Award * Hamilton Behind-the-Camera Directing Award *

Andrew Sarris Andrew Sarris (October 31, 1928 – June 20, 2012) was an American film critic. He was a leading proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism. Early life Sarris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Greek immigrant parents, Themis (née Kat ...

Directing Award * In 2019, Peirce's film '' Boys Don't Cry'' was selected by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

References

External links

*
Unofficial Kimberly Peirce Fan Site

Literature on Kimberly Peirce

Kimberly's interview with The Young Turks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peirce, Kimberly 1967 births Living people 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American LGBTQ people American LGBTQ film directors American LGBTQ screenwriters American non-binary entertainers American non-binary artists American non-binary writers Artists from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Film directors from Pennsylvania Jewish American screenwriters LGBTQ people from Pennsylvania Non-binary directors Non-binary screenwriters Non-binary Jews University of Chicago alumni