Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann are film writers and directors who have made five films together. Buck is also an actress and has directed the documentary '' Best Kept Secret'' solo. They are best known for the 2019 film ''

Sister Aimee ''Sister Aimee'' is a 2019 American biographical film written and directed by Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann and starring Anna Margaret Hollyman as Aimee Semple McPherson. It is a fictionalized account of McPherson's 1926 disappearance. ...

''.

Personal life and education

Buck and Schlingmann are married, having met 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 ...

. Both have a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

in film from Columbia, and it is in this program that they created their first short films together. The pair have won various grants for female directors. Schlingmann is from

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, and though she is German, she writes screenplays in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, saying that her "creative brain" is in this language.

Career

In her acting career, Buck played Det. G. Lynn Bishop in '' Law & Order: Criminal Intent'' and Amy on the comedy series ''

Stella Stella or STELLA may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media Films * ''Stella'' (1921 film), directed by Edwin J. Collins * ''Stella'' (1943 film), with Zully Moreno * ''Stella'' (1950 film), with Ann Sheridan and Victor Mature * ''Stella'' (1955 ...

''. She became interested in film production when starring on ''Big Apple''; the showrunner made the cast take writing workshops and encouraged her talents. She explained that it took her several years after this to follow through, because at the time there were very few actresses who had made the transition to behind the camera. She did not begin with writing, but took up

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

in the

cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ) is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about '' Kino-Pravda''. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subje ...

style where she was "basically writing in the edit room with 100 hours of footage". In 2013 she directed the

Gotham Award The Gotham Awards () are American film awards, presented annually to the makers of independent films at a ceremony in New York City, the city first nicknamed "Gotham" by native son Washington Irving, in an issue of ''Salmagundi'', published on ...

-nominated and

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...

-winning documentary film '' Best Kept Secret''. During the production of ''Best Kept Secret'', Buck applied and was accepted to Columbia's film program. The couple first made films together at Columbia University, directing two award-winning short films: ''Canary'' and ''The Mink Catcher''. The latter of these was shown at both

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado, during Labor Day, Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 51st Telluride Film Festival, 51st edition took place on August 30–September ...

and

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

. Their first feature film as a duo was slated to be an adaptation of the

young adult novel Young adult literature (YA) is typically written for readers aged 12 to 18 and includes most of the themes found in adult fiction, such as family dysfunction, substance abuse, alcoholism, and sexuality. It is characterized by simpler world build ...

''Need'' in 2016, as a thriller financed by Covert Media. This year they also began development of the feature film ''The Big D'', something which they were still developing in 2019. Both ''The Mink Catcher'' and ''The Big D'' are set in

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. Their breakthrough feature came a few years later in 2019's ''

'', which is loosely based on the story of

Aimee Semple McPherson Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (née Kennedy; October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee or Sister, was a Canadian-born American Pentecostalism, Pentecostal Evangelism, evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920 ...

. ''Sister Aimee'' screened at

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 ...

in 2019, and is planned to have a theatrical run and

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...

Personal life and education

Career

Production filmography

Buck acting filmography

Film

Television

References

External links