Faculty Bio

Caran Hartsfield Department of Graduate Film Tisch Asia Email: caranh@yahoo.com

Courses

Aesthetics

Education

MFA, New York University Tisch School of the Arts

Biography

Caran Hartsfield began her career in the arts in theater.  After studying theater for over 6 years, she redirected her interest toward film and later went on to receive her MFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.  

Caran’s first feature screenplay, Bury Me Standing, was developed at the Cannes Film Festival’s Cinefoundation Residency in Paris.  It later went on to win the 1st Place Richard Vague NYU Alumni Screenwriting Award, the IFP Gordon Parks Screenplay Award, The Media Arts Grant (formally known as the Rockefeller Grant), the US Sundance/NHK award and the Sundance Annenberg Award.  Bury Me Standing was work-shopped at the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and later went on to the Sundance Filmmaker’s Lab.  The project recently participated in the 2009 Cannes Film Festival’s L’Atelier and has a slated cast with Mos Def, Kerry Washington, and Alfre Woodard.

Caran has won numerous honors and awards for her short films, Double-Handed, kiss it up to god, and KING including:  2nd Place at Cannes Film Festival - Cinefoundation, the Director’s Guild of America Award, the Martin Scorsese Fellowship, the Spike Lee Fellowship, the Warner Bros Grant, and the New York Foundation for the Arts Film Fellowship (among others).  Caran is currently in development with her next feature Ziga Ziga and is in post-production on her segment of the anthology feature film State of the Union: The Obama Film Project.