AMY STARBIN studied drama at literature at Hartwick College and Oxford University before earning an MFA in film production from the USC School of Cinema-Television. Her thesis short MILK AND HONEY won awards for cinematography and acting, as well as a special nod for screenwriting from CineWomen.
Her feature script KELLY & CAL, inspired by her own brush with post-partum depression, became a dramedy starring Juliette Lewis and premiered at SXSW, where director Jen McGowan won the Gamechanger Award and IFC picked the film up for distribution. The script was mentioned in rave reviews from Variety to the New York Times and was selected for inclusion in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Library.
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As a director, Amy is passionate about genre storytelling as a medium for opening new paths of understanding. She loves taking audiences on visually powerful, emotionally visceral journeys that engage curiosity and compassion to make unexpected connections. Her recent short, LOS ALIENS, tells the story of an encounter between a migrant family making a desert border crossing and the extraterrestrial being invested in their fate. It played festivals as diverse as the First Contact Film Festival (where it won an award for Best Supporting Actor) to the prestigious Uppsala Short Film Festival, where it was included in the competition for Best Children’s Short.
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Recent feature writing projects include the LGBT drama LILIAN, with Alfred Molina attached to make his directorial debut; CONTROL GROUP, an emotional sci-fi set in the near future with Jennifer Carpenter attached to produce and star; and ​PURPLE SQUIRREL, with director Luc Walpoth, a thriller about a brilliant scientist whose dinner with an eccentric billionaire goes very wrong when a nuclear attack traps both men and their families in an underground bunker – where the worst of their human impulses emerge.
Born and raised in the Catskills, she now lives in the foothills outside Los Angeles with her husband, son, and two cats Zaius and Zuul.
