Allison Anders

Allison Anders (born November 16, 1954) is an American independent film director whose films include Gas Food Lodging, Mi Vida Loca and Grace of My Heart. Anders has collaborated with fellow UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television graduate Kurt Voss and has also worked as a television director. Anders' films have been shown at the Cannes International Film Festival and at the Sundance Film Festival. She has been awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant as well as a Peabody Award.

Early life Anders was born in Ashland, Kentucky, to mother Alberta "Rachel" Anders (née Steed) and father Robert "Bob" Anders. She has two sisters, one of whom, Luanna Anders, starred in her first film, Border Radio. Her paternal side has ancestry that traces back to the Southern Hatfield family and, more distantly, to George Washington's spy, Caleb Brewster, while her maternal side includes another Washington spy, Abraham Woodhull. After her mother moved her and her sisters to Los Angeles, Anders suffered a mental breakdown at the age of 15 and was hospitalized. When she came out of the psychiatric ward, she was placed into foster care but ran away. She hitchhiked across the country, at one point ending up in jail. After turning 17, Anders dropped out of her Los Angeles high school and moved back to Kentucky. She later moved to London with the man who fathered her first child.

In her early 20s, Anders moved back to Los Angeles with her daughter and attended a junior college, Los Angeles Valley College, while working odd jobs. Due to constant relocation as a child, Anders had not had a steady education. She said that growing up, most of her time was spent watching TV and going to movie theaters. Inspired by the films of Wim Wenders and other filmmakers, Anders applied to UCLA Film School. During her time at UCLA, Anders produced her first sound film. Wenders attended the screening. In 1986, Anders got her B.A. in Motion Picture-Television from UCLA. She said that after writing the script she shared it with her father, and was able to have a relationship with him again. The film told the story of three musicians who stole money owed to them from a job and then fled to Mexico. The story is set amid the Los Angeles punk-rock scene of the 1980s.

Anders' second feature, the 1992 film Gas Food Lodging, earned her a New York Film Critics Circle Award and National Society of Film Critics honors for Best New Director; and nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Director. Actress Fairuza Balk won a Spirit Award for her role in the film. The film also won the Deauville Film Festival Critics Award and was also nominated for the Golden Bear at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. Gas Food Lodging is a coming-of-age story about a truck stop waitress and her two daughters, three vibrant, restless women in an isolated Western town. The screenplay was loosely adapted by Anders from the novel Don't Look and It Won't Hurt by Richard Peck. Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach had their first collaboration composing a song for the film, "God Give Me Strength," and were nominated for a Grammy Award.

In the late 1980s, Anders had become friends with members of pop group Duran Duran, and frequently inserted small references to the band in her films (character names, posters on walls, and so on). In 1999, after bassist John Taylor had left Duran Duran and was beginning to launch an acting career, she and Voss co-wrote and co-directed Sugar Town, about the Los Angeles film and music industry. The film starred several musical friends of Anders', including Taylor, X singer John Doe, Spandau Ballet bassist Martin Kemp, and singer/actor Michael Des Barres. Sugar Town followed the interconnected lives of a handful of power brokers, wanna-bes and has-beens. Gwen (played by Jade Gordon), a self-centered would-be rock star, is working as an assistant to production designer Liz (Ally Sheedy); when Gwen discovers Liz has a date with a music producer (Larry Klein), any loyalty she has to her boss disappears. The film received two Independent Spirit Award nominations, for Best Film and Best Newcomer (Jade Gordon). The film also won Anders and Voss the Fantasporto award for Best Screenplay.

Her 2001 autobiographical film, Things Behind the Sun, deals with the long-term aftermath of rape. It was released on the Showtime cable TV network. The film earned an Emmy nomination for actor Don Cheadle as Best Supporting Actor; and three Independent Spirit Award nominations: Cheadle for Best Supporting Actor, Kim Dickens for Best Actress, and Best Film. Anders and co-writer Kurt Voss also received a nomination for an Edgar Award. The film was awarded the SHINE Award as well as the Peabody Award. Things Behind the Sun was inspired by an experience Anders had in 1967 when she was raped by a group of boys. Anders actually shot some of the film in the same location in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where the gang rape occurred. The film was funded by a Kickstarter campaign.

In 2013, Anders released the Lifetime-produced TV movie Ring of Fire, a June Carter Cash biopic that featured the musician Jewel. The film was inspired by John Carter Cash's book, Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash.

Television Anders began directing shows for broadcast and cable television in 1999, including several episodes in the second and third seasons of Sex and the City, as well as episodes of Grosse Pointe, Cold Case, The L Word, Men In Trees, The Mentalist, and What About Brian?

In 2011, she directed an episode of the John Wells production, Southland, which involved a car chase scene. Anders directed an episode of Turn: Washington's Spies, which was especially interesting to her because she has distant relatives on both sides of her family who were spies for George Washington.

Anders and her musician daughter, Tiffany Anders, started the Don't Knock the Rock Film and Music Festival in 2003 in Los Angeles.

In 2006, she appeared in the road-trip documentary Wanderlust. Anders has also contributed to the web series Trailers from Hell.

In 2013, Anders bid on and won a rock and roll record collection formerly owned by the actress Greta Garbo. She created a website called "Greta's Records" to curate and share the collection of 50 records.

In development / past projects Bastard Out of Carolina The House of Forgetting adaptation at Interscope Communications Drive-Away Dykes Quanah Parker project at AMC Networks with writer Terry Graham 6 Foot Rule project at DeFina Film Productions Greta Garbo and John F. Kennedy project Paul Is Dead project at Cineville

Long-term associations Anders counts filmmaker Wim Wenders as a mentor. She started as a fan, sending him letters and music, and Wenders eventually responded. Anders said that she created a faux grant that she "won" so that she and at least one other friend could study under Wenders on location for his film Paris, Texas. They have been friends for over 30 years.

Teaching In 2003, Anders became a Distinguished Professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she teaches in the Film And Media Studies Department one quarter each year. She has taught courses on topics including autobiographic writing, rock and roll films, and music supervision. 1988: Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature – Border Radio 2001: Independent Spirit Award for Best Film nomination – Things Behind the Sun 2002: Spirit of Silver Lake Award from the Silver Lake Film Festival 2002: Peabody Award for distinguished achievement and meritorious service – Things Behind the Sun 2013: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing of a Drama nomination – Ring of Fire

Personal life Anders has three children. Her two daughters are Tiffany Anders, a musician and music supervisor, and Devon Anders. Her son, Ruben Goodbear Anders, was fostered (and eventually adopted) by the Anders family for three years after the death of his mother, Nica Rogers, who appeared in Mi Vida Loca. Tiffany was named after the film Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Filmography

Film

Television 1999: Sex and the City – director, 4 episodes: "The Caste System", "La Donleur Exquise", "Drama Queen", "The Big Time" 2000: Grosse Pointe – director, 2 episodes: "Boys on the Side", "Star Wars" 2004: Cold Case – director, 1 episode: "Volunteers" 2006: The L Word – director, 1 episode: "Last Dance" 2006: Men in Trees – director, 1 episode: "Power Shift" 2006: What About Brian – director, 2 episodes: "What About First Steps", "What About the True Confessions?" 2011: Southland – director, 2 episodes: "Sideways", "Fallout" 2013: The Mentalist – director, 1 episode: "The Red Barn" 2014: Orange Is the New Black – director, 1 episode: "You Also Have a Pizza" 2014: Gang Related – director, 1 episode: "Invierno Cayó" 2014: The Divide – director, 1 episode: "Facts Are the Enemy" 2014–2015: Murder in the First – director, 4 episodes: "Pants on Fire", "Blue on Blue", "The McCormack Mulligan", "Nothing But the Truth" 2015: Turn: Washington's Spies – director, 1 episode: "False Flag" 2015: Proof – director, 1 episode: "Memento Vivere" 2017: Time After Time – director, 1 episode: "Suitcases of Memories" 2017: Riverdale – director, 2 episodes: "Chapter Seven: In a Lonely Place", "Chapter Fifteen: Nighthawks" 2017: Graves – director, 1 episode "The Opposite of People" 2018: Sorry for Your Loss – director, 1 episode: "Visitor" 2019–2023: Mayans MC – director, 2 episodes: "Kukuklan" and "My Eyes Closed and Then Filled on the Last of Childhood Tears"

Works and publications Anders, Allison. "On Claudia Weill's film 'Girlfriends.'" Sight & Sound. Vol. 25 (10). London: British Film Institute, October 2015.