Kathleen Hepburn

Kathleen Hepburn is a Canadian screenwriter and film director. She first attracted acclaim for her film Never Steady, Never Still, which premiered as a short film in 2015 before being expanded into her feature film debut in 2017. The film received eight Canadian Screen Award nominations at the 6th Canadian Screen Awards in 2018, including Best Picture and a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Hepburn.

Hepburn garnered further praise for co-directing and co-writing The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019) with Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers. The film premiered at the 69th annual Berlin Film Festival and won three Canadian Screen Awards at the 8th Canadian Screen Awards in 2020, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Hepburn and Tailfeathers.

She was co-founder with Tyler Hagan of Experimental Forest Films.

Career Hepburn first attracted acclaim for her film Never Steady, Never Still, which premiered as a short film in 2015 before being expanded into her feature film debut in 2017. She was also nominated for the Directors Guild of Canada's DGC Discovery Award.

In 2018, she was one of eight women filmmakers selected for the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Apprenticeship for Women Directors program, alongside Halima Ouardiri, Kirsten Carthew, Alicia K. Harris, Allison White, Asia Youngman, Tiffany Hsiung, and Kristina Wagenbauer.

Her second full-length feature film, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, was co-directed with Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and premiered at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival. The film won the $25,000 Best BC Film Award at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival, the Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards for Best Canadian Film and Best Director of a Canadian Film, and the Toronto Film Critics Association's Rogers Best Canadian Film Award. It won three Canadian Screen Awards at the 8th Canadian Screen Awards in 2020, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Hepburn and Tailfeathers, and Best Cinematography for Norm Li. The film also won the Toronto Film Critics Association's $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award.

Filmography Year Title Director Writer Producer Ref. 2007 Kettle (short) 2010 It's Not as If We Haven't Been Here for a While... (short) 2011 A Land That Forgets (short) 2014 The Housekeeper (short) 2015 Benjamin (short) 2015 Never Steady, Never Still (short) 2017 Never Steady, Never Still 2017 His Name is Willy (short) 2018 Bathroom Rules (short) 2018 Honey Bee 2019 The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open 2020Perfumed Dreaming (documentary short) 2025The Well