Stephen Cone

Stephen Cone is an American filmmaker, best known for Henry Gamble's Birthday Party and Princess Cyd. He has received early career retrospectives on the Criterion Channel, Mubi, and at the Museum of the Moving Image, Berlin's Unknown Pleasures Festival and Manchester's Bigger Than Life.

Early life Cone was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in South Carolina. He moved to Chicago in 2004 and, in his words, taught himself to make movies "by making movies."

Career In 2006, Cone wrote, produced and directed his first short film Church Story, starring Isabel Liss, Bill McGough and Arian Moayed. In 2007, Cone followed with the short film Young Wives. A medium-length film, a metaphysical drama called The Christians, was completed in 2008 and featured performances by J. Kingsford Goode, Bill McGough, Arian Moayed, Sadie Rogers, Laurel Schroeder, Krissy Shields and Robert Belushi, oldest son of actor Jim Belushi.

Cone's feature film In Memoriam, was released in 2011, and follows a group of college students reenacting the last hours of two dead peers who fell to their deaths attempting to make love. In Memoriam was praised by film critic Roger Ebert as "a touching film." Cone later reflected on the effect Ebert's review had, writing:

Cone's third theatrical film, the coming-of-age drama The Wise Kids, also released in 2011, was a critical success. It also garnered praise from Ebert, Varietys Robert Koehler and Stephen Holden of The New York Times. The film was a Critics' Pick for The New York Times and won the Grand Jury Prizes for U.S. Feature and Best Screenplay at Outfest. It was subsequently released on cable/VOD and DVD by Wolfe Video. the film garnered praise from Newcitys Ray Pride and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, who gave the film 3½ out of 4 stars, and called it "a worthy follow-up to Cone's previous film." Black Box was later acquired by Devolver Digital Films for a late 2014 cable/VOD release.

Cone completed two unreleased experimental features in 2014, The Mystery of Life and This Afternoon, and in 2015 completed the coming-of-age drama Henry Gamble's Birthday Party. Henry Gamble was featured in The New York Times "Anatomy of a Scene" series, screened within BAMcinemaFest and BFI Flare, and was the winner of the Silver Q Hugo Award at the 2015 Chicago International Film Festival. His next feature film, Princess Cyd, appeared on Vanity Fairs Ten Best Films of the 2010s after appearing on multiple Best of 2017 lists, including IndieWire, Vulture, Vanity Fair, Vox and NPR, and screening at dozens of festivals worldwide, including the BFI London Film Festival, BAMcinemaFest, Frameline and the Maryland Film Festival. It was acquired for distribution by Wolfe Releasing.

Filmography YearFilmCredited DirectorCredited ProducerCredited WriterCredited Actor Credited Role Notes 2006 Church Story Short film 2007 Young Wives Short film 2008 The Christians 2011 In Memoriam Eric The Wise Kids Austin 2013 Black Box 2014 This Afternoon The Mystery of Life 2015 Henry Gamble's Birthday Party 2016 Show Yourself Daniel 2017 Princess Cyd