Biography

Christina Kallas is an award winning filmmaker, whose tense ensemble drama, 42 Seconds of Happiness (2016) won a number of awards and nominations in regional and international festivals in the US and abroad, granting her among others a nomination for the Emerging Director Award in St. Louis. The US independent filmmaker with a remarkable past as a Berlin-based writer and producer - and credits such as John Hurt starring political thriller, The Commissioner; BBC Films and Polygram's hooligan drama, I.D.; Toronto and Berlin selection hybrid narrative/doc Mothers; and European TV series hit, Danni Lowinski, has just completed her sophomore feature film as a director, The Rainbow Experiment, which was one of five works-in-progress selected for the prestigious US in Progress Paris program in 2017. Christina Kallas was President of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) from 2005 to 2013. She was honored for her outstanding contribution to the international writers community, including the European Screenwriters Manifesto and the World Conferences of Screenwriters. She has written several books on the art of writing for the screen including Creative Screenwriting: Understanding Emotional Structure (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2010) and Inside the Writers Room: Conversations with American TV Writers (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2014). She also wrote a monthly column for Ted Hope's blog Hope for Film, and was featured in Filmmaker Magazine and in Directed by Women. She served on several festival and European film subsidy juries, and is a member of the European Film Academy, the German Film Academy, the Writers Guild of America East, and the Film Fatales Narrative NY Chapter. She was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and graduated from FU Berlin with a double master's degree in film and music studies and a PhD in film studies. She has previously taught at the German Film and Television Academy DffB, and is currently teaching at Columbia University's and Barnard College's Film Programs.