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Kitty Green
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Kitty Green (born 1984)[1] is an Australian film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. The majority of her projects have been documentaries, while two have been narrative-driven stories. Green produced, directed, wrote, and edited the 2019 film The Assistant.[2][3][4][5][6] Her work often portrays heavy topics such as unsolved murders and politics.
Key Information
Early life and education
[edit]Kitty Green grew up in Melbourne.[1] She attended the Victorian College of the Arts, where she studied film and television. While attending the Victorian College of the Arts, Green made a short film entitled Spilt that was premiered at the Brisbane International Film Festival and screened at festivals internationally, earning a few awards in the process.[7] Soon after her graduation, Green began work at ABC on 'Art Nation' and 'Artscape'.[7] Green also traveled around Europe and described herself as "crashing on couches" during the beginning of her career.[8] She later went to work on a film entitled Van Diemen's Land in 2009, but only in the camera and electrical department, specifically in charge of stills.[9] A few years later she went on to work on her first documentary Ukraine is Not a Brothel, spending a year in her grandmother's native home, Ukraine.[10] During the filming she was arrested by the SBU and faced what she described as "a ferocious media circus" when the film released.[11] She and two other protesters were forcefully taken and abducted by officers, and were held in a SBU office for lengthy interrogations. Green's friends and family were highly concerned about her disappearance, and say she is extremely lucky to have come out of the situation safely.[2]
Her film Ukraine Is Not A Brothel focuses on the Ukrainian feminist movement "Femen". The film won an AACTA award for Best Australian Feature Documentary. She also won an award for her short film The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul for Best Non-Fiction Short Film at the Sundance Film Festival.
Later on in 2017 Green moved to the United States to work on her documentary Casting JonBenét and currently resides there.[8]
Career
[edit]Soon after graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts, Green went on to work at ABC on 'Art Nation' and 'Artscape' where she shot, edited, and produced documentary content for national broadcast.[7] Later on she worked on Van Diemen's Land (2009) in the camera and electrical department.[9]
Green directed the following documentaries:
- Casting JonBenét (2017),
- Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013),
- The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul (2015).
She also helped on the documentary Austin to Boston as an editor in 2014.[9]
Green also directed The Assistant, a film about an assistant in the film industry who is faced with a moral dilemma in relation to the #MeToo movement.[12]
Her feature film The Royal Hotel was released in 2023, to positive reviews.[13]
Filmography
[edit]While it is unclear when Green released it, she did make a student film entitled Spilt.[7]
Documentary film
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Writer | Editor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Ukraine Is Not a Brothel | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2014 | Austin to Boston | No | No | No | Yes |
| 2015 | The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2017 | Casting JonBenet | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Feature film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | The Assistant | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2023 | The Royal Hotel | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Awards and nominations
[edit]Green did receive a few awards for her student film Spilt but an official list of nominations and awards are not currently available for this film.[7]
Green won an AACTA award for Best Australian Feature Documentary for the documentary film Ukraine Is Not A Brothel.[14]
Green also won Best Non-Fiction Short Film at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015 for the short film The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul.[14]
| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | AACTA Award | Best Feature Length Documentary | Ukraine Is Not a Brothel | Won |
| Best Direction in a Documentary | Nominated | |||
| Best Editing in a Documentary | Nominated | |||
| 2017 | Best Feature Length Documentary | Casting JonBenet | Won | |
| Best Direction in a Documentary | Nominated |
| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Cinema Eye Honors Award | Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking | The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul | Nominated |
| 2018 | Outstanding Achievement in Direction | Casting JonBenet | Nominated |
| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Venice Film Festival | Special Mention | Ukraine is Not a Brothel | Won |
| 2013 | London Film Festival | Grierson Award | Nominated | |
| 2014 | SXSW Film Festival | Audience Award | Nominated | |
| 2014 | Bushwick Film Festival | Best Documentary Feature | Won | |
| 2015 | AFI Fest | Grand Jury Prize | The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul | Nominated |
| 2015 | Berlin International Film Festival | Crystal Bear | Nominated | |
| 2015 | Sundance Film Festival | Short Film Grand Jury Prize | Nominated | |
| Short Film Jury Prize | Won | |||
| 2017 | Grand Jury Prize | Casting JonBenet | Nominated | |
| 2021 | Independent Spirit Awards | Best First Screenplay | The Assistant | Nominated |
References
[edit]- ^ a b Macnab, Geoffrey (17 April 2020). "Kitty Green on making a film for the post-Weinstein world with The Assistant". Financial Times. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
- ^ a b Q 2020-02-03, CBC radio , Interview with Kitty Green.
- ^ Folkenflik, David. "Director Kitty Green On Her New Film, 'The Assistant'". NPR.org. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
- ^ CBC News (3 February 2020). "Kitty Green's new film The Assistant will make you see sexual misconduct in Hollywood in a whole new way". CBC News.
- ^ Culture; Movies (6 February 2020). "Writer/director Kitty Green on her of-the-moment film The Assistant | National Post". National Post. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ Phillips, Michael (6 February 2020). "In 'The Assistant,' filmmaker Kitty Green stays just outside the room where it happens. For a reason". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ a b c d e "Kitty Green". Film Platform – Educational Rights and Screening Licenses. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
- ^ a b Macnab, Geoffrey (17 April 2020). "Kitty Green on Making a Film for the Post-Weinstein World with The Assistant". Financial Times. ProQuest 2391075445.
- ^ a b c "Kitty Green". IMDb. Retrieved 7 December 2021. [better source needed]
- ^ "Kitty Green". www.jmcacademy.edu.au. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
- ^ "Ukraine Is Not a Brothel: A documentary on revolutionaries". Vimeo Blog. 24 March 2016. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
- ^ Powell, Pamela (6 February 2020). "Director Kitty Green breaks down moral complexities of 'The Assistant': "We know what's going on behind that door"". FF2 Media. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
- ^ "Ozark star Julia Garner's new movie debuts with 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating". Digital Spy. 5 September 2023.
- ^ a b "Casting JonBenet". www.berlinale.de. 2017. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
External links
[edit]Kitty Green
View on GrokipediaKitty Green (born 8 August 1984) is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and editor known for documentaries and narrative features that scrutinize institutional environments and interpersonal power dynamics.[1] Born in Melbourne to artist parents, with her mother having emigrated from Ukraine, Green studied film and television at the Victorian College of the Arts before gaining recognition with her debut documentary Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013), which chronicled the feminist activist group Femen.[2][3]
Her 2017 documentary Casting JonBenét, a stylized examination of the unsolved murder of child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey through interviews with local actors, won the 2018 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Best Feature Documentary and earned her a Sundance Institute fellowship in nonfiction filmmaking.[4][5] Green's transition to narrative fiction includes The Assistant (2019), depicting a single day in the life of a production company employee amid executive misconduct, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, and The Royal Hotel (2023), a thriller about backpackers working in a remote Australian pub, for which she received an Australian Film Critics Association nomination for Best Director.[6][7]
Early life and education
Upbringing and early influences
Kitty Green was born in 1984 in Melbourne, Australia, to parents Janina Green, a Ukrainian émigré and photographer known for her feminist explorations of domesticity, and Peter Green, an art and media teacher pursuing a PhD on Hegel.[3] The family home fostered a creative environment, with frequent photography and video art exhibitions shaping her early surroundings.[3] Green's mother profoundly influenced her thematic interests, as Janina's photographic work on women and gender dynamics instilled an early awareness of female representation that permeated Green's later films.[8] From childhood, her mother exposed her to arthouse cinema via VHS tapes, including works by Michael Haneke and Andrey Zvyagintsev, which Green credits for providing a rigorous home education in cinematic depth: "My mother got me to watch [Michael] Haneke [and Andrey Zvyagintsev] films very young... I had a very good education at home as to what cinema was."[3] Her father's instruction in camera operation and editing techniques complemented this, enabling Green to produce her initial films at home during the transition from childhood to adolescence.[3] Both parents actively supported her burgeoning filmmaking pursuits, recognizing her aptitude amid their own artistic vocations: "My parents are very creative people... Both my parents could see I was interested in filmmaking and they encouraged me."[3]Academic background
Green studied filmmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in Melbourne, Australia, where she focused on narrative filmmaking over a three-year program.[9] She graduated from the institution at age 21, having been born in 1984.[10] The VCA, known for its emphasis on practical training in film and television production, provided foundational skills in directing, editing, and screenwriting that informed her early career trajectory.[6] Following graduation, Green transitioned into professional roles such as editing at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, applying her academic training to documentary and narrative projects.[11] No further formal academic pursuits beyond her VCA studies have been documented in her professional biographies.[12]Professional career
Entry into filmmaking and documentaries
Kitty Green's professional entry into filmmaking occurred through documentary work, beginning with her feature debut Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013), which she directed, wrote, produced, and edited. The film examines the Ukrainian feminist activist group FEMEN, known for topless protests against patriarchy, sex tourism, and political corruption, following its members over a year embedded in Ukraine—Green's grandmother's native country—amid internal conflicts and external pressures from authorities.[13][4] Premiering at the 70th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2013, the documentary screened at over 50 festivals worldwide, including SXSW, and received distribution in multiple countries, marking Green's initial recognition in international cinema circuits. Producers included Michael Latham and Jonathan auf der Heide alongside Green, with financing sourced independently, reflecting her hands-on approach to low-budget, observational nonfiction.[4][14] Building on this, Green directed Casting JonBenet (2017), a hybrid documentary exploring the unsolved 1996 murder of child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey through unconventional means: open casting calls in Boulder, Colorado, where local actors auditioned for roles depicting the case's principals, revealing community theories, obsessions, and divisions without rehashing evidence or naming suspects. The approach drew from Green's interest in collective memory and speculation, interviewing over 100 participants whose personal connections to the event surfaced unscripted narratives of guilt, intrusion, and unresolved trauma.[15][16] Released as a Netflix original on April 28, 2017, after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, Casting JonBenet garnered praise for its stylistic innovation—blending audition footage, reenactments, and verité interviews—while critiquing true-crime sensationalism, though some reviews noted ethical concerns over exploiting locals' amateur performances. This work solidified Green's reputation for probing social undercurrents via participatory documentary forms, transitioning her from activist-focused ethnography to American cultural autopsy before narrative features.[15][17]Shift to narrative features
Green initially trained in fiction filmmaking at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, where she produced short films before entering the documentary realm due to available opportunities.[18] Her documentaries Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013) and Casting JonBenét (2017) established her reputation, but she sought to return to narrative work to better explore structured emotional narratives and subtle power imbalances that documentaries often overlook.[19][10] The shift culminated in The Assistant (2019), Green's first narrative feature, which she conceived as fiction from inception to emphasize micro-aggressions in a single day within a film executive's office, drawing from her post-production assistant experience and #MeToo revelations.[20][19] She interviewed dozens of real assistants to compile authentic daily routines and workplace dynamics, approaching the script as a composite of lived experiences rather than individualized stories, while structuring the film to heighten the impact of incremental tensions unavailable in observational documentary formats.[20][21] Green cited fiction's capacity for emotional immersion and precise control over pacing—such as amplifying small moments of discomfort through sound design and repetitive tasks—as key advantages over documentaries, which she found limited in conveying full systemic pressures.[21][18] This transition required proving her directorial chops via documentaries to secure funding and festival slots, like Venice, before narrative projects gained traction.[10] Building on The Assistant's success, Green continued with The Royal Hotel (2023), adapting a documentary about Scandinavian backpackers into a scripted thriller examining isolation and male aggression in remote Australia, further blending her documentary research methods with fictional escalation for heightened realism.[10]Recent and upcoming projects
Green's most recent directorial effort, The Royal Hotel (2023), marks her second narrative feature following The Assistant. Co-written with Oscar Redding and inspired by the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, the film follows two backpackers who take bar jobs at a remote Australian mining town pub, confronting escalating tensions with rowdy patrons. It stars Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick, with supporting roles by Ursula Jones and Hugo Weaving. The production was filmed in South Australia, with Neon acquiring U.S. distribution rights in April 2022.[22][23] The film premiered in competition at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2023, and received a limited U.S. theatrical release on October 6, 2023. It later screened at festivals including the London Film Festival and San Sebastián International Film Festival in 2023. As of October 2025, no upcoming directorial projects for Green have been publicly announced in major industry outlets.[24][25]Notable works
Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013)
Ukraine Is Not a Brothel is an 80-minute Australian-Ukrainian documentary directed, produced, and edited by Kitty Green, released in 2013. The film provides an intimate examination of Femen, a Ukrainian activist group founded in 2008 by Anna Hutsol in Khmelnytskyi to protest sex trafficking, corruption, and patriarchal structures through topless public demonstrations with slogans painted on participants' bodies.[26][27] It follows key members including Hutsol, Oksana Shachko, Alexandra Shevchenko, and Inna Shevchenko as they prepare for and execute protests amid Ukraine's post-Soviet social challenges, such as widespread sex tourism and political oppression.[14][28] Green gained rare access by embedding with the group over several years, living in their Kyiv headquarters and capturing unscripted moments of training, arguments, and daily life, which exposed internal contradictions beyond the group's public image of radical female autonomy.[29] During filming, Green was detained by Ukrainian secret police, underscoring the risks faced by both filmmakers and activists in a repressive environment.[30] A pivotal revelation centers on Viktor Svyatski, a male associate portrayed as the de facto leader who orchestrates protests, selects participants, and exerts personal influence over the women, prompting questions about the movement's authenticity and alignment with its anti-male-domination rhetoric.[31][32] Green has stated that her initial admiration for Femen's boldness evolved into a more critical lens upon discovering Svyatski's role, transforming the documentary from endorsement to exposé.[29] The film premiered at the 70th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2013, and later screened at festivals including IDFA and Full Frame, where it highlighted Femen's shift from local Ukrainian issues to international campaigns against figures like Vladimir Putin and the Catholic Church.[33] Critics praised its raw footage and nuanced portrayal of activism's complexities, with a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on limited reviews, though some noted the irony of a male-controlled "feminist" group undermined its empowerment claims.[34][35] Femen members disputed the film's emphasis on Svyatski, arguing his involvement was logistical rather than domineering, but the documentary's evidence of his directives—such as staging protests and intervening in personal matters—supported Green's observational critique of power imbalances within the organization.[31][28]Casting JonBenet (2016)
Casting JonBenet is an 80-minute documentary directed by Kitty Green that investigates the lingering impact of the unsolved 1996 murder of six-year-old beauty pageant participant JonBenét Ramsey by filming local residents from Boulder, Colorado, as they audition for roles in a hypothetical dramatization of the case.[36] Rather than retelling the crime's facts or pursuing resolution, the film captures auditionees sharing unsubstantiated theories—ranging from intruder scenarios to parental involvement—and disclosing personal traumas that echo the tragedy, such as child loss or abuse, to illustrate how individual histories shape collective speculation.[15] Sparse, stylized reenactments punctuate the interviews, emphasizing the constructed and subjective quality of narrative reconstructions without endorsing any particular account.[36] Green developed the concept after researching in Boulder starting in June 2015, inspired by her prior short film experiments with casting tapes to probe community sentiments; she conducted open casting calls over weekends from August 2015 to August 2016, explicitly informing participants of the project's intent and drawing over 100 locals, including those from pageants and law enforcement circles.[37] Filming occurred primarily in Boulder over 1.5 months using cameras like the Black Magic Production Camera and ARRI Alexa Mini, with Green personally operating the camera for intimacy during sessions; subjects received SAG minimum pay for any reenactment elements.[37] The production budget remained under $1 million, financed through grants from Screen Australia and Film Victoria, private equity from Meridian Entertainment, and a Colorado tax rebate, allowing completion without major commercial pressures.[37] The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2017, and was released on Netflix in April 2017, earning praise for its meta-documentary style that critiques true crime obsessions by foregrounding ambiguity and communal catharsis over sensational resolution—Green noted participants often found the process therapeutic—though some reviewers critiqued its macabre tone and omission of deeper child-actor dynamics.[36][15] This approach underscores the case's enduring role in fueling public discourse without advancing evidentiary claims, aligning with Green's intent to "dig deeper into how the community was feeling" amid pervasive misinformation.[37]