{{Short description|American actress and film director (born 1955)}} {{Infobox person | name = Sara Driver | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Sara Miller Driver | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1955|12|15}} | birth_place = Westfield, New Jersey, U.S. | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} Death date then birth --> | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Filmmaker, actress | years_active = 1980–present | partner = Jim Jarmusch | website = }} '''Sara Miller Driver'''<ref>{{Cite book |date=May 16, 1983 |title=Film |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p61ZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Sara+Miller+Driver%22 |publisher=Arden Press |isbn=9780912869032 |via=Google Books}}</ref> (born December 15, 1955<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sara Driver |url=http://www.allocine.fr/personne/fichepersonne_gen_cpersonne=24683.html |website=AlloCiné |access-date=21 May 2019}}</ref>) is an American independent filmmaker and actress from Westfield, New Jersey.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sara Driver |url=http://www.leffest.com/en/guests/2016/sara-driver |website=Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival |access-date=21 May 2019}}</ref> A participant in the independent film scene that flourished in Lower Manhattan from the late 1970s through the 1990s, she gained initial recognition as producer of two early films by Jim Jarmusch, ''Permanent Vacation'' (1980) and ''Stranger Than Paradise'' (1984). Driver has directed two feature films, ''Sleepwalk'' (1986) and ''When Pigs Fly'' (1993), as well as a notable short film, ''You Are Not I'' (1981), and a documentary, ''Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat'' (2017), on the young artist's pre-fame life in the burgeoning downtown New York arts scene before the city's massive changes through the 1980s. She served on the juries of various film festivals throughout the 2000s.<ref name="sante">Luc Sante, "Sara Driver's Movies Are Doorways Into the Unknown," Liner notes to ''Driver x 4'' DVD collection, 2012.</ref>
==Film career== Driver made her directorial debut in 1981 with ''You Are Not I'',<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 8, 1983 |title=You Are Not I |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0193647/ |via=IMDb}}</ref> a short subject film based on a Paul Bowles story and co-written by Jim Jarmusch. The premise of the film is a young mentally disturbed woman named Ethel escapes from the asylum where she is treated until she is mistaken for one of the survivors of a deadly car accident she stumbled upon. Then she is taken to her sister's home. [https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/you-are-not-i New Yorker] Shot in six days on a $12,000 budget, This film served as Driver's thesis film for her MFA from NYU.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nywift.org/you-are-not-i-1981/|title=You Are Not I (1981)}}</ref> Driver had to rent an editing room overnight to be able to afford the editing for the film.<ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8541-daydreamer-a-conversation-with-sara-driver |title=The Criterion Collection}}</ref> it developed a following soon after a well-received premiere at the Public Theater, only to be pulled out of circulation when a warehouse fire destroyed the film's negative. Rarely seen, it was still championed by renowned critics and film journals like Jonathan Rosenbaum and ''Cahiers du Cinéma'', which hailed ''You Are Not I'' as one of the best films of the 1980s. Considered 'lost' for many years, a print was later discovered among Bowles's belongings. Driver was awarded a preservation grant from Women in Film and Television. The restored film screened in the Master Works section of The New York Film Festival 2011.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kennedy |first=Randy |date=2010-11-12 |title=Film of Paul Bowles Short Story Rediscovered |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/movies/13driver.html}}</ref>
Driver directed her first feature film, ''Sleepwalk''<ref>{{Cite news |last=James |first=Caryn |date=1987-03-20 |title=James, Caryn: "NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS; 'SLEEPWALK,' FAIRY TALES IN REAL LIFE" ''The New York Times'', March 20, 1987 |publisher=Movies.nytimes.com |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE4D8113DF933A15750C0A961948260 |access-date=2012-04-02}}</ref> in 1986. It was awarded the Prix Georges Sadoul (1986) by the Cinémathèque Française,<ref>Ligue française de l'enseignement et de l'éducation permanente, "La Revue du cinéma, Volumes 423-428", 1987</ref> the Special Prize at the 1986 International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gene Markopoulos |title=Gene Markopoulos, "A Few Remarks on Sara Driver's 'Sleepwalk'" |url=http://www.art-in-society.de/AS5/GMSD.html |publisher=Art-in-society.de |access-date=2012-04-02}}</ref> and was the opening night selection for the 25th Anniversary of the International Critics' Week (1986) at the Cannes Film Festival.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes |url=http://www.semainedelacritique.com/films/1986/1986_selection.php |publisher=Semainedelacritique.com |access-date=2012-04-02 |archive-date=2012-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224194123/http://www.semainedelacritique.com/films/1986/1986_selection.php |url-status=dead }}</ref> ''Sleepwalk'' was also featured at the Museum of Modern Art's 1987 New Directors/New Films Festival<ref>{{Cite web |title=Calendar |url=https://www.filmlinc.org/calendar/ |url-status=dead |website=Film at Lincoln Center |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100115075133/http://www.filmlinc.com/archive/ndnf/ndnffestlist.htm |archive-date=January 15, 2010}}</ref> and the Sundance Film Festival<ref>{{Cite web |last=The Sundance Channel |title=Sundance Film Festival | Top 10 | Most Overlooked Sundance Films |url=http://www.sundancechannel.com/festival/top-ten/#/?album_id=210553166&photo_id=9 |publisher=Sundancechannel.com |access-date=2012-04-02}}</ref> (1987). The dim lighting in this film is inspired by an essay by Carl Theodore.<ref name="auto"/>
Driver directed the "Bed and Boar" episode of the TV series ''Monsters'' (1990). Her second feature film as a director, ''When Pigs Fly'' (1993), stars Marianne Faithfull and Alfred Molina and is scored by Joe Strummer. The film received the Best of Festival Feature award at the 1994 Long Island Film Festival. ''When Pigs Fly'' premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival, and played a limited engagement at the Lighthouse Cinema on Suffolk Street in New York in 1996.
Driver also wrote and directed the short documentary, ''The Bowery - Spring, 1994'', part of ''Postcards from New York'', an anthology program for French TV. Driver has producer and production credits for many films of Jim Jarmusch, as well as minor roles in three of his films.
Driver's theater work includes the play ''What the Hell - Zelda Sayre'' (1977, writer, director); the experimental musical ''Jazz Passengers in Egypt''<ref>{{Cite news |last=Watrous, Peter |date=December 13, 1990 |title=Jazz and Theater Add Up to a New Form of Vaudeville |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/13/theater/jazz-and-theater-add-up-to-a-new-form-of-vaudeville.html?pagewanted=all |access-date=2012-04-02}}</ref> (1990, director), performed at La Mama, NYC; as well as the play ''Stairway to Heaven'' (1994, director), at the Cucaracha Theatre, NYC.<ref>Willis, John A. "Theatre World" Volume 51, 1997.</ref>
Driver was a juror at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (2004) where a retrospective of her films took place.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://archive.today/20120715065756/http://geraldpeary.com/festivals/buenos-2004.html Buenos Aires Independent FF Review]}} by Gerald Peary</ref> She was also a juror at the Miami International Film Festival (2005), San Sebastián Film Festival (2006), Bahamas International Film Festival (2006), and director Emir Kusturica's Küstendorf Film and Music Festival (2010).
Driver directed ''Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean‑Michel Basquiat'' (2017).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/films/features/sara-driver-boom-for-real-basquiat-director-female-women-film-sexism-jim-jarmusch-a8407606.html |title=The Independent}}</ref> This film is put together using archival footage and interviews with those who were close to the late artist. It has an approval rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/boom_for_real_the_late_teenage_years_of_jean_michel_basquiat |title=rotten tomatoes|website=Rotten Tomatoes }}</ref>
In 2021 Driver wrote and acted in a short called ''Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2022/films/stranger-than-rotterdam-with-sara-driver |title=International Film Fest Rotterdamn}}</ref> The short was awarded A Short Film Special Jury Award: Screenwriting at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sundance.org/blogs/2022-sundance-film-festival-awards-announced/|title=2022 Sundance Film Festival Awards Announced |publisher=Sundance Film Festival |date=Jan 28, 2022 |access-date=Aug 19, 2025}}</ref>
Driver has been described as an "often overlooked linchpin of the downtown New York independent film scene."<ref>Dennis Lim, "[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/movies/sara-driver-retrospective-at-anthology-film-archives.html?_r=0 Sleepwalking in Fantasy Worlds Like This One]," ''New York Times'', 16 March 2012.</ref> Film critic Lucy Sante describes Driver's movies as "doorways into the unknown."<ref name=sante /> Rosenbaum wrote that Driver's films "belong to what the French call ''le fantastique''— a conflation of fantasy with surrealism, science fiction, comics, horror, sword-and-sorcery, and the supernatural that stretches all the way from art cinema to exploitation by way of Hollywood."<ref name="hyperdrive">Jonathan Rosenbaum, "From Bowles to the Bowery: Sara Driver in Hyper Drive," Liner notes to ''Driver x 4'' DVD collection, 2012.</ref>
The moving image collection of Sara Driver is held at the Academy Film Archive.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 September 2014 |title=Sara Driver Collection |url=http://www.oscars.org/film-archive/collections/sara-driver-collection |website=Academy Film Archive}}</ref>
==Personal life and education== Driver was born in Westfield, New Jersey, the daughter of Albert and Martha (Miller) Driver. She attended high school at Westfield High school in Westfield, New Jersey. She attended Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, graduating with a degree in theatre and classics in 1977. She spent her junior year studying in Athens, and participated in a production by the National Opera of Greece.<ref>"[http://archive.wmlnj.org/TheWestfieldLeader/1977/1977-02-24/pg_0012.pdf With the Collegians] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129023504/http://archive.wmlnj.org/TheWestfieldLeader/1977/1977-02-24/pg_0012.pdf |date=2014-11-29 }}," ''The Westfield Leader'', 24 February 1977. Retrieved: 12 June 2014.</ref><ref>"[http://web.randolphcollege.edu/newsevents/pressreleases/news_detail.asp?id=1509 Cinematographer Tom Ackerman to Deliver Sara Driver ’77 Filmmaking Lecture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001627/http://web.randolphcollege.edu/newsevents/pressreleases/news_detail.asp?id=1509 |date=2016-03-04 }}," Randolph College News Archive, 2 April 2013.</ref>
Driver taught directing in NYU's Graduate Film School (1996–1998), where she received her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1982.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-12-01 |title=Kustendorf 2010 bio - Sara Driver |url=http://www.kustendorf-filmandmusicfestival.org/2010/index.php?p=82&&ni=143&nd=1 |publisher=Kustendorf-filmandmusicfestival.org |access-date=2012-04-02}}</ref>
Driver attended NYU alongside Spike Lee and Jim Jarmusch.<ref name="auto"/>
==Filmography== {| class="wikitable" |- !Year !Title !Role |- |1980 |''Permanent Vacation'' |Actor: Nurse, Production Manager, Assistant Director |- |1981 |''You Are Not I'' |Director, Writer, Producer |- |1984 |''Stranger Than Paradise'' |Actor: Girl with hat, Producer, Production Manager |- |1986 |''Sleepwalk'' (''Year of the Dog'') |Director, Writer, Producer |- |1986 |''Down by Law'' |Production Troubleshooter |- |1989 |''Mystery Train'' |Actor: Airport clerk |- |1989 |''Bloodhounds of Broadway'' |Actor: Yvette |- |1990 |''Monsters''<br>(episode "Bed and Boar") |Director |- |1991 |''Keep It for Yourself'' |Actor |- |1991 |''Night on Earth'' |(uncredited crew member) |- |1993 |''When Pigs Fly'' |Director, Writer |- |1999 |''Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai'' |Story Consultant |- |2005 |''Broken Flowers'' |On credits as 'idea inspired from' |- |2013 |''Only Lovers Left Alive'' |On credits as 'instigation and inspiration' |- |2017 | ''Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat'' |Director |- |2019 |''The Dead Don't Die'' |Actor: Coffee Zombie |- |2021 |''Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver'' |Writer, Actor |}
==Further reading== * José Teodoro, [http://torontofilmcritics.com/features/counter-careerism-the-films-of-sara-driver/ COUNTER CAREERISM: THE FILMS OF SARA DRIVER], [http://torontofilmcritics.com/features/counter-careerism-the-films-of-sara-driver/ Counter Careerism: The Films of Sara Driver] Toronto Film Critics, July 24, 2014 * Dennis Lim, [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/movies/sara-driver-retrospective-at-anthology-film-archives.html "Sleepwalking in Fantasy Worlds Like This One"], ''The New York Times'', March 18, 2012. * Gene Markopoulos, [http://www.art-in-society.de/AS5/GMSD.html "A Few Remarks on Sara Driver's 'Sleepwalk'"], in: ''ART IN SOCIETY'', No.5 * Andreas Weiland, [http://www.art-in-society.de/AS5/SW/sw.html "Sleepwalk. Notes on A Film by Sara Driver"], in: ''ART IN SOCIETY'', No.5 * Janet Maslin, [https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A02E7DD1739F935A15754C0A960958260 "FILM REVIEW - When Pigs Fly: Ghosts Inspiring a New Life"], ''The New York Times'', July 26, 1996. * Peter Watrous, [https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/13/theater/jazz-and-theater-add-up-to-a-new-form-of-vaudeville.html?pagewanted=all "Jazz and Theater Add Up to a New Form of Vaudeville"], ''The New York Times'', December 13, 1990. * Jonathan Rosenbaum, [http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/?p=7780 "Two Neglected Filmmakers: Eduardo de Gregario and Sara Driver"] ''BAFICI Catalogue'', 2004. * {{Cite news |last=Kennedy |first=Randy |date=2010-11-12 |title=Film of Paul Bowles Short Story Rediscovered |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/movies/13driver.html |access-date=4 June 2012}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMDb name|0238138|Sara Driver}}
{{Sara Driver}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Driver, Sara}} Category:1955 births Category:American women film directors Category:People from Westfield, New Jersey Category:Film directors from New York City Category:Living people Category:Film directors from New Jersey Category:21st-century American women