Ana Lily Amirpour
Ana Lily Amirpour was born in 1980 in the UK. She is a director, screenwriter, producer and actress. Before moving to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker, she lived in California as an artist, bass guitarist and singer. She attended San Francisco State University as an art major for her undergraduate degree, and then graduated from the University of California of Los Angeles’ School of Theater, Film and Television. Amirpour has made short films since she was twelve. Her fiction feature debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (presented at the Luxembourg City Film Festival in 2015), self-described as "the first Iranian vampire spaghetti western", premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won her many awards. Amirpour is a lifelong skater, and was a stand-in for the skateboarding sequences in the film. Her second film, The Bad Batch (2016), premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury prize. Her film Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021) also premiered in Venice
