米兰达·裘丽

Miranda July (born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger; February 15, 1974) is an American film director, screenwriter, actress and author. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital presentations and live performance art.

She wrote, directed and starred in the films Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) and The Future (2011) and wrote and directed Kajillionaire (2020). She has authored a book of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007); a collection of nonfiction short stories, It Chooses You (2011); and the novels The First Bad Man (2015) and All Fours (2024).

Early life

July was born in Barre, Vermont, in 1974, the daughter of Lindy Hough and Richard Grossinger. Her parents are both writers who taught at Goddard College at the time. They were also the founders of North Atlantic Books, a publisher of alternative health, martial arts, and spiritual titles. Her father was Jewish, and her mother was Protestant. Her family also dabbled in New Age religion and discussed spirituality while she was growing up.

July was encouraged to work on her short fiction by author Rick Moody. She was raised in Berkeley, California, where she first began staging plays at 924 Gilman Street, a local punk rock club. She attended The College Preparatory School in Oakland for high school. She describes the experience as overwhelming. As a teenager, July wrote and directed a play called The Lifers, which was based on her correspondence with a man incarcerated for murder. She went on to stage it in punk clubs. She later attended the film school at University of California Santa Cruz, but dropped out during her second year and moved to Portland, Oregon.

Career beginnings

After relocating to Portland, Oregon, she began doing one-woman performance art shows. Her performances were successful. Portland is also where she began participating in the riot grrrl scene.

In the early stages of her film career, she created several small video projects and performances years prior to her debut feature film, Me and You and Everyone We Know. During this time, July also worked as a waitress, a tastemaker for Coca-Cola, a locksmith, and a stripper.

Film

Joanie4Jackie

July was immersed in the riot grrrl scene in Portland and motivated by its do-it-yourself ethos, and she began an effort that she described as "a free alternative distribution system for women movie-makers". One of July's reasons for starting the project was to apply the concepts of riot grrrl into the filmmaking world. The idea was to connect as many women artists as possible, let them see each other's work, and foster a sense of community. Participants sent a self-made short film to July, who mailed back a compilation videotape containing that film and nine others – a "chainletter tape". When it began in 1995, the project was called Big Miss Moviola but was soon renamed Joanie4Jackie. July's first film, Atlanta, appears on the second tape of the series. July ran the project for seven years, handing it off to the film department of Bard College in 2003.

In spring 2016, July donated an archive of Joanie4Jackie to the Getty Research Institute. The collection includes more than 200 titles from the 1990s and 2000s, videos from Joanie4Jackie events, booklets, posters, hand-written letters from participants, and other documentation. Thomas W. Gaehtgens, the director of the Getty Research Institute, stated that the acquisition is "an esteemed addition to our Special Collections that connects to work by many important 20th century artists who are also represented in our archives, such as Eleanor Antin, Yvonne Rainer and Carolee Schneemann."

The Amateurist

July's film The Amateurist (1998) follows a researcher examining via a video monitor a more conventionally beautiful woman; July plays both roles. July wrote, directed, and starred in the film. The film won the Cinematexas Best Experimental and No Budget Awards 1999, New York Expo 1999 Silver Award Experimental, and San Francisco Golden Gate Award Silver Spire 2000.

Nest of Tens

In October 2000, July released Nest of Tens. The 27-minute video juxtaposes four unrelated scenarios in which "seemingly everyday people go about acting completely normal while demonstrating distinct abnormality." July wrote and directed the film with Polly Bilchuk in the starring role. Nest of Tens has been placed in the permanent online collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nest of Tens won the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen's main prize in 2001 and the Cinematexas International Short Film Festival's Gecko Award in 2000.

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Filmmaker rated July number one in their "25 New Faces of Indie Film" in 2004. After winning a slot in a Sundance workshop, she developed her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which premiered in 2005.

The film won the Caméra d'Or prize at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival as well as the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Best First Feature at the Philadelphia Film Festival, Feature Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

The Future

July's second film was originally titled "Satisfaction" but was later renamed The Future, with July in a lead role. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Bear at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.

Kajillionaire

In March 2018, it was announced July would write and direct a heist film produced by Plan B Entertainment and Annapurna Pictures. That same month, Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger and Gina Rodriguez joined the cast of the film. In June 2018, Mark Ivanir joined the cast of the film. Principal photography began in May 2018. Its theatrical release was on September 25, 2020.