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Liza Johnson

Filmmaker Liza Johnson has used her background as an artist and non-narrative storyteller to explore new ways of approaching film. Her 2011 drama "The Return" thrust her into the spotlight, but it was in fact the culmination of years working in the medium. Johnson has an art school background that informed her approach to the short films she made, beginning with 1998's "Giftwrap," on which she also served as writer, editor, and producer. Her feature debut came two years later with the German-set drama "Fernweh - The Opposite of Homesick," before she spent the rest of the decade honing her skills with a series of shorts. "South of Ten" debuted at the New York Film Festival and dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while "In the Air" portrayed a circus school in the Southeastern Ohio town that Johnson is from. The latter was nominated for a Golden Bear at Berlin's International Film Festival. Johnson's short films have received wide acclaim and have been shown at many of the world's most prestigious museums, including New York's MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and the Berlinale. Starring Linda Cardellini as an alienated soldier returning to her hometown, "Return" was widely lauded by critics and announced Johnson as a new original voice in film.