Sam Goodner
Sam Goodner makes narrative and documentary films about experiences of alienation and
connectedness in complex personal relationships. In exploring issues like competition and
status, desire and solidarity, she considers how these human dynamics also implicate the
surrounding natural environment. Originally from Minnesota, Sam went to Columbia University
and received a BA in cultural anthropology. She is now a candidate for the MFA in film writing
and directing at UCLA. Sam lived and worked for more than a decade in China, primarily in
Yunnan Province, where she was mentored by Kunming-based filmmakers of the New Chinese
Documentary movement. Projects set in China and in the US express her commitment to a
transcultural filmmaking practice. Sam has received the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Directing Fellowship, the Motion Picture Association of America Award, the Jerome
Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and has been a Bush Fellowship finalist. She was awarded
a Sloan Film Production Grant in support of her short film The Cliff, planned for production in
2022.