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Dee Rees
File:Deerees.png Photo by Misti Layne

Dee Rees an American screenwriter and director. Rees has directed several short films, as well as the full length feature film Pariah.

Early Life

Rees is from Nashville, Tennessee. She received an MBA in at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida in Business Administration. After working at ]]roctor_and_Gamble | Proctor & Gamble]] in Cincinnati, Ohio marketing panty liners she was laid off and made the move to New York. Rees began working at Schering Plough marketing Dr. Scholls. At a commercial shoot, Rees realized she was interested in film, and enrolled in New York University's graduate film program. Rees says that she made the move because "Screenwriting is a way of actually seeing your writing come to life, your work done, so I quit my job and went to film school."

Career

At NYU, Rees met director Spike Lee. She regularly attended office hours, where he became her personal mentor. She worked as a script supervisor intern for his film's Inside Man, as well as When The Levees Broke. In 2008, Dee Rees completed Sundance Institute's Screenwriting and Directing Lab.

Pariah

Rees began the script of Pariah when she was working on Inside Man in 2005. She shortened the full length script into a short for her graduate thesis. In 2007, the short played at 40 festivals worldwide, and winning 25 shorts awards including the Audience Award at the LA Film Festival.

In 2008, Lee agreed to formalize his role with Pariah. He served as executive producer. Rees described his involvement as "He would look at drafts of the budget, go through with a ruler and give advice on where to cut. He read the script and gave honest, objective feedback. When we got to post-production, he would watch edits, he watched the rough cut, he watched the advance rough, and gave notes on the edit itself."

When asked why she made the film in an interview, she responded that "It was a chance to, you know, see how the New York scene changes you, inspires you. Pariah kind of transposed my own experience of coming out onto a I 7-year-old girl." She had trouble pitching the film because investors believed it was too small and too specific, or as Dee Rees puts it, "It was just code for too black and too gay." However, Rees found funding and even sold her own apartment when she realized she had to invest in her film for others to also. It was shot in 18 days and all interiors were shot at a single Brooklyn brownstone. At Sundance, it was acquired by Focus Features. Rees says that, "Hopefully, this will be a marker in the road, and there will be many more to add to the landscape. There's not a lot out there."

Upcoming projects include an HBO series with Viola Davis, the Southern-set thriller Bolo, and the feature film "Large Print," about a recently divorced insurance adjuster. On May 1, 2012 it was announced on Variety's website that Rees has been sought out to direct "This Man, This Woman."

Personal Life

Dee Rees came out as a lesbian when she was 27. She is a member of the Human Rights Campaign. Rees cites Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde and the documentary Paris Is Burning as influences for her work. She currently resides in Long Beach, California.

Filmography

Feature Films

• Eventual Salvation (2008)
• Pariah (2011)

Short Films

• Orange Bow (2005)
• Pariah (2007)
• Colonial Gods (2009)

Awards and Nominations

From the site pariahthemovie.com, "Ms. Rees was also selected as a 2008 Tribeca Institute/Renew Media Arts Fellow for her work; was chosen as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” for 2008; and was nominated for a USA Fellowship in 2009."

Further Reading

Pariah Official Website

External Links

Interview with Dee Rees on Collider.com

Dee Rees on IMDB.

Pariah Official Website