Director and Costume Designer at AFIN

Biography

Colleen is a multi-award-winning feature film & TV director with a recent placement as a Semi-Finalist in Shondaland’s Series Fest director contest. With a penchant for crafting stories that dare to straddle the realms of comedy and drama, she is drawn to message-oriented ideas, with characters who embody resilience and hope in the face of adversity. She excels at ensemble, fast paced explorations of the darker side of the human condition - with a nod to the absurd - but also appreciates the opportunity to slow down and truly explore the moments in between. Her most recent feature work has received distribution via Tubi (OUT OF BOUNDS with Karen Obilom and Sterling Sulieman). Other projects can be seen on Lifetime Movie Networks, Passionflix and Prime Video. Her short films have screened and garnered attention and awards internationally, including the Oscar® qualifying Holly Shorts Film Festival and Soho International Film Festivals. She is currently in development on a 10mm feature film comedy about where the military meets the circuit on a big feature film set, with Ged Dickersin producing (CODA, 2021 ) in New York City. A recipient of a New York Foundation of the Arts artist’s grant “Anonymous Was a Woman”, Colleen is Co-chair of the East Coast events committee for the Alliance of Women Directors, a member of Film Fatales, Women In Media, Primetime Network, and was honored by SHOOT Magazine at the DGA as a “New Director to Watch”. With decades in the business, Colleen began her career in film as a Production Assistant in feature films. She later became a sought after Production Coordinator in commercials, music videos and features, working with such directors as Oliver Stone, Brian DePalma, Robert DeNiro, Hype Williams, John Bayer, Jonus Ackerlund and M. Knight Shyamalan. In between coordinating positions, Colleen directed and produced commercial spots: Edge Auto Rentals, Chelsea Guitars Series (DiMassimo NY). She is an actor’s director as a conservatory trained actor in Meisner as well as Strasberg and other Method techniques. She overlapped her acting work with stand-up comedy, performing in over 20 venues internationally, as well as directing black box theater in NYC. Her work has taken her from Iraq to LA, and she includes the Oscar® short listed feature documentary and Sundance Grand Jury nominee QUEST FOR HONOR dir. Mary Ann Bruni as a particular honor. Colleen’s debut screenplay THE FAMILY REMAINS was a semi-finalist in the Page International Screenplay Contest, and she continues to write to maintain her creativity between directing projects. She is a graduate of Boston University with a BS in Communications/Film with a concentration in Acting.