About

XAN ARANDA [zan uh-ron-dah] is a freelance director, producer, and curator affiliated with acclaimed documentary powerhouse Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams) and the U. S. Department of Education.

Xan Aranda

Her directorial debut, Andrew Bird: Fever Year had its World Premiere at Lincoln Center as part of the prestigious New York Film Festival on October 1, 2011. The film, which screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival and was in competition at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, is described by The Hollywood Reporter as “a gently illuminating look at a brilliant maverick musician… captured with grace and delicacy.”  Fever Year also screened at the Denver Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, and St. Louis Film Festival during 2011. It will screen over a hundred times worldwide during 2012.

Xan Aranda is currently at work on her next film, Mormons Make Movies, inspired by religious educational films her mother starred in while a student at Brigham Young University during the 1960s.

She is a Producer of the multi-award winning 2008 Kartemquin release Milking the Rhino, which aired on PBS (Independent Lens) and continues to screen worldwide. She is currently the Outreach Director for Prisoner of Her Past, directed by Gordon Quinn, which aired on PBS in 2011.

As founder and Executive Director of the Chicago Short Film Brigade, Xan has been curating and hosting Midwest screenings of international short films since 2003. The Sundance Institute recruited her for their 2011 ShortsLab: Chicago.

Xan often serves on panels and competition juries as varied as the Chicago International Film Festival, the Third Coast International Audio Festival, Hugo Television Awards, and the Illinois Humanities Council’s Looking For Democracy Film Contest, among others.  She is also a popular featured guest speaker for film students of Columbia College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Wake Forest University Documentary Film Program. During 2012 she will be a guest of film schools in Washington, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida.

Born and raised in Illinois, Xan Aranda lived in California for ten years until moving to China and eventually, Chicago in 2001. She has worked in the film, music video, and commercial industries since 1994.

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