About

Xan Aranda

XAN ARANDA [zan uh-ron-dah] is an award-winning independent filmmaker affiliated with acclaimed documentary powerhouse Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams.) She is also an active consultant, with a hand in dozens of international productions. Xan’s clients have ranged from national universities and the U.S. Department of Education, to branding companies and advertising agencies, film festivals and emerging filmmakers.

Her directorial debut, Andrew Bird: Fever Year had its World Premiere at Lincoln Center as part of the prestigious New York Film Festival in 2011. The film is described by The Hollywood Reporter as “a gently illuminating look at a brilliant maverick musician… captured with grace and delicacy.” Fever Year received the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Omaha Film Festival, Best Pop Culture Documentary at New Zealand’s Documentary Edge Festival, the Audience Award at the Noise Pop Film Festival in San Francisco, and others. The film is her fourth collaboration with Andrew Bird.

Xan Aranda is a Producer of the multi-award winning 2008 Kartemquin Films release Milking the Rhino. The film tells intimate, hopeful, and heartbreaking stories of Kenya’s Maasai and Namibia’s Himba – charting the complex collision of their ancient ways with Western expectations. Milking the Rhino received a four-star review from the Chicago Tribune and continues to inspire audiences on five continents. Xan also serves as Outreach Director for Prisoner of Her Past, directed by Gordon Quinn. She handled the broadcast of both films on PBS.

Also with Kartemquin, Xan is currently directing her next project, Mormon Movie, inspired by religious educational films her mother starred in while a student at Brigham Young University during the 1960s.

As “arts evangelist,” she is a popular featured speaker for students, having been a guest of Seattle University, the Yukon High School of Fine Arts, Columbia College, Northwestern University, Wake Forest University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, DePaul University, and others.

The founder and Executive Director of the Chicago Short Film Brigade, Xan curated and hosted screenings of international short films from 2003 through 2010. The Sundance Institute recruited her for their ShortsLab: Chicago.

She often serves on panels and competition juries as varied as the Chicago International Film Festival, the Third Coast International Audio Festival, Hugo Television Awards, the Illinois Humanities Council, and IFP Minnesota, among others.

Born and raised in Illinois, Xan Aranda lived in California for ten years until moving to China and eventually, Chicago in 2002. She has worked in the film, music video, and commercial industries since 1994.

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