390: Kris Lefcoe and Giving Up

Kris Lefcoe! Filmmaker! Writer! Director! Musician! Friend! Delight! More! We have a great chat! You can have a great listen! About Kris, from her website: "Kris Lefcoe (DGA) is a Canadian-American director and writer based in New York City. Her work has screened at TIFF, SXSW, Tribeca, British Film Institute, Art Basel Miami, IFC and on the Sundance Channel. 

 Kris is co-creator, writer and EP of "Making Plans For Nigel," a comedy series in network development with Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Mary Rohlich ("Atypical"). Lefcoe's half-hour comedy "Giving Up," about a New York couple facing their own deadline to either 'make it' or give up their dreams, won top prizes at Seriesfest and New York Television Festival, and just had a theatrical premiere at the Roxy Cinema in NYC. The series was executive produced by David Wain and developed with Imagine Television. In 2020, Kris made her network directing debut on the NBC comedy "Superstore."

 Pitch-black comedy "Public Domain," Kris' audacious audience-award-winning feature debut about a surveillance-based game show, was hailed as "creepy-funny and well-acted" (Variety), and "an assured debut" (Austin Chronicle). The film premiered at SXSW and was installed at Art Basel Miami.
 Lefcoe's stop motion short "Tiny Riot Project," featuring a riot squad of corporate mascots in a violent face off with endearing anarchists, premiered at IFF Rotterdam, was installed at Galerie Tomas Schulte Berlin, Havana Biennale, and Art Basel Miami, then sold to the Sundance Channel. Her acclaimed Twilight Zone-esque short "Can I Get a Witness?" starring Scott Speedman, screened at TIFF, BFI and Anthology Film Archives.

 Kris' explosive music videos have garnered numerous nominations and awards, including the Peaches smash "Boys Wanna Be Her" which has over 3 million views on YouTube.
She recently won Best Director at New York Cinefest, and Best Director and Best Comedy at Deluxe Film Festival in Rome, for the sex-robot comedy "Technical Support" starring Aparna Nancherla and Courtney Pauroso, which quickly racked up almost million views on YouTube.  As a musician, Kris performs haunting original songs at live venues around NYC on a vintage keyboard she found in the garbage. Her first solo album will be released in Fall 2025. The advance single "Booked A Room" came out in 2024 with a hallucinatory stop motion video directed by Kris that premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival and just won Best Video and the Audience Award at San Luis Obispo Festival.  Kris is also a professor in the MFA Film and Television program at Stony Brook University, SUNY. In 2024 she created and launched the Post-MFA Pilot Incubator Lab to shepherd alumni into the industry. She lives with her husband and daughter in a long-forgotten borough called Manhattan." And this is just the first HALF of our conversation! For part two, subscribe via Apple Podcasts OR simply click on over here to Patreon! Enjoy!