Lisa Cholodenko

Cholodenko was an executive producer, and directed the first episode, of the 2015 eight-part NBC miniseries The Slap, which was based on the Australian miniseries of the same name.

In June 2014, Cholodenko was the guest director of the 20th annual Los Angeles Film Festival.

In 2014, Cholodenko directed the HBO four-part mini-series Olive Kitteridge starring Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins. Olive Kitteridge is based on the novel of the same name by Elizabeth Strout. Bill Murray, Jesse Plemons, Zoe Kazan, and John Gallagher Jr. co-starred. Olive Kitteridge premiered at the 2014 Venice Film Festival to overwhelmingly positive reviews. The show received widespread critical acclaim when it premiered on television in November. It received three Golden Globe nominations, and Cholodenko received a Directors Guild Award and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for her work on the miniseries.

After completing Laurel Canyon, Cholodenko decided to move to LA permanently. While in the process of trying to conceive a child via anonymous sperm donor, she met with screenwriter Stuart Blumberg, who was a sperm donor in college. Together, they decided to write a screenplay, which would eventually become The Kids Are All Right. However, the project took five years to get to production. Filmed in 23 days, Cholodenko directed the film on a $3.5 million budget, a much smaller amount than her fellow 2011 Oscar nominees. The film was made with three different sources of equity financing, with Focus Features picking up the film for distribution.

Cholodenko directed the 2004 film Cavedweller for Showtime; it earned Independent Spirit Award nominations for cast members Kyra Sedgwick and Aidan Quinn. She has directed episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, Six Feet Under, The L Word, and Hung.

Cholodenko received a Bachelor of Arts in gender studies from San Francisco University. In 1997, Cholodenko received an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in screenwriting and directing.

While at Columbia, Cholodenko wrote and directed a number of short films, including Souvenir (1994), which screened at numerous international film festivals and Dinner Party (1997), which aired on UK, French, and Swiss television, and was a winner of the British Film Institute's Channel 4 TX prize.

She got her start in the film industry in New York in the early 1990s. She worked as an apprentice editor on John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood and as an assistant editor on Beeban Kidron's Used People. Upon entering the film and television industry, Cholodenko was automatically faced with the label of a 'lesbian director', bringing her many challenges in the industry. This label expected her to create only specialized queer and gay projects, however, she was able to move towards creating more mainstream projects as well.

Lisa Cholodenko (born June 5, 1964) is an American screenwriter and director. Cholodenko wrote and directed the films High Art (1998), Laurel Canyon (2002), and The Kids Are All Right (2010). She has also directed television, including the miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014) and Unbelievable (2019). She primarily directs New Queer Cinema style films and television, with large themes surrounding feminism and the LGBTQIA+ community.