Sara Driver

Sara Driver adapted, produced and directed the film version of Paul Bowles’ short story, YOU ARE NOT I (1982, 48 min.). It premiered in the U.S. at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre in New York City and was featured at many international film festivals, and museums. In 2011 it was presented in the Master Works section of the New York Film Festival.
Her feature film; SLEEPWALK (1986, co-writer, producer, director, 78 min.), won the prestigious Prix Georges Sadoul (1986) given by the French Cinémathèque. SLEEPWALK also won the Special Prize at the 1986 Mannheim Film Festival, and was the opening night selection for the 25th Anniversary of the Semaine International de la Critique at Cannes (1986). SLEEPWALK was also featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s 1987 New Directors New Films Series.
In 1993 she made the award-winning feature film, WHEN PIGS FLY (co-writer, director, 94 min.), starring Marianne Faithfull and Alfred Molina. It premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival and was shown at Toronto, Rotterdam, as well as many other international film festivals.
She wrote and directed the short documentary, THE BOWERY - SPRING, 1994, part of “Postcards from New York,” an anthology program for French TV.
Driver’s other film credits include Jim Jarmusch’s, PERMANENT VACATION (1979, producer, production manager) and STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1984, producer). She produced the Tom Waits music video, “It’s All Right With Me” (1990, Jim Jarmusch), as part of the “Red, Hot & Blue” AIDS benefit television broadcast. In 2016 she co-produced Aaron Brookner’s film Uncle Howard.
Her films have had retrospectives in Denmark, Buenos Aires, Anthology Film Archives NYC, Thessaloniki International Film Festival and in TIFF Cinematique, Toronto and Maine International Film Festival. In 2015 she was given a tribute for her work in cinema by the Lisbon and Estoril (Leffest) Film Festival in Portugal. Her films are available in a boxset from Filmswelike.
Her most recent film as director/producer, Boom For Real The Late Teenage Years of Jean Michel Basquiat (2017) was released Spring of 2018 in the States and is in distribution throughout the world. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was selected for the New York Film Festival; it is being shown at a variety of international film festivals. The NY Times called it a ‘Beguiling Look at a Teenage Basquiat’.