Ry Russo-Young

Ry Russo-Young is a bold and innovative writer/director working across genres in both dark and lighter tones. Her work is consistently visually arresting and emotionally potent. Ry’s early independent films were associated with the mumblecore genre in part due to her performance alongside Greta Gerwig in the mumblecore classic Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007). As a filmmaker, she directed Nobody Walks (2012), co-written with Lena Dunham and starring Olivia Thirlby, Rosemary DeWitt and John Krasinski, which won a special Jury Prize at Sundance and was released theatrically by Magnolia Pictures. She then went on to direct the wide-release features Before I Fall (2017) and The Sun Is Also a Star (2019) as well as television and commercial projects, including Apple’s Shrinking (2023), HBO’s And Just Like That (2023), Amazon’s Panic (2021) and Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger (2018).

Her HBO documentary series, Nuclear Family (2021), is based on the true story of her sperm donor suing her lesbian mothers for visitation and paternity rights when Ry was nine years old. The series received much critical acclaim with nominations for a Peabody Award, Independent Spirit Award, GLAAD Award and is currently being developed as a fiction series.

Ry’s work has premiered and won awards at numerous international film festivals including Telluride, Sundance, SXSW, Stockholm, Torino, Thessaloniki and TriBeCa. She has received accolades from the New York State Council on the Arts, TriBeCa Film Institute, the LEF Foundation, the Sundance Institute and Creative Capital. She majored in film at Oberlin College and grew up in New York City. Her work has been praised by The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Variety, Vanity Fair and The New York Times, among others.