Stephanie Stender is an award-winning director, producer, podcast creator, and screenwriter. Her works have been screened at film festivals around the world, from Australia to the UK, at such prestigious independent theaters as the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, and on television – from PBS to the WB. Still Right Here, the music video she directed and produced for Melissa Ferrick, premiered on the front page of The Huffington Post to celebrate the launch of Queer Voices and won Fan Favorite and Best Pro Pop/Rock Video at the Right Out TV Music Video Awards. Stephanie graduated from Hollins University at the top of her class with a B.A. in Film and Photography and English with a concentration in creative writing. In 2007, she received her M.F.A. in Film Production from Boston University. Since then, she has directed numerous narrative films, commercials, and music videos, as well as documentaries including Bingo Nation which premiered at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. In 2001, she founded Doorstop Productions, an all-women film production company, with five fellow female filmmakers. Doorstop’s intrinsic purpose is to allow women interested in directing, writing, and producing films a creative, safe, and nurturing environment to do so. Throughout her career, Stephanie has worked on various Emmy award recognized shows, from WordGirl to Antiques Roadshow, and was nominated three times as the Co-Executive Producer of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country. She was also the Executive Producer of Milk Street TV and Radio. She is currently finishing production on her feature-length documentary All Stars: The Changing Face of Drag. A member of the Alliance of Women Directors, she was selected as a 2014 TV shadowing candidate, where she was mentored by award-winning director Gail Mancuso, and was a 2018 participant of the AWD Industry Support Program. She was also selected as an Emerging Filmmaker Fellow by the Smithsonian and NEH for the 2017 History Film Forum and as a fellow for the inaugural Australian International Screen Forum’s Women in Screen Workshop in 2019.
photo: Stephen Hussar