Biography

Ellen Ugelstad was born on March 14, 1973 in Oslo, Norway. She is a visual artist and director and known for The Green Valley (2018), The Meeting Room (2017) and Making Sense Together (2018). She made her directorial debut with the very personal documentary Indian Summer (2011) about her younger brother living with schizophrenia. She lived and studied in California for seven years and received a BFA in Motion Pictures from Academy of Art University in San Francisco before she relocated back to Oslo. She works in a variety of genres ranging from poetic documentary to music-films, hybrids and fiction.Her work often explores the thin line between sanity and insanity, the hierarchy of power and explores different forms of reality. Indian Summer was nominated for the International Young Talent Award at DOK Leipzig and Nordic Dox Award under CPH:DOX, screened at Nordische FilmTage in Lubeck, and received two nominations at the Norwegian "Emmy-Award" called Gullruten. Her films migrates between different platforms between the film world and art world. The last few years she has explored the lines between fiction and documentary and her short film "The Meetingroom" won best screenplay from the Writers Guild at the Norwegian Shortfilmfestival in 2017. Her recent work includes the film-essay Making Sense Together, which screened in competition for best Nordic Documentary at Oslo:Pix in June 2018. The Green Valley recently received the Golden Chair for best short film at the Norwegian Shortfilm festival. She is also a recipient of a five-year artist grant from the Norwegian Art Council.

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