Filmmaker Bio
Elizabeth Holder has directed and/or produced documentary and fiction films for theatrical release and television broadcast. Her work has appeared on The Sundance Channel, Oxygen, Alliance Atlantis, NBC/Universal, Nick Jr., and MTV. She most recently directed and produced I Want So Much To Live, a documentary feature film about the people and science behind the world’s first targeted biotechnology therapy for breast cancer.
Her directorial credits include the short fiction film, Weekend Getaway (featuring Jill Hennessy, Will Arnett, and John Seitz, winner of the Special Jury Prize at The New York/ Avignon Film Festival, distributed by Hypnotic); Blue’s Clues (Nick Jr.); documentary special First Year (field producer/camera, MTV); narrative short The Diversion (with Holter Graham); and the independent mockumentary feature film The Acting Class (directed and produced with Jill Hennessy, with a cast including Jill Hennessy, Austin Pendleton, Regina King, Courtney B. Vance, Denis O’Hare, Ben Bratt, Chris Noth, and Will Arnett).
She co-founded the New York-based independent production company, Roland Park Pictures, with filmmaker Xan Parker in 1999. Projects include Risk/Reward, a vérité documentary film about women on Wall Street, (directed and produced with Parker, executive producer Peter Gilbert) which was called “arresting” by The New York Times and “expertly crafted” by Variety, and was released theatrically in New York and Chicago and broadcast on Oxygen. Under the Roland Park Pictures banner, Holder, with Parker and director Ivy Meeropol, produced the critically acclaimed six-part documentary series The Hill (The Sundance Channel; IDA nomination) about the professional passions and personal stories of a group of Congressional staffers on Capitol Hill.
Holder’s first job in film was a production assistant on John Waters’ Hairspray in her hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. She has worked in production as a first assistant director on projects including Bear City and Harold (SNL, director: T. Sean Shannon); Spring Forward (IFC, director Tom Gilroy); Love & Action in Chicago (director Dwayne Johnson-Cochran); and 35 Miles from Normal (director Mark Schwahn).
She has directed plays and readings in New York at The Workhouse Theatre, The Westbank Cafe, The Mint Theatre, and Circle Rep Lab. Theatre credits include Keith Curran’s Sidekick, a one-man show featuring Frank Whaley, Kenneth Lonnergan’s The Heartsick Pioneer with Lauren Bowles, and the first reading of Austin Pendleton’s Uncle Bob with George Morfogen and Adam Stein. As a directing apprentice at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Powerhouse Theatre/New York Stage and Film and Naked Angels she assisted directors Austin Pendleton, Joe Mantello, Max Mayer, and Don Scardino.
Holder is a member of the International Documentary Association and the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences. She studied theater and government at Smith College, where she graduated with honors.
She is currently working on a documentary film about the Smith College Class of 1992 and directing Holli Harms’ Ziploc – at the Edgemar Center for the Arts’ One-Act Play Festival: Acts on the Edge.