| Tiffany Shlain | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1970 (age 41–42) Mill Valley, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | filmmaker |
| Known for | founder of the Webby Awards |
| Spouse | Ken Goldberg |
| Relatives | Leonard Shlain |
| Website | |
| tiffanyshlain.com | |
Tiffany Shlain (born 1970) is an American filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards. Recognized by Newsweek as "one of the women shaping the 21st century."[1]
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Tiffany Shlain was born in Mill Valley, California in 1970. She is the daughter of surgeon and author Leonard Shlain (1937–2009). She is married to artist Ken Goldberg who is a UC Berkeley professor; they live in northern California and have two children.[2]
Shlain is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute.[3] She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley where she was selected as a valedictorian speaker for the interdisciplinary Studies Department and received the highest honor in art, The Eisner Award, for filmmaking.[4] She received her BA in film theory and interdisciplinary studies in 1992. She studied organizational change at Harvard Business School Executive Education and film production at New York University’s Sight & Sound summer program in 1990. She serves on the advisory boards for The MIT GeoSpatial Data Center, The Fledging Fund, The San Francisco Film Festival’s Filmmaker Advisory Committee and The UC Berkeley’s Center for New Media. She also advises with The Institute for the Future. In 2010, she was invited to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to talk about how technology is changing the landscape in society.[5]
As a director for both theater and film, she has worked with Harrison Ford, Peter Coyote and Alan Cumming and was selected as an Artist-in-Residence at the Headland Center for the Arts and for a film residency at the San Francisco Film Society. She has been singled out by The New York Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and the Sundance Institute for her cutting-edge work using documentaries and internet distribution in unique ways to engage audiences.[4] She lectures worldwide on filmmaking and the Internet’s influence on society. Invitations include Harvard, MIT, Apple theaters in NYC and SF, The Idea Festival, Fortune 500 companies, the 92nd St Y in NYC and The Sydney Opera House.[4] She delivered the keynote address for University of California, Berkeley’s commencement ceremony to an audience of 11,500 on May 16, 2010.[6]
Her recent video art installation, "Smashing", with her husband Goldberg, premiered in New York City at the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair. She has received over 40 awards and distinctions during the course of her career for her work as a filmmaker, artist, internet pioneer and activist.[4]
Shlain founded The Webby Awards in 1996 and was creative director and CEO for nearly a decade.[7] The Webbys receive over 10,000 entries annually and are presented in NYC.[8] In 1998 she co-founded International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences,[9] today a 550-person organization and served as the on-air Internet expert for Good Morning America from 2000 to 2003. Her work with The Webbys has been profiled on The New York Times, The BBC, ABC, MTV, CNN, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair and NPR.[10] She also contributes regularly to The Huffington Post. In 2006, she co-founded The Moxie Institute an organization that creates films, discussion programs, theater experiences and internet experiments around social issues using emerging technologies with her husband, Ken Goldberg.[11]
Shlain produced her first feature-length film Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology,[12] which opened at the Sundance Film Festival.[13] Connected exposes the importance of personal connectedness in relation to understanding global conditions, ultimately showing how all of humanity is invested in today’s crucial issues. More than a film about social issues, it is a work that speaks directly to empathy, social engagement, and what it means to be connected in the 21st century.
Shlain's films include Connected (2011), The Tribe (2006), an exploration of American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie doll, and Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (2003), about reproductive rights in America.
Shlain's films have been selected for inclusion at the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and Rotterdam Film Festival.[11] The Tribe won Indiewire's Sundance Critics' Choice Award for 2006[14] and in October 2007 was the most-downloaded short film on iTunes.[15]