Sean Price Williams
Since working at legendary video stores like Kim’s Video and becoming a fixture at every New York City repertory cinema, Sean Price Williams has been obsessed with movies from his early teens. His breathtaking cinematography showcased early on in Jessica Oreck’s “Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo”, which premiered at the South By South West (SXSW) Film Festival in 2009, and for which Variety’s Justin Chang described Williams’ camerawork and visual style as “pure poetry.”
Williams was cinematographer on Ronald Bronstein’s “Frownland”, which received a Special Jury Award at SXSW in 2007 and was named the 2007 Gotham Award-winner for ‘Best Film Not Playing at a Theatre Near You’. Williams was also cinematographer on Mary Bronstein’s “Yeast”, starring Greta Gerwig. He has shot several films for Alex Ross Perry “Impolex”, “The Color Wheel”, “Listen Up, Phillip”, “Queen of Earth” and most recently “Golden Exits” which premiered this year in Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Competition.
Williams has worked with the Safdie Brothers on several films: “The Black Balloon”, won the Jury Prize in Short Film, U.S. Fiction, at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, “Heaven Knows What” premiered at Toronto, screened at SXSW and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. This past year he shot the highly anticipated “Good Time” starring Robert Pattinson.
Williams has worked alongside Abel Ferrara and Noah Baumach and served extensively as cameraman for mentor Albert Maysles with whom he collaborated on “Iris” the director’s last documentary about the scintillating and stylish N.Y. octogenarian.
The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody described Williams as "the cinematographer for many of the best and most significant independent films of the past decade, fiction and documentary”.
Filmography (as Cinematographer)
- 2017 GOOD TIME by Ben and Joshua Safdie
- 2017 THIRST STREET by Nathan Silver
- 2017 GOLDEN EXITS by Alex Ross Perry
- 2017 MARJORIE PRIME by Michael Almereyda
- 2015 QUEEN OF EARTH by Alex Ross Perry
- 2015 HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT by Ben & Joshua Safdie
- 2015 CHRISTMAS, AGAIN by Charles Poekel
- 2015 SIN ALAS by Ben Chace
- 2014 LISTEN UP PHILLIP by Alex Ross Perry
- 2014 YOUNG BODIES HEAL QUICKLY by Andrew T. Betzer
- 2012 THE BLACK BALLOON by Ben & Joshua Betzer
- 2013THE COLOR WHEEL by Alex Ross Perry
- 2012 SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME' by Bob Byington
- 2009 IMPOLEX by Alex Ross Perry
- 2008 YEAST by Mary Bronstein
- 2016 FROWNLAND by Ronald Bronstein
- 2016 KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE by Robert Greene
- 2016 CONTEMPORARY COLOR by Bill Ross IV & Turner Ross
- 2014 IRIS by Albert Maysles
- 2012 IF YOU TAKE THIS by Craig Butta
- 2014 THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA by Jessica Oreck
- 2012 KUICHISAN by Maiko Endo
- 2010 MULBERRY STREET by Abel Ferrara
- 2009 BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO by Jessica Oreck