You Are Not I

Sara Driver (born December 15, 1955) is an independent filmmaker born in Westfield, New Jersey. She produced two early films for Jim Jarmusch, helping him to gain international attention and success. She is also known for coining the phrase necro-tourism after the surge in tourism due to the fall of the World Trade Towers in 2001.

Film career

Driver made her directorial debut in 1981 with You Are Not I, a short subject film based on a Paul Bowles story and co-written by Jim Jarmusch. Shot in six days on a $12,000 budget, it developed a following soon after a well-received premiere at the Public Theater, only to be pulled out of circulation when a warehouse fire destroyed the film’s negative. Rarely seen, it was still championed by renowned critics and film journals like Jonathan Rosenbaum and Cahiers du Cinéma, which hailed You Are Not I as one of the best films of the 1980s. Considered ‘lost’ for many years, a print was later discovered among Bowles belongings, and following a digital restoration, the film was screened for the first time in 20 years in 2010.

Driver directed her first feature film, Sleepwalk in 1986. It was awarded the Prix Georges Sadoul (1986) by the Cinematheque Francaise, the Special Prize at the 1986 International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg, and was the opening night selection for the 25th Anniversary of the International Critic’s Week (1986) at the Cannes International Film Festival. Sleepwalk was also featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s 1987 New Directors Film Series and the Sundance Film Festival (1987).

Driver directed the “Bed and Boar” episode of the TV series Monsters (1990). Her second feature film as a director, When Pigs Fly (1993), stars Marianne Faithfull and Alfred Molina and is scored by Joe Strummer. The film received the Best of Festival Feature award at the 1994 Long Island Film Festival. When Pigs Fly premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival.

Driver also wrote and directed the short documentary, The Bowery – Spring, 1994, part of Postcards from New York, an anthology program for French TV. Driver has producer and production credits for many films of Jim Jarmusch, as well as minor roles in three of his films.

Driver’s theater work includes the play “What the Hell – Zelda Sayre” (1977, writer, director); the experimental musical, “Jazz Passengers in Egypt” (1990, director), performed at La Mama, NYC; as well as the play “Stairway to Heaven” (1994, director), at the Cucaracha Theatre, NYC.

Driver was a juror at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (2004) where they also did a retrospective of her films. She was also a juror at the Miami International Film Festival (2005), San Sebastian Film Festival (2006), Bahamas International Film Festival (2006), and director Emir Kusturica’s Küstendorf Film and Music Festival (2010).

Personal life and education

Driver was born in Westfield, New Jersey. She taught directing in NYU’s Graduate Film School (1996–1998), where she received her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1982. —Wikipedia