Laurie Collyer, Sherrybaby

Laurie Collyer graduated in film from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and now she's a Sundance Film Festival baby. Her prize-winning 2000 documentary Nuyorican Dream premiered there and Sherrybaby, her first feature film, was workshopped at the Sundance Filmmakers' Lab before being made into a tour de force for Maggie Gyllenhaal. This summer Sherrybaby became the first American film since Salt of the Earth in the early '50s to be named Best Picture at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where Gyllenhaal was also named Best Actress for playing an ex-junkie just released from jail who tries to re-establish a relationship with her pre-school aged daughter. Collyer, who was seven months pregnant when she filmed Sherrybaby in New Jersey, was inspired by a friend she knew growing up, and finds it appropriate that as the film opens Gyllenhaal is now pregnant (24 minutes).

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