# Robert Kolodny (filmmaker)

Robert Kolodny is an American film director, writer and cinematographer. His 2023 debut feature film, The Featherweight, premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival. He was a cinematographer for the Peabody Award-winning documentary film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, released in 2022.

## Early life

Kolodny grew up in Freehold Township, New Jersey, and attended Freehold High School where he began making films at a young age after developing a fascination with motion pictures. He studied Film Direction at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he studied under Manfred Kirchheimer. During this time Kolodny began an artistic collaboration with Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña.

## Career

In 2010, Kolodny formed the production company House of Nod. Through this company he began to create commercial work as well as music videos with Brooklyn based artists such as Japanese Breakfast, Frankie Cosmos, LVL UP and Gabby's World.
In 2013 Robert Kolodny won an Emmy for directing a season of the culinary TV program Frankie Cooks. The same year he directed the short film Fly on Out which won the grand prize at the AbelCine Vision Research Miro High-Speed Inspiration Challenge.
Around this time Kolodny began working as a documentary cinematographer, initially on Lenny Cooke by the Safdie brothers and then with Robert Greene on Kate Plays Christine and Bisbee '17. He worked his way up to being the director of photography for Greene's Netflix film Procession, Alex Ross Perry's Pavements and one of the cinematographers of the Peabody Award-winning and Academy Award nominated All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras. For several years Kolodny was working on a nonfiction film about Bulgarian Olympian Serafim Todorov.
In 2018, he created the film elements for Disappeared Quipu which appeared at the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and MALBA. The massive site-specific art art piece included a looping four channel video projection composed of intricately drifting ancient Andean textiles. During the COVID-19 pandemic Kolodny collaborated playwright Taylor Mac on several of musical specials that streamed online and then later were performed live. In 2022 he was named one of Doc NYC's 40 under 40.
Key collaborators in Kolodny's work include his cinematographer brother Adam Kolodny, producer Bennett Elliott, Robert Greene, Alex Ross Perry and Sean Price Williams. Robert Kolodny is a professor of film at his alma mater, the School of Visual Arts, where he teaches directing and screenwriting.

### The Featherweight

The Featherweight was Robert Kolodny's feature film directorial debut. It tracks the post-retirement career of former world champion boxer Willie Pep and his troubled road to a comeback, as a direct cinema film crew documents his daily life. Starring James Madio, Ron Livingston, Stephen Lang, Keir Gilchrist and Ruby Wolf, the film received critical acclaim for its realism and intricate craft. Guy Lodge from Variety said: "Kolodny puts nary a foot wrong in his precise replication of a midcentury vérité aesthetic and gaze, from the particular grain and thrust of the camerawork to the authentically abrasive tone and tenor of the performances."
The Featherweight premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival in the Orizzonti competition. Later it was selected as the closing film of the 54th International Film Festival of India. Kolodny was received the John Schlesinger Narrative Award from the Provincetown International Film Festival and the Peter Brunette Award for Best Director at RiverRun International Film Festival for his work on the film.

## Influences

Robert Kolodny has publicly cited the work of several directors as being influential to him, including John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese as well as the direct cinema movement, specifically the work of D. A. Pennebaker and Albert and David Maysles.

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Cinematographer | Editor | Notes |
| 2010 | Shelter | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Short |
| 2013 | Fly on Out | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short |
| 2013 | Lenny Cooke | | | Yes | | Additional Cinematography |
| 2013 | Frankie Cooks | Yes | | Yes | | TV |
| 2016 | Kate Plays Christine | | | Yes | | Additional Cinematography |
| 2017 | La Noche de la Especies | Yes | | | Yes | With Cecilia Vicuna |
| 2018 | Bisbee '17 | | | Yes | | Additional Cinematography |
| 2018 | Disappeared Quipu | Yes | | Yes | Yes | With Cecilia Vicuna |
| 2021 | Procession | | | Yes | | |
| 2022 | All the Beauty and the Bloodshed | | | Yes | | Additional Cinematography |
| 2023 | The Sweet East | | | Yes | | Additional Cinematography |
| 2023 | The Featherweight | Yes | | | | Feature Debut |
| 2024 | Rite Here Rite Now | | | Yes | Yes | |
| 2024 | Pavements | | | Yes | | |
Music videos
| Year | Title | Artist(s) | Role(s) |
| 2013 | "Nightshade" | LVL UP | Director |
| 2015 | "Broken Necks" | Gabby's World | Director |
| 2015 | "Really Love" | Body Language | DP |
| 2016 | "National Parks" | Big Ups | Director |
| 2016 | "The Closing Door" | LVL UP | Director |
| 2016 | "Everybody Wants To Love You" | Japanese Breakfast | Producer |
| 2016 | "Jane Cum" | Japanese Breakfast | Producer |
| 2016 | "Thick Skin" | Bellows | Director |
| 2016 | "Tummy Ache" | Diet Cig | Director |
| 2017 | "Machinist" | Japanese Breakfast | Producer |
| 2017 | "Road Head" | Japanese Breakfast | Producer |
| 2017 | "Bobby" | Alex G | Producer, Editor |
| 2018 | "Boyish" | Japanese Breakfast | Editor |
| 2018 | "Carnations" | Palehound | Director, Editor |
| 2018 | "Cut Me Off" | Madeline Kenney | Director, Editor |
| 2019 | "Dylan Thomas" | Better Oblivion Community Center | Editor |
| 2019 | "Aaron" | Palehound | Director, DP, Editor |
| 2019 | "Worthy" | Palehound | Director, DP, Editor |
| 2019 | "Wannago" | Frankie Cosmos | Director, Editor |
| 2021 | "Sam Jam" | Covey | Director, Editor |
| 2021 | "1991" | Covey | Director, Editor |
| 2021 | "I Wrote You a Song" | Chad Lawson | Director, DP |
| 2021 | "Be Sweet" | Japanese Breakfast | Editor |
| 2021 | "Savage Good Boy" | Japanese Breakfast | Editor |
| 2021 | "Dig" | Barrie | Director, Editor |
| 2021 | "Quarry" | Barrie | Director, DP, Editor |
| 2022 | "Harness Your Hopes" | Pavement | Editor |
| 2022 | "Metal Myths" | Ghost | Producer, DP, Editor |
| 2022 | "Bones" | Soccer Mommy | Editor |
| 2022 | "Across That Fine Line" | Nation of Language | Director |
| 2023 | "Days Move Slow" | Bully | Editor |
| 2023 | "Too Much, Enough" | Nation of Language | Director |
| 2023 | "Jesus He Knows Me" | Ghost | DP, Editor |
| 2023 | "Tidal Session" | Momma | Producer, DP, Editor |
| 2023 | "Ghostwriter" | Speedy Ortiz | DP |
| 2024 | "Stopping and Staring" | Gustaf | Editor |
| 2024 | "Missing Out" | Maya Hawke | DP, Editor |
| 2024 | "Dark" | Maya Hawke | DP, Editor |
| 2024 | "I'm A Man" | Kim Gordon | Editor |
| 2024 | "After Hours" | Christian Lee Hutson | DP, Editor |
| 2024 | "Paradise Pop. 10" | Christian Lee Hutson | DP, Editor |