Deborah Kampmeier

Deborah Kampmeier was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She began her career in theater as an actress after training at the National Shakespeare Conservatory from 1983 to 1985. She went to prom with actor RuPaul.[2] Kampmeier taught acting in NYC for 20 years at such institutions as NYU, Stella Adler Studios, Michael Howard Studios,[3] Playwrights Horizons and The National Shakespeare Conservatory.[4]

Kampmeier made her first feature film Virgin (2003), starring Elisabeth Moss and Robin Wright Penn, on a budget of $65,000. The film picked up awards at the Hamptons Film Festival, Sedona Film Festival, Santa Fe Film Festival, and Female Eye Film Festival.[5] The film earned two nominations at the 19th Independent Spirit Awards, the John Cassavetes Award for Kampmeier and Best Female Lead for Moss.[6]

Her second feature film, Hounddog (2007), starring Dakota Fanning and Piper Laurie, debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.[7] The film was met with significant controversy due to a rape scene featuring a then twelve-year-old Fanning.[8] This sequence caused film critics and activists to condemn the film, with many deeming it "child abuse". Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, called for a federal investigation against Kampmeier,[9] with Donohue stating that the film was breaking anti-pornography laws and that Fanning was being exploited.[10]

Sundance Film Festival organizer, Geoffrey Gilmore, praised Kampmeier for trying to cover "challenging material". Kampmeier responded to the criticism by explaining that Fanning and the two other child actors in the film, Cody Hanford and Isabelle Fuhrman, were only acting and decried the attacks against "my mother, my agent ... my teacher, who were all on the set that day" by critics.[10] Fanning herself stated, "I'm not going through anything like that, it's just my character. It's just another scene and wasn't any different from anything else I've done" and said that the controversy was "blown out of proportion".[11]

Kampmeier released her third feature film, Split (2016), which premiered at the Sarasota Film Festival.[12] The film follows a young actress who is split from her full self when she falls in love with a mask-maker and the relationship takes on dark subtleties. It stars Amy Ferguson, Morgan Spector, and Kampmeier's daughter, Sophia Oppenheim, in her film debut. Indie Outlook described the film as "an arrestingly raw howl of fury at the global stigmatization of female sexuality.[13]

Kampmeier's films have been noted for their strong feminist themes, as all of her films have featured female protagonists. Speaking of her debut film Virgin in an interview with Jan Lisa Huttner, Kampmeier noted that "one of the criticisms [she] hear[s] a lot is that there are no sympathetic male characters in Virgin". She also mentioned the difficulties she experienced in marketing the film after explaining to film executives that her target audience was women. She was told that "women aren't a ‘demographic,' at least not a demographic you can market to. Boyfriends and husbands make the decisions".[14] Kampmeier concluded that the roadblocks she faced in finding a distributor for the film cemented her desire to focus on the experiences of being a woman in her subsequent films.

In 2019, Kampmeier was selected by director Ava DuVernay to direct an episode of the television series, Queen Sugar.[15] This marked Kampmeier's television directorial debut.[15] She has also directed Tales of the Walking Dead,[16] Star Trek: Picard,[17] and The Gilded Age.[18]