"For me, cinema is sorcery, a creative way to interact with the world in order to rearrange perception and expand consciousness, both the viewers and my own"--Nina

Called "Brilliant, one of the most provocative artists in film today" by The Los Angeles Times, Nina Menkes synthesizes inner dream-worlds with harsh, outer realities. Her six films are a body of work Sight and Sound has called "Controversial, intense and visually stunning."

Menkes has produced, written, directed, shot and edited her own 35mm features, and for many years worked closely with her sister, Tinka Menkes, who was both lead performer and creative collaborator. Her films have shown widely in major international film festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Locarno, London, San Francisco, Seattle, Cairo, Toronto as well as at La Cinematheque Francaise, The British Film Institute, the ICA in London, the Beijing Film Academy in China, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and LACMA in Los Angeles. Menkes' many honors include a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Annenberg Foundation Independent Media Grant, an American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award, three Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships and two Senior Fulbright Research Awards--one to the Middle East/North Africa, and one to India . Menkes was also a recipient of a DAAD Artist in Residence in Berlin Award. In addition, her work has been listed on many periodicals "Top Ten Films of the Year" lists, including, repeatedly, The Los Angeles Times.

Most recently, Menkes shot and co-directed a feature length, experimental documentary in Beirut , Lebanon which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2005 and won a FIPRESCI award. Her latest feature PHANTOM LOVE, premiered at Sundance 2007 to critical raves--pls see www.myspace.com/phantomlovemovie.

Watch a trailer from Nina's latest feature, Phantom Love, described by Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times as, "Potent and Luminous! A seductively powerful vision... Menkes is one of the most provocative artists in film today!"

She has a Media Arts Award from the Rockefeller Foundation for her new feature script, HEATSTROKE, Executive produced by Gus Van Sant and Mark Romanek.

Menkes' work shows theatrically, is available on video/DVD nationwide through Facets Multi-media www.facets.org , and has also been broadcast on PBS, the Sundance Channel, as well as on WDR German Television and other foreign networks. Since 1996, retrospectives of her work have shown in Los Angeles and most European capitals. In 2000, she created a computer-based digital work: an interactive CD-ROM, commissioned by the Annenberg Center for Communications in Los Angeles .

Reviews of Menkes's work have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Film Quarterly, American Cinematographer, The New York Post, The New York Times, Sight and Sound, Atlanta Art Papers, The LA Weekly, The Village Voice and numerous other periodicals.

Nina Menkes has an MFA with honors from the UCLA Film School . She has taught directing at USC, California Institute of the Arts and at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune-- India 's premiere film academy.

List of Work:

PHANTOM LOVE (2007) 87 minutes/35mm to HD/87 minutes

MASSACRE (2003) DV to 35mm/98 min**

THE CRAZY BLOODY FEMALE CENTER (2000) CD-ROM/3 hrs. playing time

THE BLOODY CHILD (1996) 35mm film/ 86 minutes

QUEEN OF DIAMONDS (1991) 35mm film/77 minutes

MAGDALENA VIRAGA (1986) 16mm film/90 minutes

THE GREAT SADNESS OF ZOHARA(1983) 16mm film/40 minutes

A SOFT WARRIOR (1981) S-8 film/11 minutes

**co-director and director of photography



Contact Nina at nina@ninamenkes.com

Nina's website: www.ninamenkes.com