Meredith Zielke

Meredith Zielke is an international director, cinematographer, producer and editor - whose work offers multiply situated interpretations of social systems, body and conflict. She works mainly in experimental documentary and large scale video installation. Meredith has worked on a number of socially critical film projects: from futurist utopias, social control, and UFO cults in Brazil ("A Machine to Live In"), to collective, conditional, and crypto-Judaic identities in Mexico City ("The Jettisoned"), hybridized healing practices in the Northern Andes ("La Curación"), and healing through dialogue ("Zeitouna: Refusing to be Enemies"). Meredith is also invested in the topics of gun violence, incarceration and criminal justice reform, as exemplified in her work: She is the Co-Director of "Present Absence", a video installation that makes visible the lives of individuals killed by Chicago Police. She is the co-editor of "Natural Life", a documentary on juvenile life without parole sentencing, collaborator to CPS students on gang violence projects, resident filmmaker for a collaborative video course at IYC: Illinois Youth Center / Department of Juvenile Justice, and for the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project (on race relations and law enforcement in LGBTQ communities). Meredith worked with refugees through Rotary International, and facilitated film programming at the Broadway Youth Center with homeless LGBT youth. Meredith also works in community radio and storytelling, having been a producer at StoryCorps Chicago and WBEZ's sister project Vocalo 89FM. Her films have showed in numerous national and international festivals, conferences, galleries, educational institutions and community centers. Awards include: 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema - Filmmaker Magazine (2018), The SFFILM 2017 Documentary Film Fund, Graham Foundation Grant to Individuals, the Filmmaker Fund Grant, Gelman Travel Fellowship, Kenneth Rainin Foundation Grant, San Francisco Film Society - Documentary Film Fund Grant, PBS Silvers Award for Independent Film, DCASE Chicago, Illinois Arts Council Grant, The McVay Fellowship. Invited participant: IFP Documentary Labs, DOK Incubator (Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia), Spotlight on Documentaries at IFP's Independent Film Week Forum, and Featured filmmaker at the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Meredith is an alum of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (BA 2004), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA 2010). She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Film, Video, New Media and Animation department.