2008 POINT SCHOLARS

Brooke Sebold

Calamus Foundation Point Scholar

Columbia University

Film Arts

Brooke was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona by liberal-minded parents who have always been supportive of her sexual orientation. When Brooke was five and wanted to grow up to be a man, she was encouraged to explore her gender expression. When she came out as gay at nineteen, her parents claimed to have always known. It was, thus, a shock for her to eventually discover that not all parents love their children unconditionally.

In 2007, Brooke and her film collaborators, Todd and Benita Sills, explored this issue in-depth with their first feature length documentary, RED WITHOUT BLUE (RWB). The film captured the singular relationship between two identical twins as one transitions from male to female. RWB received over twenty awards, and garnered glowing reviews in the SF Chronicle, the LA Times, the Advocate and dozens of other publications.

For the last five years, Brooke has worked as a producer and editor in the Bay Area. Her work tends to address the ambiguities of identity, exploring marginal experiences so that the viewer can question the conditions that shape his/her own self-image.

Brooke received a Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in Visual Arts from Brown University and is currently a Dean's Fellow in the Master of Fine Arts Film Program at Columbia University in New York City. After graduation she will continue to express her artistic voice through both documentary and narrative films exploring untold stories that compel and provoke change.