Annette Insdorf is Professor of Film at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and Moderator of 92NY’s Reel Pieces series. She is the author of Francois Truffaut, a study of the French director’s work; two books about Polish filmmakers—Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski and Intimations: The Cinema of Wojciech Has; Philip Kaufman, and the landmark study, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (with a foreword by Elie Wiesel). Her latest book is Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes, and she received the Mel Novikoff Award from the 2018 San Francisco Film Festival.

Academy Award®, Emmy and Golden Globe winner, Laura Dern has touched audiences and critics alike with her moving and heartfelt performances. For her performance in Marriage Story, Dern received numerous accolades including the Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG Award, Critics’ Choice Award and the BAFTA Award. In 2019, she was seen in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women, as well as reprised her role as Renata in the second season of HBO’s Big Little Lies, which earned Dern her eighth Emmy nomination.

Upcoming, Dern will star opposite Hugh Jackman and Vanessa Kirby in The Son, writer-director Florian Zeller’s follow-up to the BAFTA winning and Academy Award-nominated The Father. She is set to reprise her iconic role as Ellie Sattler in Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World: Dominion, releasing in June 2022.

In addition to her extensive film and television credits, Dern has been prolific in her producing career. In 2017, she established Jaywalker Pictures, a Los Angeles-based production company founded with partner Jayme Lemons with emphasis on great storytelling in film and television. Jaywalker Pictures recently released the feature documentary The Way I See It for Focus Features and MSNBC Films, which recently garnered a News & Documentary Emmy nomination. Jaywalker also served as executive producers on the Academy Award winning animated short film If Anything Happens I Love You.

In 2016 she was also selected to serve on the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors.

BAFTA award-winning actress Vanessa started her career in a series of theatre roles for director David Thacker. She first appeared as Ann in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons for which she received the BIZA Rising Star Award at the Manchester followed by Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. Vanessa went on to secure roles in the National Theatre’s Women Beware Women and the West Yorkshire Playhouse’s As You Like It. In 2011 her role in The Acid Test at the Royal Court Theatre received rave reviews, and she was described as “a significant new talent” by The Guardian and “a star if ever I saw one” by The Independent.

Vanessa made her TV debut shortly after this in the BBC’s The Hour alongside Ben Whishaw and Dominic West. She then went on to play Estella in the BBC’s adaption of Great Expectations alongside Ray Winstone, Gillian Anderson and Douglas Booth.

She played the lead role of Alice in Ridley Scott’s mini-series adaptation of Kate Mosse’s novel Labyrinth in 2012, and then in Charlie Countryman alongside Shia LeBeouf, Evan Rachel Wood and Mads Mikkelson. Later that year, Vanessa appeared in Three Sisters at the Young Vic, earning rave reviews. In 2013, Vanessa appeared in Richard Curtis’ About Time alongside Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams and Bill Nighy.

In 2014, she also starred in Queen and Country — John Boorman’s follow-up to Hope and Glory starring Callum Turner and David Thewlis. Vanessa won the Best Supporting Actress award at the WhatsOnStage awards for her performance alongside Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster, as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire at The Young Vic.

In early 2015 Vanessa starred in the Wachowski sibling’s Jupiter Ascending alongside Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum and Eddie Redmayne, and Bone in Throat, which premiered at SXSW in March and also stars Ed Westwick, Tom Wilkinson and Neil Maskell. In late 2015, Vanessa starred in BBC2’s The Dresser, alongside Anthony Hopkins and Sir Ian McKellen. The two-hour drama was based on the play of the same name by Ronald Harwood and directed by Richard Eyre. Vanessa also appeared opposite Sean Bean in ITV’s The Frankenstein Chronicles.

Vanessa played Yelena in Uncle Vanya at The Almeida Theatre alongside Jessica Brown Findlay, Tobias Menzies, Paul Rhys, Richard Lumsden, Hilton McRae and Ann Queensberry in 2016. She then reprised her role as Stella in A Street Car Named Desire alongside Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster on Broadway. Vanessa also appeared as the lead role in Kill Command and she starred alongside Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin and Charles Dance in Thea Sharrock’s Me Before You.

In 2016 and 2017, Vanessa starred as Princess Margaret in Netflix’s award-winning series, The Crown, earning her a Supporting Actress nomination at the British Academy Television Awards 2017, and again in 2018, where she won. Vanessa was also nominated in the Supporting Actress Category at the Primetime Emmy Awards 2018.

Vanessa returned to the big screen in Mission Impossible: Fallout alongside Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill and Rebecca Ferguson. In 2018, Vanessa played the titular role in Carrie
Cracknell’s Julie at London’s National Theatre.

In August 2019, Vanessa starred in Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw, a spin-off from the Fast and Furious franchise. 2019 also saw Vanessa complete the filming on The World to Come, which competed at 2020’s Venice Film Festival in the main competition, winning the festival’s “Queer Lion” prize.

Vanessa starred in Netflix’s Pieces of a Woman, which recounts the story of a woman trying to rebuild her life after the loss of her baby. Premiering at the Venice Biennale, Vanessa won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a SAG Award Best Actress, a Critics’ Choice Award and a London Film Critics’ Circle Award for her role.

Vanessa recently wrapped filming the next instalment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible 7 and will also star alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in the survival thriller Suddenly, an adaptation based on the popular French novel Soudain Seuls by Isabelle Autissier.

Vanessa is a Global Ambassador for War Child, a charity which supports children from across the world who are affected by war and conflict. www.warchild.org.uk