Laurie Weltz is a writer/director, who was named one of 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2022 by the International Screenwriting Association. She is currently in development on her third feature film, THE NIGHT SWIMMER, which was awarded the PAGE Screenwriting Fellowship at Stowe Story Labs and selected as a participant in the MOME Financing Lab. She is also developing an anthology television series called THE NARRATIVE.
Laurie’s second feature film, ABOUT SCOUT, which won the Bronze Award at the PAGE Screenwriting Competition, had its international premiere at the Rome Film Festival and was released theatrically and on VOD and DVD in 2016. Her debut feature film, WRESTLING WITH ALLIGATORS, premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. The film picked up awards at several other festivals before being released theatrically, on video, and on the Sundance Channel and Starz.
Laurie has worked as a freelance director and editor on hundreds of television shows, music videos, documentaries, and branded content, including such television documentaries as HBO’s feature documentary, SHOCK VIDEO, A&E’s documentary series HEROES, MADE IN THE USA a TV series for Channel 4 in the U.K. and NELSON SULLIVAN’S WORLD OF WONDER, a one-hour video diary about the NY club scene in the ’80s. Her television work has twice been nominated for ACE Awards.
Additionally, Laurie has written several optioned feature scripts including MUDDY SHOES (co-written with Patrik Krivanek) a British/Czech co-production presently in development. The script won the Silver Prize for Dramatic Feature in the PAGE Screenwriting Competition in 2022 and Best Screenplay at The New Renaissance Film Festival. Her screenplay, WATERMOON, a ghostly thriller was selected for IFP's No Border Lab, and MONKEY RIVER (co-written with Jay C. Key) won the Grand Prize in the PAGE Screenwriting Competition.
Laurie is a graduate of the New York University Graduate Film program and her award-winning thesis film AT FIVE AND TWENTY-FIVE was aired on USA Television. She is the festival programming director for the Film Fatales, a panelist and organizer of the Women’s Media Summit, and has served as a judge for several film festivals including the Denver Film Festival and the Brooklyn Film Festival. Her projects have been recipients of numerous screenwriting and filmmaking awards, as well as participants in IFP Emerging Filmmakers, IFP No Borders, a finalist for NYWIFT’s Ravenal Grant, and Stowe Story Labs PAGE Screenwriting Fellow.