Wendy Bednarz
DIRECTOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Wendy Bednarz’s career began in New York City’s fashion industry where she worked for Stephen Sprouse in the old Andy Warhol Factory. There she developed a sharpened aesthetic taste for the off-beat and a love of both still and moving images. These early days in downtown New York City, eventually segued into a lifetime career as a filmmaker, photographer and Professor of Film at New York University.
The impetus for “Burning Money” came to Wendy when she was teaching at NYU’s Tisch Asia in Singapore. Each day, on her way to work, she walked through a local wet market and was inspired by the “curious paper objects” she found hanging in the Joss shops. These paper replicas of modern conveniences such as iPads, yachts and designer clothes peaked her curiosity and the idea for ‘Burning Money’ was born.
Wendy’s professional work engages multicultural narratives and has been exhibited and screened internationally, including at New York Museum of Modern Art and garnering such awards as Cine Golden Eagle, Independent Film Award and Sundance Winfemme. Her Fine Art photographic series, “Palimpsest”, an amalgamation of photojournalism and reconstructed images, has been exhibited internationally. With a keen interest in East African tribal culture, Wendy Bednarz’s has traveled to Ethiopia where she initiated an ongoing Fine Art photography project photographing the Omo Valley Tribes, ‘Tribal Exotic; Beauty and Objectification as seen through the eyes of the Western World.’
A recipient of a REF grant, Wendy is currently developing the narrative feature project, ‘Yellow Bus Asfar,’ loosely based on the true story of four-year-old Indian girl who fell asleep on an Abu Dhabi school bus and suffocated in the blistering heat. Germinating from a lecture, Adapting Real Life Stories to Film, ‘Yellow Bus Asfar’ encapsulates Wendy’s greatest passions by bridging her artistic ambitions, the classroom and local communities.
Wendy has taught at The Lee Strasberg Institute and has been a full time faculty member of NYU’s Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television Undergraduate Film Program, NYU’s Tisch Asia Graduate Film Program and more recently NYUAD’s Film and New Media Department. She teaches directing, screenwriting and film production.
