THE FILMMAKERS

RUSSELL FRIEDENBERG/ HEATHER RAE

Heather Rae
Producer / Director

Heather Rae has worked in a producing capacity on more than a dozen documentaries and half dozen features throughout her twenty years in the film industry. After thirteen years of work on her documentary Trudell, the film was accepted in over 100 festivals, played theatrically in over 60 markets, aired on PBS’ Independent Lens Series and The Sundance Channel. Rae is directing First Circle, a documentary about the foster care system, meth and the American family. She produced Frozen River, which stars Melissa Leo, Michael O’Keefe and Marc Boone Jr. Frozen River premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. Rae produced Out of the Blue: A Film about Life and Football for ESPN and Hart Sharp about the Boise State University Football team and their 2006 undefeated season leading up to the Fiesta Bowl victory. Rae also produced Ibid, which will premiere at the 2008 South By Southwest film festival. For Six years Rae ran the Native Program at the Sundance Institute and was a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival. After leaving Sundance in 2001 she went on to work for Winter Films as Senior Vice President of Production. For the past seven years she has worked independently as a director and producer. Her other projects include Sawtooth, starring Adam Beach, Gary Farmer and Udo Kier and Water Flowing Together about master ballet dancer Jock Soto. She also co-produced Backroads, directed by Shirley Cheechoo, which premiered at Sundance in 2000.  Prior to her years at Sundance, Rae produced on such documentary films as CBS's 500 Nations, Turner Broadcasting's The Native Americans, and PBS' Storytellers of the Pacific. She produced the behind-the-scenes making of Smoke Signals for the Sundance Channel and was an Associate Producer on Silent Tears, directed by Cheechoo. Rae is an Adjunct Professor at Boise State University and sits on the board of Boise’s creative incubator, The Water Cooler. Rae is Cherokee and a mother of three. She and her family reside in Boise, Idaho.