Craig Zobel

Atlanta-based filmmaker Craig Zobel displayed a true independent spirit with his variety of roles for many feature and documentary projects, which ranged from producing films for longtime collaborator David Gordon Green ("All the Real Girls," 2003) to his own directorial efforts on the controversial "Compliance" (2012) and "Z for Zachariah" (2015). Born in New York City but raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Zobel studied film at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he met future creative collaborators David Gordon Green and Mike Chapman. While working a dead-end job associated with the 1996 Summer Olympics, he teamed with Chapman and his brother, Matt, to write a parody of children's books; the project later became a Flash animation site called Homestar Runner, which followed the adventures of the titular character, a dim but determined sports figure, and his array of surreal friends and associates. The cartoons, which parodied pop culture ephemera, grew in popularity over the next decade, generating several million hits per month on the site. During this period, Zobel also worked in a variety of capacities on various independent film projects, including unit production manager and co-producer on Green's first three critically acclaimed features, "George Washington" (2000), "All the Real Girls" and "Undertow" (2003). He directed his first short film, the small-town drama "Surfacing: AKA A Letter from My Father," in 2001, before serving as director and producer on the independent comedy "Great World of Sound" (2007), which concerned a pair of unscrupulous music industry talent scouts. Two years later, he directed, edited and produced "Of Montreal: In a Fit of Hercynian Prig, Oculi" (2009), a documentary about the Atlanta experimental rock band, before embarking on his first turn as a feature director with "Compliance." A harrowing psychological drama based on a real-life criminal case, the film starred Ann Dowd as the manager of a fast food restaurant who is coerced by an unidentified caller claiming to a police officer to subject one of her employees into submitting to a humiliating interrogation. "Compliance" drew headlines for a tension-filled screening at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where audience members argued with the cast and crew over perceived exploitative elements of the film, but the picture eventually drew critical praise during its brief box office run. Stints as producer on Green's comedy "Prince Avalanche" (2013) and the Al Pacino drama "Manglehorn" (2014) preceded his own return to the directorial chair with "Z for Zachariah." The post-apocalyptic drama, which starred Chris Pine, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Margot Robbie as participants in a love triangle that occurs in the wake of civilization's collapse.