Ondi Timoner

Andrea Doane "Ondi" Timoner was born on Dec. 6, 1972 in Miami, FL. She leapt into the world of filmmaking immediately upon graduating from Yale University, where she studied theater, film, and literature; Timoner made her directorial and producing debut with the documentary "The Nature of the Beast" (1994), an account of a woman incarcerated for murder on questionable grounds. At the same time, she founded the production company Interloper Films. She continued to direct, produce, and edit documentaries, earning especial attention with the Sundance Film Festival release "Dig!" (2004), which chronicled the rise and fall of rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. From there on, Timoner became something of a festival mainstay. Her following documentary short, "Recycle" (2005), premiered at Cannes to great esteem, while her feature-length projects "We Live in Public" (2009)-about the life and work of tech mogul Josh Harris-and the global warming-themed "Cool It" (2010) found comparable success with Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival debuts. After a series of short-form documentaries, Timoner released "Brand: A Second Coming" (2015), which spotlighted the career of actor and recovering drug addict Russell Brand. Her next project, however, would prove to be her greatest formal departure: Timoner set to work on her first narrative feature, casting Zosia Mamet and Matt Smith in a biographical picture about 1970s avant-garde photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and his best friend and creative muse Patti Smith. At the same time, Timoner launched another creative first: a web series about innovations in the tech world. She went on to direct "Coming Clean" (2020), a documentary examining the American opioid crisis.