Tamara Jenkins

Writer, director and actress Tamara Jenkins was not a typical Hollywood power-player, cranking out movie after movie and banking on star-power over narrative substance. Based out of New York City, Jenkins followed her artist's instincts from acting and performance art to feature filmmaking and writing and directing shorts for public television. While most writer-directors would head straight to Hollywood and scramble to stay in the trades, Jenkins followed up the critical success of her debut feature, "Slums of Beverly Hills" (1998) by taking sabbaticals at an artists' colony, publishing in literary journals and directing public service announcements. "The Savages"(2007), her much-anticipated follow-up to "Slums," premiered at Sundance nine years later, revealing an independent voice that could only come from an unconventional artist far removed from the pressures of the Hollywood system.