KINGMAKER
Based on the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell
Kingmaker is Alexa-Sascha’s passion project and she is thrilled to bring Gertrude Bell’s amazing life to the screen. Co-written with Brad Rister, Kingmaker was a Quarterfinalist in the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, and was a Top-3 Finalist in the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. Alexa-Sascha was invited to speak at the Tomouh Community of Leaders (TCL) 2019 Retreat in Bath, England with her speech entitled, Kingmaker: The Creation of Modern Arabia and the Power of Film to Impact Change. Shortly thereafter, Alexa-Sascha was nominated and approved for membership, and then served on the TCL Membership Committee.
Alexa-Sascha is an alumna of the Sony Pictures Television Diverse Directors Program and the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women. She co-wrote (with Steve Skrovan, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond), the comedy Wiedervereinigung, which she will also be directing. Wiedervereinigung is being produced by Philip Schulz-Deyle (Snowden, Eine ganz heisse Nummer). Alexa-Sascha and Brad are currently co-writing the novel of their 70's East German spy thriller limited series, The Priest Who Knew Too Much.
Recent projects include Broken, a dramatic short film which had its World Premiere at the Sonoma International Film Festival and Trainers, a comedy web series, which premiered at FOX and was picked up for distribution through Comediva. For her short crime thriller, The Honeysting, Alexa-Sascha was awarded the Panavision New Filmmaker grant and the Humane Society of United States Animal in Content in Entertainment (ACE) grant. The film was selected as part of the Tribeca Film Institute's ReFrame Collection and received a Worldwide All-Media distribution deal through Shorts International, where it continues to air in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Africa on the channel ShortsTV. The Honeysting was also showcased in ShortsHD's program, '100 Films by Her,' and Alexa-Sascha was recently featured on ShortsHD's "Filmmaker Spotlight."
Following her work on The Honeysting, Alexa-Sascha was invited to shadow the producing director on CSI. She has subsequently shadowed directors on twelve television shows; e.g. Modern Family (ABC), Castle (ABC), The Middle (ABC), Bones (FOX), The Night Shift (NBC), Lie to Me (FOX), The Goldbergs (ABC). In addition, she directed a scene on the series final of Trauma (NBC).
For her stage production of Christopher Durang's comedy play, 'Dentity Crisis, Alexa-Sascha's direction was declared "brilliant" by On Stage Los Angeles and "fabulously frenetic" by Stage Scene LA, with the play winning four Scenie Awards from Stage Scene LA: Memorable Direction, Memorable Production, Memorable Cast Performance, and Best Performance.
Alexa-Sascha began her career in narrative features, interning for Robert Redford’s South Fork Pictures and Propaganda Films, until she jumped on board a theatrical feature documentary shoot filming the most beautiful landscapes in the world. When she was 24, Alexa-Sascha directed her first film, the documentary, Safari Doctors: Wildlife Conservation Medicine. As a wildlife filmmaker, her projects found her trekking mountain gorillas through rebel-infested Rwandan jungles and hanging out of helicopters to film stampeding white rhinos in the South African bush. She collaborated closely with the United Nations Environment Programme, Born Free Foundation, and the Jane Goodall Institute.
Alexa-Sascha holds a B.A. from Wheaton College (cum laude), studied international relations at the Oxford Advanced Studies Programme (Magdalen College, Oxford), and film at Brown University, Ludwig Maximilians Universität - Munich, and the University of Television and Film Munich.
Alexa-Sascha is an avid skier, ballet dancer, and backpacked solo around the world in her early 20's. As a passionate world traveler, she has explored more than 55 countries to date.
Brad co-wrote Kingmaker, which was a Quarterfinalist in the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, and a Top-3 Finalist in the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Competition. Brad's previous screenwriting credits include The Honeysting, which was selected for the Tribeca Film Institute's ReFrame Collection and received Worldwide All-Media distribution through Shorts International; the film is currently airing in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Brad also wrote Broken, which had its World Premiere at the Sonoma International Film Festival. He is currently developing a 70's era spy thriller, The Priest Who Knew Too Much.
An environmental activist, Brad worked for several years in wildlife documentary filmmaking, championing projects that focused on everything from conservationists fighting to save the great apes in the world's most war-torn regions to the struggle of polar bears to survive amidst the vanishing polar ice caps.
In addition to being a writer, Brad is a rocket scientist. Working closely with defense and intelligence agencies, Brad spearheads efforts to protect America's space systems from both physical and cyber attack.
Brad holds a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame (Mechanical Engineering), and is an alumnus of Stanford University's Institute of Design (Strategic Design Thinking) and the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business (Market Strategy). He also studied screenwriting at UCLA and Film Independent.