Ondi Timoner

History

Born in Miami, Florida, Timoner is a graduate of Yale University who majored in Theater Studies and American Studies, concentrating in the latter on Film and Literature.

Timoner is the sole two-time recipient of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, first in 2004 for her documentary DIG!, about the "collision of art and commerce" via the personnae and relational dynamics of leaders of two contemporary indie bands (The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols), and then in the same category in 2009 for We Live In Public about the work of Josh Harris, an internet visionary who, by very personal example, demonstrated the willing sacrifice of privacy and personal peace that occur in the digital age. Both films were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City for their permanent collection.

Timoner also directed the socio-political feature documentaries, Join Us (2007), about the religious cult epidemic in America, using the example of the Mountain Rock Church in South Carolina, and The Nature of the Beast (1994), a look at the U.S. prison system, and co-directed the short film Recycle, which premiered at Sundance in 2005, and screened at Cannes and in schools worldwide. In 2010, Timoner premiered her fifth feature-length documentary on climate change, Cool It at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010, and released it theatrically on November 12 that year through Roadside Attractions. In addition to documentaries, Timoner has made music videos for The Dandy Warhols, The Vines, Paul Westerberg, Lucinda Williams, Vanessa Carlton, The Jonas Brothers, and Run DMC, among others. She hosts a weekly talk show, BYOD, on Thelip.tv, featuring interviews with top film makers from the documentary world.

Timoner's narrative film debut—a biopic on photographer Robert Mapplethorpe entitled Mapplethorpe—received a grant through the Tribeca Film Institute’s 9th annual All Access Program. In 2013, Timoner initiated what has been termed a "constantly releasing documentary" via the web-channel called A Total Disruption, a platform presenting cyber-series about cutting-edge innovators who use technology to "disrupt outdated industries, empower people, and change the world".

DIG!

Culled from over 2,500 hours of footage, Timoner directed Dig! and co-produced and edited along with her brother David Timoner, which chronicles seven years in the lives of two neo-psychedelic bands, The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. The film explores the love-hate relationship of the band's frontmen, Courtney Taylor and Anton Newcombe.

Jamie Russell of the BBC gave the film a five-star (highest) rating, calling it "[e]rratic, tragic, and absolutely hilarious…" saying "Dig! is fantastic filmmaking" and that as "a riotous portrait of the music business," it "works as both a savagely funny rockumentary and a sardonic comment on the politics of selling out." An Empire review described its subject as the "microcosm of ‘indie’ music on the cusp of corporate take-over" and the film as "the perfect parable of the 1990s music industry" portraying a "riveting... mêlée of spiraling egos," also giving it a five-star rating.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize 2004 at the Sundance Film Festival, is now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and was screened as finale of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA's 38th annual New Directors/New Films Festival, at MoMA in 2009.

We Live in Public

Timoner debuted We Live in Public at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. The film considers some of the darker effects of modern media and technology on personal identity through an examination of "the greatest internet pioneer you've never heard of", Josh Harris. The dot-com millionaire was referred to by reviewer Laurie Heuston as "a '90s dot-com millionaire who created fascist-themed, social experiments," endeavors that led eventually led to Harris' mental breakdown and financial downfall.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave We Live in Public a four-star (highest) rating, writing that it "is a remarkable film about a strange and prophetic man." It won the Grand Jury Prize award in the Documentary category at the Sundance Film Festival, making Timoner the first director in the history of the Festival to win this award twice.

A Total Disruption

Timoner founded and is currently directing and producing what has been described as "a portal of cyber-series that take the users on the ride alongside the visionary risk-takers of today– those crazy enough to defy all limits to turn their big ideas into reality," the web channel called A Total Disruption. An interactive video network for innovators and entrepreneurs, she describes it as a "constantly releasing documentary". The channel documents the thought leaders and innovators from companies like Twitter, Reddit, and BitTorrent who are using technology to empower and educate; as of April 2013, Timoner edited 50 episodes for seven different web series, based on interviews with approximately 100 subjects (having shot 300 hours of film footage). The seed funds for the project were recently raised on Kickstarter, and yielded about 150% of their $96,000 goal.

Other work

Personal life

In 2003, Timoner had a son, Joaquim, with cinematographer Vasco Lucas Nunes. Vasco Lucas Nunes died in a motorcycle accident in March 2016.

Filmography