Harper Philbin

This Oak Park, Illinois, native started making films in the 1970s with his parents' Super-8 camera. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in film from the University of Iowa in 1979, he spent three years in Chicago, two in New York City, and six in Los Angeles working as a video editor and camera operator. He continued to write and direct independent films on the side, including _The Law of Nature (1986)_ a documentary about Yosemite National Park rangers that aired nationally on PBS in 1986. He moved back to Chicago in 1990 and began teaching as an adjunct professor at Columbia College before returning to school to earn a master of fine arts degree in film production at Southern Illinois University. Since 1997, he's been an associate professor of film at Grand Valley State University in Michigan where he runs the school's annual Summer Film Project that brings students, faculty and industry professionals together to collaborate on a movie. After making ten award-winning narrative shorts, Philbin produced and directed his first feature-length film, To Live and Die in Dixie (2008), which went on to win two Best Feature awards.