Chris Rodriguez was born in The Bronx in 1984 to neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ parents. He studied film and screenwriting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, but did not graduate because the tuition was (and still is) unreasonably expensive. Luckily, prior to film school, Chris was an intern for Oscar-winning director, Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), so he didn’t need film school. Chris has worked as an assistant for Golden Globe-winning producers, Christopher Goode and Kerry Orent on numerous productions including: Tony Gilroy’s, Duplicity; David Chase’s, Not Fade Away; Scott Frank’s, A Walk Among the Tombstones; AMC’s, Rubicon; Showtime’s, The Affair, and Jodie Foster’s, Money Monster.

Chris’s first short film, Early Learnings, qualified for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 2015. The film premiered in the fall of 2014 at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas in West Hollywood, California. Early Learnings had its NYC Theatrical Premiere at the legendary Anthology Film Archives as an Official Selection of the NewFilmmakers New York Film Festival in 2015. Chris's original feature screenplay, After Winter Must Come Spring, placed in the top 10% in the 2021 Academy Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship and advanced to the second round in the 2018 Sundance Lab. His original one-hour pilot, Prodigal Son, was a semi-finalist in the 2014 Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Competition, ranking in the top 60 out of 7,000 submissions. Chris served as the Director of Photography on the groundbreaking, award-winning web series, Brothers.

In 2018, Chris graduated from Seattle Recording Arts with a certificate in Audio Engineering. He’s an alumnus of GrammyU and serves as a District Advocate for the Recording Academy’s Pacific Northwest Chapter. Chris is recording his debut album: “Poop Soup”; a concept album inspired by Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Street Culture and Childhood.

Chris is a 2x-time Telly Award-winner, a Webby Award-honoree and an award-winning filmmaker and music producer. He was the winner of the “Seattle Filmmaker Award” and was nominated for "Best Director" at the 2022 Seattle Film Festival for his project, Walking Backwards. The film won “Best Short Documentary” at the 2022 Venice International Art & Film Festival and was an Official Selection of 2023 CINEQUEST, 24th Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, 18th Annual Atlanta Docufest, 2023 Malibu Film Festival, 2023 Los Angeles Film Awards, 2023 Berlin Short Film Festival and the 2022 New York Short Film Festival.

He likes long walks in the woods and cashews; he dislikes mean people and raisins.

Chris lives in Seattle with his wife, renowned artist, Aleah Chapin, their cats, Madeline, Hieronymus and dog, Juniper.

Chris Rodriguez: IMDb Page.

Photo by Sheyam Ghieth.