- Born
- Nickname
- Benh
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- Born in New York City and raised in Sunnyside, Queens and then Westchester County, Benh Zeitlin began his career as a film-maker at the tender age of 6 years when he and a friend made a Batman movie. He continued making films as a child before attending Wesleyan University, where he majored in film. After graduation, Benh spent a summer in Prague working with a prominent animation artist. Returning to the U.S., he worked in a private school in Manhattan helping elementary students create short films.- IMDb Mini Biography By: PeterMH
- SpouseMélanie Akoka (March 2023 - present)
- Parents
- RelativesEliza Zeitlin(Sibling)Marc Wallace(Cousin)
- His parents Steve Zeitlin and Amanda Dargan are both urban folklorists who founded and run the highly respected nonprofit City Lore organization in NYC.
- Benh met his "Beasts" co-writer Lucy Alibar in summer camp when they were teenagers.
- Suffered a shattered hip and dislocated pelvis in car accident in March 2008 on the way to Austin, Texas and the screening of his award-winning short film Glory at Sea (2008) at the South by Southwest festival. Benh was uninsured, and fellow filmmakers soon after staged a benefit to raise money to help his medical expenses. Eventually he made a full recovery.
- Is at least the sixth successful filmmaker to graduate from Wesleyan University, following in the footsteps of Michael Bay, Joss Whedon, Ruben Fleischer, Akiva Goldsman and Paul Weitz, as well as of Game of Thrones (2011) and Mad Men (2007) creators, respectively, of D.B. Weiss and Matthew Weiner; and Broadway wunderkind Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of "Hamilton.".
- Helped start the Court 13 independent filmmaking collective in 2004, and moved to New Orleans where he eventually made his first short film, Glory at Sea (2008), after Hurricane Katrina had devastated this Louisiana city.
- There are funny stories about [the making of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) ] how I went knocking on someone's door and he came out with a shotgun. Even then, that guy showed up at our gas station two days later, and was like, "I'm sorry. I thought you guys were trying to kill me or you're from Witness Protection or something like that. I didn't mean to scare you. You want any red fish?" He'd just caught a bunch. You get real hospitality in Louisiana. I think it'd be much harder in another place because the state is extremely open and a more accepting, hospitable place.
- [on "Beasts"] We finished the movie two days before Sundance, and we never had time to think about it, basically. There wasn't a month to be like, "What will happen? Will people like this movie?" I was focused on trying to get the movie to a version that I could live with. But it's been an amazing experience to see the film travel this far. It just such was a ragtag little film when we were making it. I don't think anybody ever imagined that the movie would be so big while we were doing it. It's so cool to hear it resonate with people who don't have the same cultural context that we do in Louisiana, never mind in America. It's so crazy.
- [on directing six-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)] She was so focused and poised and just was fierce. She wouldn't do just what I told her to do, she questioned what I was saying. She'd say, 'I don't like this word' and she'd delete it. I allowed her to own the words and understand what they meant.
- [on the origins of making "Beasts"] When I got out of [completing Glory at Sea (2008) ] I was realizing that I wanted to stay [in Louisiana], I was supposed to go back home, my parents were waiting for me back in New York for Thanksgiving and I didn't show up, and I didn't show up for Christmas, time went by and I realized I wanted to stay, and I wanted to figure out what it was that was pulling me, and also make a film celebrating a lot of the people that were in that cast who were holding out and refusing to get pushed off their land, and trying to rebuild, and wanting to celebrate that tenacity and make a film about the hold outs. That's where it started.
- Preproduction is like this little animal that you're raising, and it's like a tiger, and you raise it until it's way bigger and stronger and faster than you, and you can't control it at all. You just set it loose and then you have to chase it. And so for everybody that worked on 'Beasts,' it was like an athletic event. A safari hunt. With this running beast that you're trying not to be destroyed by...it's always fun. The movies are secondary. The tiger chase comes first.
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