American New Wave 25: Victoria Mahoney

Sweat, money and no tears is how I would describe the journey of our next featured new voice in indie film. I mentioned this filmmaker in my predictions for last year’s Sundance, but Victoria Mahoney‘s feature film debut, Yelling to the Sky was (part of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab class of 2006 with Sin Nombre, Lake Tahoe and Treeless Mountain) still in post. Since 2005, this true indiegrrl been getting some invaluable help along the way with the support from the Annenberg Film Fellowship Grant, Maryland Film Fellowship, the Cinereach Grant and just this summer, some post-production support from IFP’s Annual Independent Filmmaker Labs, which will have meant, that my Park City prediction was a correct one…off by only one year.

In her former life, Mahoney packed her bags, headed West, was embraced by some big name mentors that pointed her back East. Sometime between her training at the Actor’s Studio and her acting in films during the 90’s, the Regis Park native New Yorker dropped the acting career making herself into what we call an actor’s director, as she would tackle some short film projects. Mahoney’s bio is one of passion and perseverance – I can’t wait to see how these strong character traits might have transferred in the heroine character of this directorial debut.