Debra Granik

Debra Granik (born February 6, 1963) is an American filmmaker. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and for which Granik was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and 2018's Leave No Trace, a film based on the book My Abandonment by Peter Rock. Early life and education Granik was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to father William R. Granik, who was an attorney with H.U.D. who litigated fair housing, and mother Brenda Granik Zusman. She grew up in the suburbs of Washington D.C. Her parents divorced in 1978. Granik is the granddaughter of broadcast pioneer Ted Granik (1907–1970), founder and moderator of the long-run public affairs panel discussion program, The American Forum of the Air, on from 1934 to 1956, first on the radio and later on television. Granik is from a Jewish family. In 1985, Granik received her B.A. in political science from Brandeis University. As an undergraduate at Brandeis, Granik also took classes at the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art. In 2001, Granik received an MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. In 2023, Granik will receive an honorary doctorate from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.