Ry Russo-Young

Ry Russo-Young (born November 16, 1981) is an American filmmaker and producer, originally from New York City. Her early independent work has been associated with the mumblecore genre, though she has gone on to direct the wide release features Before I Fall (2017) and The Sun Is Also a Star (2019) as well as the HBO documentary Nuclear Family and other film and television projects. Early life and education Ry Russo-Young was born in 1981, the younger daughter of same-sex parents Sandy Russo and Robin Young, both real estate brokers in Manhattan. Her mother Sandy is a retired lawyer who formerly worked as the housing law coordinator of Legal Services NYC in Manhattan. Russo-Young was born with the given name "Ry", which is not a nickname. Her elder sister, Cade, was born in 1980, conceived from another donor. When she was young, her sperm donor, Thomas Haus Steel, a lawyer known for civil rights cases and a gay man, and that of Cade sometimes vacationed with the family, "until those relationships ruptured"; in Russo and Young's view "it was a given that Steel would have no parental rights, although they made it clear he was welcome to visit the family and to get to know Ry and Cade", and when Steel sought permission to take Russo-Young to see his parents and grandmother, they refused, leading him to file for paternity. In 1991, Steel sued Russo-Young's mothers for recognition as father and for immediate visitation, losing the initial judgement but winning on appeal to the State Supreme Court; he never enforced his right to visitation and only spoke with Russo-Young once more before his death from AIDS in 1998, aged 48; Russo-Young, having heard of his fatal illness, called him: "'He was high on medicine... saying, "I'm sorry, I loved you, I never meant to hurt you, I always wanted to be your father." But after going through the case, I was rolling my eyes. You know: "So now you want me to forgive you because you're on your deathbed?"... I mean, there was a time when I did care a lot about him... Not as a father - more like an icon of a man.'" Steel's New York Times obituary, listing his partner and son, parents, and siblings, made no reference to Russo-Young. Russo-Young has explored her upbringing in her work, particularly in the 2021 three-part HBO documentary Nuclear Family. She attended Oberlin College and Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn.