Kelly Reichardt was born and raised in Miami-Dade Country, Florida, to a family of police officers. She had an interest in photography from a very young age. She started by using her father's camera, which he used for photographing crime scenes. She went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. In the summer of 2005, Reichardt directed Old Joy (2006), which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. It was the first American film to win the Tiger award at the Rotterdam Film Festival and opened at the Film Forum in New York City. Reichardt's first feature, River of Grass (1994), a sun-drenched noir that was shot in her home town of Dade County, was cited as one of the best films of 1995 by the Boston Globe, Village Voice, Film An emphasis on mood and atmosphere as opposed to intricate plots Often utilises older filming formats, i.e. Super 16 Certain Women (2016) and Old Joy (2006) and a 4:3 aspect ratio Meek's Cutoff (2010) and River of Grass (1994) Often sets her films in Portland, Oregon Films produced by film directors Larry Fessenden and Todd Haynes.[on the potential parallels of 'Meek's Cutoff' with current times ] Here was the story of this braggart leading a bunch of people into the desert without a plan and becoming completely reliant on the locals who are socially different from him and who he is suspicious of. All of which seemed relevant to the moment. [on the title character in 'Meek's Cutoff'] He's so compelling, and what was really interesting is how everyone experiences him differently. If you read the journals of those who were there, it's clear that some see him as a loudmouth and a bit of a buffoon, and some felt he was just a trapper who had misread his maps. Others felt he was just full of it. The only thing all the journals agree on is he was a showman. [observation, 2014, on her seemingly minimalist form of storytelling] A movie is a series of reveals, essentially, and then you're supposed to sit in a room and tell someone what it all means. That goes against everything that I just worked for. So I have no interest in summing it all up. It's all out there. I recognize that there are themes I repeat, and ways of shooting that I repeat. My movies end up being about the moments of getting from here to there, but not in a grand way. Getting from the hutch to town, from the parking lot to the gas station. But this isn't a grand plan - I am just a practical person. I'm a pretty boring person. Life can be pretty small in Oregon. Knitting, reading, meals with friends, shooting non-narrative 16mm films just to shake it up. But I can also enjoy an episode of Project Runway (2004). I want a project to work on that will lead me to travel places and get to know places that I wouldn't otherwise know. It'll send you in the direction of finding, studying painters that you didn't know as deeply before, or reading stuff for inspiration or research and it turns you on to literature you might not have otherwise known, or photography. It gives you a path. I'm getting better at learning how to have time off, but I would rather