Mary Sweeney

Mary Sweeney is a feature film director, producer, writer, and editor. She has a long history of creative collaboration with David Lynch, beginning with Blue Velvet in 1986. She edited Twin Peaks Television (1990), Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me (1992), Hotel Room, HBO, (1993), Lost Highway (1996), The Straight Story (2000) and Mulholland Drive (2001.) She was awarded a British Academy Award for Best Editing in 2001 Mulholland Drive. Sweeney wrote the screenplay for The Straight Story for which Richard Farnsworth received an Academy Award nomination. Her producing credits date to 1995 with Nadja, and include Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire (2006), directed by Lynch, and Baraboo (2009) her directorial debut based on her original screenplay. Sweeney is the Dino and Martha De Laurentiis Endowed Professor of film at USC, where she teaches Graduate Screenwriting Thesis and "Dreams, The Brain and Storytelling." She is the Chair of the Board Board of Trustees of Film Independent, sponsor of the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival.