Dane Keil

Writer/director/producer Dane Keil was born to cinema; it is the passion that has consumed him ever since his childhood and remains his central driving force as an adult. Ever since he was 10 years old, Dane knew that his destiny was to be a truly great cinematic artist, hoping to one day rise to the same iconic status as his idols Stanley Kubrick and Charlie Chaplin. Dane Keil was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and moved to four other U.S. states soon after. A constant gypsy, friends and cities would come and go, but films always remained. He grew up with the foundations of cinema, including the classics spanning from the 1920s to the 1960s and the Disney Renaissance films in the 1990s. Dane made a few Three Stooges-inspired sketches and action figure films with a camcorder when he was a child, but the true birth of Dane Keil the filmmaker did not occur until he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2010 - 2014. There he double majored in Communications Studies (with a focus in media production) and English and minored in Writing for the Screen and Stage. In the WSS program, he learned the fundamentals of screenwriting and was transformed from an amateur into a professional. His senior student film "Aeternus", a black and white German-Expressionist silent film, was one of three films in the entire Communications Department to be seen by Hollywood legend Eva Marie Saint. It went on to be acclaimed by other industry notables such as Peyton Reed ("Bring It On", "Ant-Man"), Charles Chiodo ("Killer Klowns from Outer Space"), and Lloyd Kaufman ("The Toxic Avenger"), among others. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from UNC, Dane has been busy shooting and developing projects of his own, as well as collaborating with others in his local film community. Upcoming projects include a black and white film noir short film, a children's series, and his very first feature film. Through it all, Dane's passion for cinema has remained constant and, as his industry acclaim and visibility continue to grow, he remains true to his drive to be different, stand out, and be recognized for it.