There has been a lot of talk lately about the lack of female directors in Hollywood. For indie director Kris Swanberg, the pressures in filmmaking center more around finding the balance between directing and motherhood. Kris is a mother of 4-month-old, Abby, and 4-year-old, Jude. She is also married to director Joe Swanberg.
Kris and Joe hit on big distribution deals last year at the Sundance Film Festival for their respective films, Unexpected and Digging for Fire. Unexpected is the story of a Chicago Public Schools teacher who falls pregnant at the same time as her top student and how the two navigate this road together. It stars Cobie Smulders, Gail Bean, Anders Holm and Elizabeth McGovern, and is out on V.O.D. and Netflix now.
In the podcast below, Kris talks about how she juggles schedules and priorities at home, while pursuing her vision in film. As a case in point, when the babysitter cancelled last minute, Kris brought Abby, making her media debut, to the studio. Over copious amounts of lobster rolls, which caught Abby's attention as you can see, clam chowder and chocolate grenache from C Chicago, Kris and I dish on the making of Unexpected and keeping it all together.
Enjoy this most recent edition of The Dinner Party with Elysabeth Alfano on WGN Radio's WGN Plus. For more information about Kris Swanberg, see below the podcast.
Kris Swanberg is a Chicago actress, filmmaker, teacher and businesswoman. She has starred in Joe Sawnberg's movie, Kissing on the Mouth and web series, Young American Bodies. She has written and directed several of her own movies including Empire Builder, Baby Mary, Boys and Girls and her recent full-length feature, Unexpected. Kris was a Chicago Public Schools teacher in film before starting her own ice cream business, Nice Cream.