• FILM WORK
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Alexandra Fuller

director / writer

  • FILM WORK
  • Creative
  • Me

I tell stories about change.

For nearly 20 years I have been making content for brands who are ready for transformation, and making films about characters undergoing life-altering shifts. I write and direct documentary films, narrative films, commercials and branded content. My independent films have premiered at Sundance, won a jury prize at SXSW, garnered a Vimeo Staff Pick and been nominated for an Emmy. Currently in production on a feature documentary set in the rural American West about what happens when the exiled members of a disgraced religious sect return to live next door to those who are still faithful.

When I work with brands, I bring a deep empathy that comes from the near decade I spent as a advertising creative director. Today I write and direct branded content and commercial videos both through agencies and client-direct, but always with a strategic eye for the audience and an understanding of the eco-system in which the content will live.

I'm also available for story consulting, as well as for speaking engagements and workshops. 

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alexandrafuller@gmail.com

+435/901.8621

“The soul should always stand ajar.”
... #emilydickinson #zion #blackandwhite #alwaysgo #desert
Last of my favorite creative projects of the past year. December 2018—in the presence of mentors and masters. I’ve been helping my dear friends, Julie and Michael Kennedy conceive a book project inspired and begun by their late son, Hayden. We took our idea to @patagonia who is considering coming on as publishing partner. The book is changing shape in exciting ways, and I’m honored to help in any way I can. Soaking in the wisdom of the Kennedys and of course, the irascible, inimitable Yvon Chouinard, was a great way to close out the year.
The penultimate post in my round-up of favorite 2018 creative projects: November 2018—undoubtedly one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever been involved with was teaching a documentary film workshop in Uzbekistan with @americanfilmshowcase. AFS is a joint program of the U.S. State Department and the USC film school that uses film as a vehicle for cultural diplomacy all over the world. In Uzbekistan, my amazing co-teacher @gknowproductions and I led a group of working media professionals and all-around excellent humans through a weeklong course to discover the power of their own independent voices—no small thing in a nation that remained totally closed until two years ago. My group worked on a beautiful little film about a famous Suzani silk embroiderer who is a symbol for the rich Silk Road history still alive in the country today.
Remembering my favorite creative projects of last year. October 2018–I met the fellas of @wzrdmedia a few years ago when they were still college students, and have rarely known such earnest and hardworking young men. It was my sincere honor to work as a story consultant to help them shape their feature documentary on public lands called “The Ground Between Us”. Keep an eye out for the finished film later this year. 📷 production still from The Ground Between Us. Thanks for bringing me in, guys. @gknowproductions @therealphilhessler @zeppelinzeerip
Revisiting my 12 favorite creative projects of last year. September 2018— I always love working with my pals at @camp4collective. This time I joined badass director @timkemple, producer @scubastevie and photographer @willsaundersphoto to make this print piece and a series of character-driven videos for @merrell that honor the brand’s roots in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
8th in the series of my 12 favorite creative projects of last year. August 2018–this is an outtake from the feature documentary @ansonfogel and I are making. The film tells the story of a remote desert community shifting from fundamentalist religious control to secular control. We’re midway through production and our working title is Somewhere on a Desert Highway. We’re looking for funding partners, so message me if you want to see a teaser. ...
Thanks to collaborators @kelsomoore @kendall_sweeney
Revisiting my 12 favorite creative projects of last year. July 2018—My badass friend Tracey Thompson is the owner of @vinelore.ut, a local and independent broker of wine and spirits. Tracey and her team are quietly leading a revolution in adult drinking culture in Utah. …

My insanely talented  design collaborator @matthew_manes and I overhauled the Vine Lore brand to better reflect the contemporary, knowledgeable, casual vibe that Vine Lore lives out every day. Search their catalog of craft spirits and independent wines (and where to buy them at DABC stores each day) at the link in my profile. Cheers!
Revisiting my 12 favorite creative projects of last year. June 2018—I attended my first ever fiction writing workshop with @writersatworkutah. What a gift to spend four days talking story with other writers. Here’s an excerpt of the short story I workshopped there called “Zephyr” along with a picture of my dog. …

Now, streaking through the salt flats of Nevada, there was only a suggestion of the next range far to the south. Otherwise, the world was terrifyingly open. The train bobbed slightly and Stetson threw out his arms to steady himself. He felt dizzy, and suddenly weak. It was a sensation akin to vertigo, but turned 90 degrees. There was no vertical plane here at all. The flat sky was so expansive and the land so horizontal he felt he could fall right off it into raw nothingness. If only he could lie down, make himself horizontal as well, to assure himself of gravity, of the resoluteness of the earth. 
Stetson lolled his head against the captain’s chair and closed his eyes. His gut heaved and he moaned quietly. In the refuge behind his closed eyelids he tried to conjure images of home. A small valley like two cupped hands, the dense cloister of trees as familiar as his kitchen table. It was a snug and comfortable landscape, with its sky screwed on like a well fitting lid. He couldn’t hold onto the image; the dimensionless plane of shimmering white swept again over his sightless eyes. The three old women came hurtling into his thoughts, noisy with their constant raspy laughter. This was their native home, this undefined geography. Their lives played out with no boundaries. In such a landscape you’d have to learn to create your own comfort.
Fifth in the series of my 12 favorite creative projects of last year. May 2018—Last winter I was tromping around the jungles and surf breaks of Sumatra, where my most essential pieces of clothing were an insect-repellant shirt and quick-drying, wedgie-resistant underwear, both from @exofficio. Getting to work with the executive team at ExO a few months later felt like coming full circle. 
With a whip smart client team and my rad collaborators, strategist @benpeters and designer @michael_dehaan, we laid out a new direction for the venerable travel gear and apparel brand.
I’m recapping my 12 favorite creative projects of last year. April 2018—
 The first—and still the best and still in service—sleeping bag I ever bought was expertly crafted by @marmot. So it was such an honor to work with the leadership team there to reimagine their brand and send it back up mountain. Instead of putting the final brand platform into a stiff and glossy book, we chose to make it feel more relevant and accessible by making this quarterly rag-style brand guide. Expect great things from @marmot in the seasons to come. 
Many thanks to my excellent collaborators, strategist @benpeters and designer @michael_dehaan.
I’m recapping my 12 favorite creative projects of last year. // February 2018—I loved teaming up with local outdoor gear and experience brand @cotopaxi, to rethink its signature experience, the #Questival. Questival is a 24-hr community adventure race that’s grown exponentially in the past couple years, but it had gotten pretty unwieldy. We simplified the whole experience and better aligned it with Cotopaxi’s product line and social impact mission. The 2018 Questival Space Tour was all about charting your own course and exploring new horizons. …
#gearforgood
Last year was my first in nearly a decade to be a creative free agent. For the next 12 days, I’m going to recap some of my favorite projects of 2018, one per month. // In January 2018 I played hooky with @ansonfogel in Sumatra. I was supposed to be working on a short story set in western Colorado, but was totally distracted by the sensory barrage of this very other place. So, I wrote this poem instead.
... I should write about 
the faint mineral scent of the first snow
in November.
But how can I when my nostrils burn with green bananas 
and the fetid canals behind the turtle-seller’s shack?

How can I tell you 
of the determination of sagebrush, 
the Roan Plateau, 
when the pregnant cat with the bobbed tail stalks the pigeon
under the mahogany tree? Kucing.

Time throbs in my temples.
The scene plays out whether or not I 
pay attention.
Sunlight turns the indifferent street into a theater
of bird shadows.
This will be my last call
to prayer.
Brief morning escape. To desire escape is human. And essential. It does not mean you have built an untenable life to run away from. Rather that you have built a real, rich, complex life and must sometimes step away into solitude, into otherness, into a removed state in order to reflect upon that life and return to it renewed.
Deep winter wonder.
For the first 20 years of my life, I thought of myself as a religious person. For the next 20, I called myself a spiritual person. Now I would call myself a wondering person. I believe in wonder.
Aila, bride.
Kuchar and Quader, pilgrims at the masoleum of Saint Daniel. ...
@americanfilmshowcase #filmdiplomacy #exchangeourworld #AFSuzbekistan
Brides. Registan, Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
... #AFSuzbekistan #filmdiplomacy #exchangeourworld @americanfilmshowcase
Matluba, professor of philosophy and singer. Hear her song in my stories. ...
#AFSuzbekistan #filmdiplomacy #exchangeourworld @americanfilmshowcase

Want to know more? 

I've spoken at the 3% Conference, 5Point Adventure Film Festival, PechaKucha, Film Fatales and Creative Mornings, as well as at private, corporate events ranging from 20-600 people on topics related to creativity.

I’m known for bringing a powerful empathy and a relentless curiosity to working with real characters and professional actors alike.

For over five years I directed game-changing tourism campaigns for the State of Utah. In one season's campaign alone, the state garnered $1.96 billion in directly attributable visitor spending, with an ROI of $364 in tourism revenue for every dollar spent on the advertising.

Utah Business Magazine named me among the "30 Women to Watch" in 2016. 

I was the only female creative director in the state of Utah for many years. Sad.

I'm the mother to a spunky daughter who has a great sense of humor and will probably need braces at least once.

Spending time outside in the mountains and the desert is essential to my inner life.