James Ponsoldt was born and raised in Athens, Georgia, received a BA in English from Yale, and an MFA in directing from Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program (where his thesis film, Junebug and Hurricane, starring Janeane Garofalo, won the Student Choice Award for Best Film). Ponsoldt’s short films and debut feature Off the Black (starring Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, and Trevor Morgan, and theatrically distributed by THINKFilm), have played at more than 100 festivals worldwide including Sundance, Tribeca, Stockholm, Clermont-Ferrand, Edinburgh, and Hamptons. His screenplay Refresh, Refresh was developed at the 2007 Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab, received the Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellowship, was a finalist for the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award, and was recently included in the 2008 Hampton’s Screenwriters’ Lab. Ponsoldt’s new documentary We Saw Such Things will be premiering at the 2008 Sarasota Film Festival.