filmmaker, editor
Jamilia (Jamie) Waltzer is a filmmaker whose practice centers on the intimate documentation of Central Asian and post-Soviet communities — lives and histories that exist at the periphery of international film and collective memory. Born in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and raised between Central Asia and the United States, she brings a cross-cultural perspective to the subjects she films, combining intimacy of access with a patient, observational visual sensibility.
She has independently shot, directed, and edited several documentary shorts, and is currently working on her debut feature documentary, After the Sky Turned Red. The film follows her mother and surviving classmates at a reunion in Semey, Kazakhstan — a city that bore the human cost of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons testing program. It is the beginning of a body of work she intends to dedicate to Central Asian stories. She is also joining After Loss, a feature documentary by Adrienne von Wolffersdorff, as assistant editor.
Jamie holds a degree from Cornell University, studied filmmaking at Bellevue College, and is based in Los Angeles.