Summary: Julie Sokolow is a musician, writer, and filmmaker raised in suburban New Jersey and currently residing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At nineteen, she released an introspective, lo-fi album, Something About Violins, through Western Vinyl that achieved acclaim from Pitchfork, Wire, and The Washington Post. As a Chancellor’s Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, Sokolow focused on writing and film and was awarded two Brackenridge Fellowships and an honorary BPhil degree towards the development of her screenplay, The Subvertebrates, a dark comedy set in suburbia. Recently, she’s embarked on filmmaking and from 2010 to 2011, she was a finalist in Ridley Scott’s Life in a Day contest, won best director at the Sprocket Guild’s Film Festival, won a Creative Capital Flight School Fellowship, and received a Pittsburgh Filmmakers First Works Grant and Heinz Endowment for various film work. Sokolow is the founder and director of Healthy Artists, an organization that produces an original documentary series in which artists discuss their lives, their work, how they’ve struggled with the current, broken health care system. Currently, she is shooting a psychological feature-length documentary entitled Aspie Seeks Love, made possible by a Creative Development Grant from The Pittsburgh Foundation. Sokolow’s work often addresses consumerism and escapism in American society and explores the friction between the individual and societal norms.
