Amanda Sonnenschein
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Amanda Sonnenschein is a New York City born-and-raised director, writer, producer and artist working for HBO, Amazon MGM Studios and as an independent filmmaker.
She started her entertainment career as an actor at the age of 11, training at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Usdan Performing Arts Camp and ACTeen, and eventually becoming a YoungArts scholar. In high school she was a drama major at the prestigious LaGuardia High School, known as the "Fame" school, following in the footsteps of industry giants like Jennifer Aniston and Adrien Brody, and alongside celebrated contemporaries Timothée Chalamet and Zazie Beetz. While in school she starred in several student films and appeared in an episode of The Onion (2007) News Network series.
Behind the camera, Amanda cut her teeth on documentaries for CNN, National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, and on indie horror features such as Ava's Possessions (2015). After graduating from Wesleyan University's esteemed film studies program, studying under renowned film historian Jeanine Basinger, Amanda moved to LA, where she has produced the features House of Demons (2018) (starring Amber Benson and Taliesin Jaffe, Silent Panic (2018) and The Missing and the Dead (starring Eric Roberts, William McNamara and Michael Paré).
As a director, Amanda came up through shorts, podcasts and music videos, breaking through with her music video Leah Khambata: Something Still Here (2019) that premiered on VH1 India. She went on to write and direct the pilot episode of the Amazon Prime anthology series Drawing From Life (2021), which premiered on Halloween 2021. Only two months later, Amanda released her first animated short film, titled Pizzato (2021), for which she worked with longtime collaborator and photogrammetry expert Austin Beaulier to develop a revolutionary approach to stop motion. To round out the year, Amanda directed the comedy short Will You Be My Quaran-tine? (2022) which was released Valentine's Day 2022 in collaboration with LA Weekly Asia and Gelson's Supermarket.
Most recently, Amanda is cowriting the feature of Where the Mountain Women Sing (2024), which has received awards at Cannes/Fantasia Frontières Market, the Busan International Film Festival, Tokyo's TIFFCOM, Motel/x at Lisbon, Finland's Tampere Festival and BIFFF, and is slated to be filmed in Mongolia in the beginning of 2026. Amanda has also been helming an adventure-fantasy comedy series that has garnered immense buzz since the proof of concept The Game (2023) dropped last January. The series is slated to film its first season in 2025. In addition, Amanda is in production directing Silk and Spice documentary about the pan-Asian burlesque scene.
She started her entertainment career as an actor at the age of 11, training at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Usdan Performing Arts Camp and ACTeen, and eventually becoming a YoungArts scholar. In high school she was a drama major at the prestigious LaGuardia High School, known as the "Fame" school, following in the footsteps of industry giants like Jennifer Aniston and Adrien Brody, and alongside celebrated contemporaries Timothée Chalamet and Zazie Beetz. While in school she starred in several student films and appeared in an episode of The Onion (2007) News Network series.
Behind the camera, Amanda cut her teeth on documentaries for CNN, National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, and on indie horror features such as Ava's Possessions (2015). After graduating from Wesleyan University's esteemed film studies program, studying under renowned film historian Jeanine Basinger, Amanda moved to LA, where she has produced the features House of Demons (2018) (starring Amber Benson and Taliesin Jaffe, Silent Panic (2018) and The Missing and the Dead (starring Eric Roberts, William McNamara and Michael Paré).
As a director, Amanda came up through shorts, podcasts and music videos, breaking through with her music video Leah Khambata: Something Still Here (2019) that premiered on VH1 India. She went on to write and direct the pilot episode of the Amazon Prime anthology series Drawing From Life (2021), which premiered on Halloween 2021. Only two months later, Amanda released her first animated short film, titled Pizzato (2021), for which she worked with longtime collaborator and photogrammetry expert Austin Beaulier to develop a revolutionary approach to stop motion. To round out the year, Amanda directed the comedy short Will You Be My Quaran-tine? (2022) which was released Valentine's Day 2022 in collaboration with LA Weekly Asia and Gelson's Supermarket.
Most recently, Amanda is cowriting the feature of Where the Mountain Women Sing (2024), which has received awards at Cannes/Fantasia Frontières Market, the Busan International Film Festival, Tokyo's TIFFCOM, Motel/x at Lisbon, Finland's Tampere Festival and BIFFF, and is slated to be filmed in Mongolia in the beginning of 2026. Amanda has also been helming an adventure-fantasy comedy series that has garnered immense buzz since the proof of concept The Game (2023) dropped last January. The series is slated to film its first season in 2025. In addition, Amanda is in production directing Silk and Spice documentary about the pan-Asian burlesque scene.
