Wellfleet Preservation Hall

Join Author Filmmaker Mo Ogrodnik for her Visual Presentation on the Creative Process Behind her cinematic debut novel "Gulf".

Tisch professor Ogrodnik traveled the world immersing herself in the lives of middle eastern migrant workers and survivors of human trafficking before writing her novel. GULF follows five women with vastly different origins—from the Philippines to Ethiopia to New York City—whose lives bring them to the Arabian Gulf, where they collide with devastating and profound consequences. GULF was published by Simon & Schuster/Summit (US) in May.

Ogrodnik teaches writing, directing, and film production classes with an emphasis on character, visual storytelling, and dramatic structure.

Ogrodnik started her film career working with Michael Moore, Kevin Rafferty, and Jim Ridgeway on Blood in the Face, a documentary about the emergence of the New Right and the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-west. She then went on to produce films for National Geographic Television’s, Explorer Journal - a series that put cameras in the hands of explorers from around the world. Ogrodnik was the Associate Producer on Feed - a satiric documentary about the 1988 presidential election. Her first film, Richard and Nicole, a documentary about a trans-sexual chastised for starting a woman's group in a Unitarian Church in Maine, won numerous festival awards and sold to WNET. Her first feature film, Ripe, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, was theatrically released, and continues to be shown on The Sundance Channel. She co-wrote, Uptown Girls, starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning that was released by MGM. Her most recent film, Deep Powder, starring Haley Bennet and Shiloh Fernandez, was produced by Killer Films and Gwen Bialic and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is available on Amazon and iTunes.