Dana M. Kupper has been an active member of the independent filmmaking community in Chicago for almost 20 years. She began her career at Columbia College where she majored in cinematography and photographed the regional Academy Award winning Peas With Mom. Documentaries, however, remain her true passion. Dana was one of the main DP’s on Stevie, a theatrically released documentary by Steve James, director of the highly regarded Hoop Dreams. Stevie won the Excellence in Cinematography for a Feature Length Documentary Award at The 2003 Sundance Film Festival. She shot the feature length documentary 5 Girls for Kartemquin Films, which showed on public television’s P.O.V. She also filmed for the documentary series The New Americans, which aired on PBS, and traveled to Nigeria and Mexico for that project. She teaches a basic camera class at Columbia College and also does occasional lighting and camera seminars at the University of Chicago.
The deadline for Summer internships at Kartemquin has passed. Applications are currently being accepted for the Fall.