Joanna Priestley has produced and directed 24 films which have won awards at film festivals all over the world, including the New York Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Taos Talking Pictures, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, Tournee of Animation, and the World Animation Celebration, just to name a few.  In addition to her festival screenings and retrospectives at venues such as MoMA (New York City), REDCAT (Los Angeles) and the Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley), her work has screened on both PBS and BBC2.  Priestley has also created animation for everything from “Sesame Street” to music videos for Tears for Fears (“Sowing the Seeds of Love”) and Joni Mitchell (“Good Friends”).  Joanna Priestley is the founding president of ASIFA-Northwest, and she runs an apprenticeship program through her studio in Portland, Oregon.  Her teaching credentials include stints at the Art Institute of Portland, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Northwest Film Center/Portland Art Museum and Volda College (Norway).  She has received fellowships from many prestigious foundations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the American Film Institute and Creative Capital.  Priestley studied painting and printmaking at Rhode Island School of Design and at UC Berkeley, where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honors.  She also attended California Institute of the Arts where she received an MFA Degree and the Louis B. Mayer Award.  In her spare time, she enjoys medicinal herbalism and art directing and producing events for Halloween and Burning Man.

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