The Amateurs Club is a free DIY film school, hosted by Somerset House Studios and Forest Fringe, featuring each month a different professional from the world of film. For July we are exploring cinematography with Petra Korner.
Petra is an award-winning feature film and commercial cinematographer, who is based in the US as well as in Europe. She studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and after a few years of working in the camera and lighting departments in New York, she received her MFA in Cinematography from the prestigious American Film Institute (AFI) conservatory in Los Angeles. Since then, Petra has shot a vast array of high-end commercials, as well as numerous American and international feature films: both, for major studios and independent.
Four of her feature films have been in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, two of which took home the Dramatic Audience Award. For her career achievement in cinematography, Petra was also awarded with the Kodak Vision Award at the WIF Awards in Hollywood, next to fellow honorees Elisabeth Banks, Holly Hunter, Jennifer Aniston and director Catherine Hardwicke. Petra’s name has been first up on Variety’s infamous “Ten Cinematographers to Watch” list.
American feature films she has shot include THE WACKNESS (Sony Picture Classics), starring Sir Ben Kingsley; Gregor Jordan’s THE INFORMERS (Senator), starring Kim Basinger, Billy-Bob Thornton, Winona Ryder, Amber Heard and Mickey Rourke, as well as iconic horror film director Wes Craven’s MY SOUL TO TAKE for Universal. Her latest film, THE PAGES, a political thriller shot in Chicago, was written and directed by Joe Chappelle and stars Tika Sumpton and Jamie Lee Curtis. Petra most recently wrapped Season One of Deborah Harkness’ phantasy adaptation A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES for Sky 1 in Great Britain, starring Theresa Palmer.
The work of our artists is valuable and our events cost money to produce, but we also want them to be as accessible as possible. Therefore, we offer you the opportunity to pay what you can for this event.
