From Climbing the Highest Mountains to the Director's Chair: An Interview with Amy Wendel '86

Alumni Office (AO): To get us started, can you introduce yourself, your graduating year, and where you are now?

Amy Wendel (AW): My name is Amy Wendel. My graduating year at Breck was 1986, and I’m currently in Santa Barbara, California. I have to apologize to all of you back in Minnesota, where it's freezing cold! Although you're probably used to it, I think it’s been a particularly harsh winter. 

AO: We appreciate that. It has been a harsh winter, for sure. Okay, Amy, moving on to your journey, can you share a bit about your path from Breck to where you are now?

AW: After Breck, I started at Wellesley College, which is a small liberal arts school outside of Boston. It was just too small for me, so I ended up transferring to Cornell, which was the opposite in every way: rural, big, and it had a graduate school. I majored in History and Japanese Studies and spent a year abroad in Japan. I actually started Japanese at Breck; they offered it when I was a junior, and I don't know if they still have it, but it set me on that path.

Upon graduating, I was heavily into mountain climbing. My dad did the "Seven Summits," which is the highest mountain on every continent, and I joined him for several. We did Denali and eventually made a bid on Everest. I didn’t make it to the top (I made it to 24,500 feet), but the thing about mountain climbing people forget is that when you get to the top, you’re only halfway done. You have to get down. That became an analogy for film for me in terms of the rigor and toil required.

AO: How did you transition from climbing, history, and Japanese studies into filmmaking?

AW: First, I joined Teach For America in its second year. I taught 6th and 7th-grade English and History for four years in Los Angeles. I thought I was going to be a principal and even got a Master’s in Education from Stanford. But something was just gnawing away at me. I wanted a creative life. I wanted to bring things into existence.

After graduating from Stanford, I went back to the drawing board, having moved to San Francisco. I worked as a production manager on a Frontline investigative piece about the gambling industry, which was a big deal because, in film, you often don't know if your work will ever see the light of day. Eventually, I realized I didn't fully know what I was doing, so I went to NYU’s graduate film program. It was incredible: being in New York, where everyone has a story, surrounded by students from Macedonia, Latvia, Singapore, and Taiwan. That’s where I really learned that I loved the collaborative nature and the "toil" of filmmaking.

AO: You’ve had success with shorts and features like Benavides Born (distributed as All She Can), which went to Sundance. What has your career looked like since then?

AW: My husband and I wrote a feature script called Benavides Born (All She Can) that he produced, and I directed. We called it "the little engine that could" because it got into the Sundance dramatic competition, where only 1% of films are selected, and was by Maya Entertainment with a limited theatrical release and picked up by HBO for two years.

In the years that followed, I was raising my three boys. I call it my "nesting period." I never stopped writing, but I wasn't making films. I don’t know if it was fear or just feeling like I couldn't do both, but I stayed very involved in my kids' lives. Now that two are in college and one is a high school junior, I’ve made a new film.

AO: Tell us about this new film. What inspired it?

AW: I wrote it during COVID. I was feeling for the teens and young adults during that time, seeing the increase in isolation, depression, and eating disorders. It’s about a high school girl in lockdown with her family; she knows she’ll survive COVID, but she’s not sure she’ll survive her crazy family. It’s a coming-of-age story about her becoming the glue that binds them together. I call it our "COVID comedy," and it's titled Relatively Normal.

We shot it in 16 days over the summer. The acting is off the charts. Chloe Coleman is the lead (My Spy, Dungeons & Dragons, Avatar: The Way of Water), and this project marks her first credit as an Executive Producer. We just finished it in January and had three packed screenings at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Now we’re looking at the festival circuit and distribution.

AO: What have been the highlights of this career for you?

AW: The highlights are often in the little things. At a recent screening, an older gentleman in a mask told me it was his first time back at a theater in five years, and he was so moved by the film. That’s what it’s about. Another moment was on the first day of shooting of Relatively Normal. Our lead’s father was the Director of Photography and is a cameraman with decades of experience in reality TV like The Amazing Race, and has shot from helicopters all over the world. On our first day of shooting, he was behind the camera, sitting opposite his daughter for her first shot. She asked, "Dad, what are you feeling?" and he said, "Dream come true." Those moments where art connects people, that’s what moves me.

AO: Amy, that is so incredible. I love that!  Okay, what lessons from Breck do you still draw on today?

AW: I loved Breck so much. I didn’t come until the middle of my sophomore year. I actually intentionally bombed the placement test in 7th grade because I didn't want to leave my public school! But by 10th grade, I realized I wanted more for my education and applied on my own terms.

When I walked into Breck, I was amazed by the dance studio, the salad bar, the fireplace, and the teachers like Lois Fruen. I loved Chapel, even though I wasn't religious. It was a place where everyone was elevated to be their best self. That feeling of being "greater than the sum of our parts" is exactly what a film set is like. The belief that teachers believe in their students at Breck is something they have in spades.

AO: If you could sit down with any director, living or dead, who would it be?

AW: Tough question! When DVDs were the thing, it used to be that you could “sit down with any director” because many of them had the director’s track embedded in the DVD, and you could hear the director’s commentary for the whole film! I would love to hear PTA walk through One Battle After Another or Clint Bentley with Train Dreams. But to answer your question, I’m going to say, Wim Wenders. He recently made a film called Perfect Days set in Japan. It’s a very quiet, mesmerizing film. I’d love to ask him how he came up with the idea for such a bold, quiet story. And maybe he’s right - movies can change the world.

AO: What advice do you have for Breck students or alumni interested in film, Amy?

AW: Stay at it. It isn't easy. Make sure your first projects aren't expensive, but make sure they come from your heart because you’ll be working on them for a long time. Also, learn the technology. I tell students to learn AI. You don’t have to use it, but you have to know it because the industry and ad agencies are going that way. Don't be afraid of it; figure out where your own personal line is as a filmmaker.

AO: Amy, thank you for sharing your time. We really enjoyed talking with you today!

Amy lives in Santa Barbara, CA, with her husband, Daniel Meisel, and their three sons. You can find out more about her career at https://www.kapokpictures.com/ and the new film Relatively Normal at #RelativelyNormalMovie @RelativelyNormalMovie