Willow O’Feral
Introduction (2-3 lines)
Willow O’Feral is the award-winning director, producer and cinematographer of two feature documentary films Break The Silence: Reproductive & Sexual Health Stories and Sisters Rising and a co-founder of Haptic Pictures, producing gorgeous original content around pressing issues of social justice & human interest.
Willow is a 2022 DOC NYC "40 Under 40" filmmaker, a Fledgling Fellow at the 2018 DX Investigative Film Festival in Washington DC, and a proud member of the Film Fatales and New Day Films. She was honored with the 2018 Choice Champion Award by Planned Parenthood of New England for her work creating Break the Silence, which was also awarded Best Documentary Feature at La Frontera Queer Film Festival. See more of her work at: www.hapticPictures.media
Break The Silence: Reproductive & Sexual Health Stories is Willow's debut feature film. She is also the co-director/producer of Sisters Rising, a documentary about Native American women restoring personal and tribal sovereignty in the face of ongoing sexual and colonial violence against Indigenous women in the US. Sisters Rising is broadcast nationally on PBS America ReFramed/WORLD CHANNEL, and has won a slew of honors including: Best Film Award from Women's Voices Now Film Festival, Best Documentary Feature at the 2020 American Indian Film Festival, 2020 Honorable Mention Big Sky Award, a 2022 Silver Telly Award for social impact, Thaddeus Stevens Award at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, a Media for Just Society Award 2022, and inclusion in Video Librarian's Best Documentaries of the Year and the American Library Association Notable Films For Adults 2022.
Willow’s impetus to create Break The Silence: Reproductive & Sexual Health Stories came out of her conversations around advancing reproductive justice with the Women's Action Team, a feminist collective that Willow helped to found in Vermont in 2016. With Brad Heck, Willow co-founded Haptic Pictures, an award-winning production company creating gorgeous original content around pressing issues of social justice and human interest. She loves community organizing and collaborative work, and has mentored youth in the Movies From Marlboro program, Reel Works in Brooklyn NY, and at In-Sight Photography Project in Brattleboro VT. She grew up on the coast of Northern California and now lives in Southern Vermont. She loves documentary filmmaking because it is rooted in curiosity and empathy - which are two of her favorite things.
