Irene is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker. Irene’s most recent feature film is Beware the Slenderman, was released by HBO. Her 2014 film, One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp won a Prime Time Emmy award for Best Children’s Program. Irene’s debut feature film, Hear and Now, a documentary memoir about her deaf parents, won the Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival in 2007, and went on to win numerous Jury and Audience awards around the world, a 2008 Peabody Award, and a nomination for Documentary of the Year by the Producer’s Guild of America. After the 2010 Gulf oil spill, Irene followed the life of a single bird found coated in oil, and with HBO made Saving Pelican 895 which won a 2011 Emmy for its affecting musical score and sound design. Irene has also worked as a journalist with CBS News, made numerous television documentaries, and for 10 years worked as a Himalayan mountain guide. She speaks fluent Nepalese, American Sign Language and is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and New York University. She is a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and she founded Vermilion Films in 2006.