alive!
Directed by
Kristine Stolakis
alive! is a dazzling animated coming-of-age documentary following two young women restarting their lives after nearly dying from eating disorders in their youth — the deadliest mental health disorder only after opioid use.
COMING SOON
About
the Team
Kristine Stolakis — Director
Kristine Stolakis is an Emmy-nominated director whose critically-acclaimed films wrestle with mental health, prejudice, and coming-of-age. Her debut feature documentary PRAY AWAY (Netflix 2021), on the history and devastating legacy of the ‘pray the gay away’ movement, was nominated for an Emmy, Critics Choice Award, and GLAAD Media Award. The film was chosen as one of the 10 Critics’ Picks of Tribeca and SXSW in The Hollywood Reporter and cited as “one of the most important films of the year.” PRAY AWAY was executive produced by Blumhouse and Ryan Murphy, and received support from the Tribeca Film Institute, Catapult Film Fund, Sundance Institute, Chicken and Egg Pictures, SFFilm, and Cinereach.
She is now in post-production on her sophomore feature documentary alive! (working title) as well as developing her debut fiction feature project with award-winning journalist and New York Times Magazine writer Jaeah Lee. In 2021, Kristine was named one of DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40. She is a two-time recipient of SFFILM’s artist residency where she recently served as a creative advisor. Previous to directing feature films, she produced ATTLA (PBS Independent Lens) and directed five short films. One was nominated for a Student BAFTA, and two were Vimeo Staff Picks. Kristine has taught undergraduate film classes at Stanford University and the University of San Francisco, and currently teaches at Hunter College in New York City. She is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance and was a founding member of the Video Consortium’s Bay Area chapter. Kristine holds an MFA in Documentary Film from Stanford University, proudly hails from North Carolina and central New York, and spends some of the most fulfilling parts of her day raising her bright, beautiful three-year-old daughter. Kristine runs Lamplighter Films, a small but mighty production company, named after her childhood street, because she believes that the seeds of great ideas come from our own backyards.
Anya Rous — Producer
Anya Rous is a Brooklyn-based Producer and Vice President of Multitude Films. Her latest films include IT'S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL (Sundance 2023); Emmy-winning Peacock Original LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER (Tribeca 2022); Netflix Original PRAY AWAY (Telluride, Tribeca 2020); as well as APART, the Emmy-winning episode of the HBO Max series THROUGH OUR EYES, in partnership with Sesame Workshop. She EP’d MILISUTHANDO (Sundance 2023), HOW WE GET FREE (HBO 2023), and QUEER FUTURES (CPH:Dox 2023); co-EP’d Oscar-shortlisted CALL CENTER BLUES (SXSW 2020, TOPIC) and CALL HER GANDA (Tribeca 2018, POV); and co-produced ALWAYS IN SEASON and THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED (Tribeca 2018, POV). Anya was a 2019–2020 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, a 2019 Impact Partners Documentary Producing Fellow, a 2020–2021 DOC NYC 40 Under 40 filmmaker, and a 2021 Gotham/Cannes Producers Network Fellow.
Viridiana Lieberman — Editor
Viri is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. She most recently edited THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR which world premiered at Sundance in 2025 and won the U.S. Documentary directing award. She’s edited many features and series, most notably the Emmy-award winning films THE SENTENCE, I AM EVIDENCE, LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER, and THROUGH OUR EYES: APART and the Oscar shortlisted CALL CENTER BLUES. An avid women’s sports fan, her directorial debut, BORN TO PLAY premiered on ESPN and ABC in 2020. Following a semi-professional women’s tackle football team for a season, the film was a result of her book Sports Heroines on Film (published by McFarland) which analyzed patterns of representations of female athletes throughout film history. Viridiana wants to push storytelling into new forms, rooting in personal narratives that shape our imaginations and how we see the world we want to be in.
Carla Gutiérrez — Consulting Editor
Carla is an Emmy-winning and Eddie nominated documentary filmmaker. Her directorial debut FRIDA, about iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, premiered at Sundance 2024 where it won the prestigious Jonathan Oppenheim Award for Best Editing. FRIDA was shortlisted for the Academy Awards, received nominations for the Critic's Choice, IDA, Cinema Eye and NAACP awards and won and Documentary and News Emmy for Best Director. The film is an Amazon MGM Studios original and it's currently streaming on Prime Video.
Carla's work as an editor includes the Oscar nominated films RBG, about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and LA CORONA. She edited JULIA, about renowned chef, and television personality Julia Child (Telluride, Toronto Film Festivals, CNN Films); and PRAY AWAY (Tribeca, Telluride, Netflix Original). Carla's work has received awards at Sundance, Tribeca, Berlinale, Outfest, the Critic’s Choice Awards, the National Board of Review Awards and the DuPont Columbia Awards.
Carla has been a creative adviser for the Sundance Edit Lab, and a mentor for the Firelight Producers’ Lab, The Karen Schmeer Diversity Program, and the Tribeca Film Fellows program. Carla is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the American Cinema Editors. She received a Masters in Documentary Film from Stanford University.
Erica Milsom — Animation Consultant
Erica is an award-winning writer, director, and creative executive with 20 years at Pixar Animation Studios and a deep specialty in documentary storytelling. She directed LOOP — featuring Pixar's first non-verbal autistic character — and served as Emmy-nominated Co-Showrunner of INSIDE PIXAR, Disney+'s first streaming documentary series about Pixar's creative process. As an on-the-ground documentarian at Pixar, she captured the making of Oscar-winning films including UP, INSIDE OUT, and COCO.
With fluency in both animated storytelling and documentary craft, Erica brings rare expertise to projects that live at the intersection of the two forms. She has led productions totaling $4M+ and pioneered Pixar's unscripted programming strategy for Disney+. Selected as a Bellagio Center Resident by The Rockefeller Foundation — the sole animation professional among an international cohort of world leaders — she is recognized as a singular voice where animation meets real-world impact.
Executive Producers
Jess Devaney
Julie Parker Benello
Katy Drake Bettner
Associate Editor
Skyler Johnson
