Ry Russo-Young was born on November 16, 1981, is an American filmmaker, originally from New York City. She studied acting at HB Studios and the Lee Strasberg Institute. Ry has been making independent films for eleven years. She is currently in post-production on her fifth feature, The Sun Is Also A Star, based on the best-selling novel. Prior to that, she directed the box office hit, Before I Fall, staring Zoe Deutch. Ry’s films have premiered and won awards at several international film festivals including Sundance, Stockholm, Torino, SXSW and Tribeca. Her first feature, Orphans, a tiny haunting sister tale, received a Jury Prize at the 2007 SXSW Film Festival. You Won’t Miss Me stars Stella Schnabel and won a Gotham Independent Film Award and was released by Factory 25 in a limited edition DVD/LP set. Ry has received honors from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Tribeca Film Institute, the LEF Foundation, the Sundance Institute and Creative Capital. She majored in film at Oberlin College and grew up in New York City. Her work has been praised by The Wall Street Journal, Variety, Vanity Fair and The New York Times, among others. She is developing a film based on the true story of her sperm donor suing her lesbian mothers for visitation and paternity rights when she was nine years old. “My grandparents came over on the boat through Ellis Island. I remember when I was younger, probably like 13, going to Ellis Island and finding my grandparents' name on the Wall [of Honor]. Finding my ancestors there was really moving. We've always called it the melting pot, but it is truly a city made up of immigrants that came from every which way to inhabit these pocket communities from Little Italy to Korea-town to Chinatown to the Lower East Side, where the Jews dwelled. To try to capture that in the movie was part of the goal. I was always moved by stories of immigration, and I felt like I was a piece of that puzzle, the shared puzzle, we're all in it together because we're all immigrants.

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