PARK CITY, UT – January 31, 2021 – At a virtual ceremony, Natalie Qasabian was awarded the 2021 Sundance Institute / Amazon Studios Producers Award for Fiction Filmmaking for her film RUN. The awards honor bold vision and a commitment to continuing work as a creative producer in the independent space. Qasabian’s husband / partner Sev Ohanian won the award two years ago for his work on Searching, which they produced together.
Qasabian was presented by the award with her frequent collaborator, director Aneesh Chaganty (Searching, Run).
Qasabian commented in her acceptance speech “As producers, we may doubt whether or not we can do something: but we can’t ever doubt if it’s worth doing. If we don’t cast the people that haven’t been cast before, if we don’t hire the crew member that hasn’t been hired before, tell the story that hasn’t been told before, or work with that first-time director who’s never been produced before…we’ll never know what could be on the other side. So, thank you again to the Sundance Institute and Amazon Studios for recognizing a job that we ourselves doubt sometimes. It helps us see what can be on the other side if we can just push through.”
Natalie Qasabian produced RUN with Sev Ohanian, from a script co-written by Ohanian and Aneesh Chaganty. Chaganty directed the film starring Sarah Paulson and Kiera Allen, for Lionsgate which premiered on Hulu in Fall 2020 and became the most-watched film on the platform. Previously, Natalie produced Searching (Sundance 2018), directed by Chaganty, which was released by Sony. Searching was made on a sub-one-million-dollar budget and grossed $75M+ at the box office.
Additional credits include ALL ABOUT NINA (Tribeca 2018), written and directed by Eva Vives, which was released by The Orchard, and three films for the Duplass Brothers, including DUCK BUTTER directed by Miguel Arteta. She also produced Snapchat’s first scripted series’ CO-ED. Currently, she’s working on a sequel to SEARCHING for Sony and a streaming series called THE FUTURE for HBO Max.