| Laura Checkoway | |
| Occupation: | Director, producer, editor, screenwriter and journalist |
Laura Checkoway is a documentary filmmaker and writer, known for her documentary Edith+Eddie for which she received an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject nomination at the 90th Academy Awards.[1] The film also received an Emmy nomination[2] and won numerous awards including the IDA Documentary Awards Best Short.[3] In The New Yorker, critic Richard Brody wrote: “One of the most impressive aspects of Checkoway’s film is that, with a simple and straightforward approach, she brings the overwhelming force of abstract institutions seemingly onto the screen.”[4] Academy Award winning filmmaker Julia Reichert called Edith+Eddie "One of the most beautiful and quietly furious films I've ever seen." Checkoway's documentary The Cave of Adullam[5] is executive produced by Laurence Fishburne and premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2022, winning top prizes Best Documentary Feature, Best Editing, and the Audience Award.[6] In an interview with Deadline, Fishburne said: “She has a cinematic sensitivity and a doctor’s bedside manner... Laura doesn’t impose her personality or her energy onto anything. It boils down to her humanity and her ability to see the humanity in all…” [7] The film was released by ESPN Films. She received NYWIFT’s Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking Award[8] in 2022.
With a background in journalism, Checkoway was a writer for numerous publications including Vibe and Rolling Stone.
Checkoway wrote the 05 February 2008 Village Voice cover story entitled "Prodigy's 25th Hour."[9] In 2011, Simon & Schuster published My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy, a memoir co-authored by Checkoway and Prodigy. This work has been described in the Ringer as being "one of the best music autobiographies ever."[10]