Virginia B. Bogert
Director
WIF/IFP

Virginia Bogert has produced, written, and directed award-winning film and video, nationally and internationally for more than 20 years, with experience ranging from feature production and commercials, to corporate film and video, documentaries, as well as programming for Public Television including the Emmy award-winning Pike Place Market: Soul of a City.

Following a childhood dream, Virginia began her career on the sets of feature productions filming in the Northwest. She wanted to make movies but Hollywood productions didn't come to Seattle everyday, thus leading Virginia into the world of commercial film production and the role of lead producer. That work has taken her across the country and around the world to locations from Europe to the South Pacific; and won her awards such as the coveted New York Film Festival Golden Reel.

In 1993 after winning a project directing Tom Skerritt in The Theatre…Magic in Real Time, Virginia launched her company Laughing Dog Pictures. The film helped raise 30 million dollars for A Contemporary Theatre, funding the preservation of the historic Eagles Auditorium and the relocation of the four decade-old theater to downtown Seattle. Since directing Mr. Skerritt, Virginia has directed on-screen personalities: Danny Glover, Jeff Probst, and Willem Dafoe.

As a writer-director, Virginia has been awarded the prestigious Halo Award for Public Service Communications for Expect the Unexpected…On the Boards, and the first Nell Shipman Women in Film Award, for Winds of Change, produced for the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center. She also won a 1997 Nell for directing the documentary, A Matter of Perception, for United Cerebral Palsy Association, and a Nell Award as editor of the commercial, Diversity.

Virginia's resolution to bring about change for the better through her art further led her to direct projects such as the documentary, in my shoes… for the University of Washington School of Social Work which traces the lives of three women caught in the social welfare system. Expressing her commitment on a global scale, Virginia co-wrote and directed the commercial Spoonman for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, expanding the UN's campaign to promote global sustainable farming and reduce hunger worldwide. Spoonman received a First Prize National Telly Award and a Silver Emerald City Award. In the same vein Virginia also produced, directed and co-wrote commercials for the Songbird Foundation, advocating globally sustainable coffee farming. She is now in development of The Hands that Feed Us, a documentary profile of organic farmers and food produces across America.

Virginia's acclaimed production in High Definition Television, Pike Place Market: Soul of a City, is a passionately human portrayal of multi-cultural life in Seattle's century-old public market. Produced for public television, the documentary was awarded three NW regional Emmys for best documentary, photography, and editing; a Women in Film Nell Shipman Award for production excellence in directing; and a national bronze Telly, for production and direction. It was screened at The Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival and the New York Independent Film and Video Festival in 2002.

Dedicated to the growth of the film industry and community, Virginia has served as Vice President of the Washington State Film and Video Association, is a long-standing member of Women in Film, Vice President 2004, and a member of IFP, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She co-produced "The Washington State Locations Reel" which was responsible for a 40% increase in the state's film business. Virginia has a Master of Arts in Communications, and teaches workshops on the art of documentary film production and video production.

Having worked in many areas of the movie business, Virginia's heart is in the creation of films that tell the story of the human condition with monumental simplicity and elegance. Virginia believes that humanity is most readily emboldened, ennobled, and enlightened through this kind of visual anthropology which engages the spirit and mind through entertainment.

Laughing Dog Pictures
honest filmmaking, stylishly wrought