Lydia Cornett

My perspective as an artist has been informed by my musical upbringing: watching my mother run an opera rehearsal, playing with my sister in orchestra concerts, and doing math homework a few feet away from my father coaching a loud soprano. While I had too much performance anxiety when it came to pursuing violin professionally, I came to filmmaking with an interest in quietly and patiently observing the world around me. As I began making work, I recognized a consistent instinct to explore the particular feelings I associate with my early experiences in music: shared, communal collaboration; a tactile sensation of physicality and breath; and reverberations of joy and intimacy. I feel that my filmmaking is an act of observing and documenting the world of these associative qualities of music. The exhilaration of capturing these moments and crafting their musicality within a narrative has revealed a way of making which feels unique to my worldview.

Lydia Cornett_Bug Farm_Film/Video_2020

Lydia Cornett is a filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland based between Columbus, Ohio and Brooklyn, New York. As a former musician turned filmmaker, she makes work that unites the restraint of observational storytelling with the physicality and connective qualities she associates with music-making. Her work has screened at BAMCinemaFest, Sheffield DocFest, AFI Docs, AspenShortsFest, Hamptons International Film Festival, and DOC NYC, where she received a Special Jury Mention for her film Yves & Variation. She was awarded fellowships to the Jacob Burns Film Center’s Creative Culture program and the UnionDocs’ Collaborative Studio, and she has received support from the Tribeca Film Institute, IF/Then Shorts, the Princess Grace Foundation, and the NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music and Theatre. Her work has been distributed and featured by The New Yorker, PBS (POV and Reel South) Nowness, and Vimeo Staff Picks.