Heidi Philipsen
is an actress, writer and director who enjoys taking on challenging
projects that encourage her to grow as an artist and individual. BEGINNINGS ABROAD What
began as a "just watch me" response to a college professor's statement
that Heidi would "never learn the language" led Heidi to embark on a
fascinating professional journey to Berlin, Germany that would last for
several years -- bringing her German language skills to near-native
fluency, and enabling her to forge a career in
film, television
and regional theater.
A
friend and colleague at The English Theatre of Berlin, who worked in
broadcast television, approached Heidi one day about a casting for a
job as a "weather girl" in at the internationally broadcast and
globally focused television station, Deutsche Welle. Heidi went in and got the job.
Two
years later, she moved from anchoring the daily, international weather
forecast, to on-camera reporting, field-producing, assistant directing,
and translating for a worldwide audience (over 28 million
viewers a week!) through Deutsche Welle TV on it's daily television magazine, Germany Today.
In
her tenure at DW-TV, Heidi's lust for life and fascination with the
world and people around her led her to one exciting opportunity after
the other: one moment, Heidi was covering the Berlin International Film Festival
and interviewing such personalities and VIPs as George Clooney,
Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Foxx, Shirley McClaine, Bruce Willis, Bono, Wim
Wenders, Ice-Cube, Gong-Li, Terence Malick, P.T. Anderson, Joseph
Fiennes, Milla Jovovich and Denzel Washington; the next, she was
traveling to the countries along Germany's border and visiting
interesting people, businesses and historical landmarks in such places
as Kollund, Denmark, Colmar, Alsace-Lorraine, Bregenz, Austria, and
Gorlitz, Poland.
Clearly,
living in Berlin during the hey-days of its reconstruction, as a fluent
speaker of German and English, Heidi was in the right place at the
right time for a career in film, television and print media -- and
enjoyed all of the opportunities that continued to come her way:
speaking to a group of American study-abroad graduate students about
"Careers in Germany" at the American Consulate General in Hamburg, acting as one of the first, two co-Managing Editors of the American Academy in Berlin's Literary Journal, "The Berlin Journal,"and doing voice-over work at the legendaryGrundy
Ufa Studios in Babelsberg for American films, such as Fox Television's for-tv feature "Terror in the Mall."
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NEW YORK CITY
Heidi returned stateside in 2000 to study acting and pursue her Masters Degree.
She trained extensively at the T. Schreiber Studios and
performed Off-Broadway in such shows as Angry Jello Bubbles, "Prelude
to a Kiss" at the Gloria Maddox Theater and "Let's Murder Marsha" at
the Douglaston Theater ala Carte.
MICHIGAN Motivated
by a desire to "think globally, act locally," in 2003, Heidi returned
to her roots in Michigan and started writing, producing, acting in and
directing her own pieces for both film and theater.
Creative accomplishments from that time period include Heidi's thesis short, “A FORK IN THE ROAD”
(writer/producer/director) for which she received “Best Screenplay” and was nominate for “Best Director”
at the MPI Student Film Festival; "Tales from Motherville" (writer/producer/director/ensemble actor), performed both at Canton, Michigan's Theatre at Cherry Hill and Planet Ant's 2007 BoxFest.
FROM HERE TO THERE AND BACK, AGAIN: MICHIGAN, UPSTATE, NY & NYC Having
finished a run of Arthur
Miller's "All My Sons" at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, NY, in April of
2010, Heidi is currently pre-producing several plays to be performed
abroad in 2011.
Her
period piece adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic Thriller,
"Telltale Heart" -- HER TELLING HEART-- is in post-production and
seeking further donations through New York Women in Film &
Television's Fiscal Sponsorship program.
When not acting, writing or directing, Heidi represents Upstate Independents
-- Upstate New York's Ultimate Indie Film and Media member organization
-- as board member and Programming Chair, fulfilling another passion:
bringing dynamic industry professionals together to exchange
experiences, trade secrets and talk about the past, present and future
of film, media and theater.
Heidi holds a B.A. in Film, Theatre & German
Literature from the University of Michigan's Residential College, a
Certificate in German Fluency from the Goethe Institute, a Masters in
International Media & Communications with a Regional Focus on the
European Union from Columbia University's School of International &
Public Affairs, and a Graduate Training Certificate in Directing and
Cinematography from the Motion Picture Institute of Michigan.
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