Commercial production company Institute has added award-winning filmmaker Alison Klayman to its directing roster. Known for documenting some of the most prominent people and stories of our time, Klayman has been named by The New York Times as a Director to Watch, and her work has been shortlisted for an Academy Award and has received multiple prizes including from the Sundance Film Festival, the Peabody Awards, and the duPont-Columbia Awards.
Klayman’s film work tackles big issues, big stakes, and big personalities, even while she brings viewers into these worlds through an intimate lens. She has profiled the eponymous Chinese artist and activist in Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, which earned a Special Jury Prize at Sundance and put Klayman on The New York Times’ list of 20 Directors to Watch; singer Alanis Morrisette in Jagged; and right wing strategist Steve Bannon in The Brink. Klayman has also chronicled the rise and fall of the brand Abercrombie & Fitch in White Hot; the pervasiveness of prescription stimulants in Take Your Pills; and the WNBA’s New York Liberty in Unfinished Business.
Klayman brings the same effortlessly personal approach, powerful visual style, and genuinely emotional story beats to her advertising work. She has directed commercials for numerous major brands including lululemon, HP, HBO, Bose, Brawny, 3M, and MorningStar Farms. In the process she’s directed diverse talent from actor Ed Burns, to hip-hop legend Stic from Dead Prez, to Fortune 50 CEO Meg Whitman. Prior to joining Institute, Klayman was repped most recently in the commercialmaking space by Washington Square Films.
Klayman is already working on her first project with Institute, a short film that will chronicle Every Woman’s Marathon, an all-women marathon taking place in November 2024 in Savannah, Georgia.
Klayman noted that she’s known Institute’s founders–filmmaker and photographer Lauren Greenfield, and producer Frank Evers–as well as company EP Sean Lyness for more than a decade and enjoys a great rapport with them. “I’ve been so impressed watching the evolution of Institute over the past few years. I love that the company’s roster and creative output continues to expand and progress, while still incorporating its roots. Now that I have almost a decade of experience in the ad space, I’m excited to take my commercial work to the next level with people who I feel understand my documentary background, have the same storytelling sensibilities and ethical sensibilities, and know how to creatively apply all of that to work with brands.”
Greenfield, creative director of Institute, said, “Alison is a singular storyteller and I’ve been a huge fan of her work for years. With her strong foundation in documentary film, she brings an authentic and curious approach to advertising that really connects with viewers and elevates the narratives. Alison is a fantastic fit for the Institute roster and we are thrilled to be collaborating moving forward.”
Based in Brooklyn, Klayman is also a member of the DGA, BAFTA, and AMPAS. She earned a DGA Award nomination for the aforementioned Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.
