Michelle Cutler grew up with a background in fine arts, self-taught in her mother’s painting studio. She later studied at Parsons School of Design and The Maryland Institute College of Art where she started two music and theatre performance groups, recorded an album, and went on tour with her band. She promptly defected to Berlin where she became part of an art and film collective in Prenzlauerberg.

Three years and some six countries later, Michelle returned to New York to complete her undergraduate studies at Hunter College/CUNY in photography and film and went directly into the Graduate Film Program at NYU/Tisch School for the Arts where she was awarded The Walter Manley and David Golden Scholarships for her work. She was an IFP/New York Project Involve Honoree and has directed six short films and four original plays in New York.

In Los Angeles, she worked as a screenwriter for the DGA-award winning director Nicolai Fuglsig, and currently freelances as a commercial treatment writer. She is adapting to direct the short story Field Study, by Rachel Seiffert.

Alicia Keys’ Big Pita Little Pita Productions and Miramax have optioned her feature script, Needle, about a young woman who aspires to win a DJ battle to escape her troubled home.