Kari Skogland

Writer-producer-director Kari Skogland's award-winning work on television and in films in her native Canada led to directorial assignments in the United States on high-profile projects like "The Walking Dead" (AMC, 2010-) and "The Bastard Executioner" (FX, 2015). Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Skogland began her directorial career in television commercials and on music videos. She made her debut as a television director on the fantasy series "Dead at 21" (1994) for MTV, with her first feature film, the comedy "The Size of Watermelons," coming one year later. Skogland worked steadily in low budget and independent features and on television before moving to studio efforts like Showtime's "Queer as Folk" (2000-05) and "The L Word" (2004-09). She received her first nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Direction from the Directors Guild of Canada for a 2004 episode of "The Eleventh Hour" (CTV, 2002-05) and netted seven more, including best Feature Film for "The Stone Angel" (2007), her adaptation of the popular Canadian novel of the same name, with Ellen Burstyn and Ellen Page. Skogland won her first DGC Award for the miniseries "Terminal City" (The Movie Network, 2005) and added a second for "Fifty Dead Men Walking" (2008), a political drama about the Irish Republican Army that also earned her a Genie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Hollywood soon took notice of Skogland's growing list of laurels and tapped her to helm episodes of "Boardwalk Empire" (HBO, 2010-14), "The Borgias" (Showtime, 2011-13) and "Longmire" (A&E/Netflix, 2012-). By 2014, she was directing episodes for many of the most popular network and cable series, including "The Walking Dead," "Penny Dreadful" (Showtime, 2014-16) and Kurt Sutter's historical action-drama "The Bastard Executioner."