Mary Sweeney

Visiting Associate Professor

213.740.3303

LUC 301

Along with advising seniors on their thesis’, writer, editor and producer Mary Sweeney teaches an alternative narrative advanced screenwriting course.

A long time collaborator of David Lynch’s beginning with Blue Velvet (1986), Sweeney edited Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story, and and Mulholland Drive (2001) which earned her a British Academy Award in 2001 for Best Editing.  She began producing in 1995 with Nadja, directed by Michael Almereyda, and went on to produce Lost Highway, The Straight Story, , Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. In addition to producing and editing she also wrote the screenplay for The Straight Story for which Richard Farnsworth received an Academy Award nomination.  Sweeney has recently completed Two Knives, a screenplay for Director Wong Kar Wai(In The Mood For Love, 2046) under the co-production banner of Fox Searchlight/Jetone Productions. 

She served last year as a juror for the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, and while in South America directed a short film which aired on TCM. She is in pre-production to direct a feature screenplay which she wrote entitled Campfires Burning. She resides in Los Angeles, California and Madison, Wisconsin.