Chloe may be an accomplished filmmaker with awards, commendations and a prestigious degree from Columbia University but she can also be seen helping customers select their keepsakes at her families Vintage store, Junk for Joy, on Magnolia Blvd. in the heart of Burbank’s Magnolia Park District. That is where I met up with her to ask about her new film and impressive background. Sitting at a small table in the shade just outside the store I started with the usual question. “Who is Chloe Lenihan?” This is what I discovered.
She is a fifth-generation Californian based in Los Angeles and has always had a passion for telling stories. She started to act at age 7 by chance tagging along on an interview for her baby sister while in New York. She started doing commercials and modeling until heading off to school in South Bend Indiana where she studied history and film theory. She became interested in the process of making films and started working for film producers including Oscar-winning GK Films on Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and The Aviator, and Jean-Marc Vallée’s The Young Victoria ultimately, she was not suited for office work.
Enrolling in the 2-year William Esper Studio program she met a community of other creatives and started putting together plays, and short films. She then went on to get an M.F.A. at Columbia University where she received the New York Women in Film & Television scholarship. She was awarded the Katharina Otto-Bernstein grant to write and produce her thesis film How Far She Went, which won “Jury Honors” and the “Audience Award” at the Columbia University Film Festival, “Best Female Student Filmmaker” by the Director’s Guild of America East, and “Best Student Film” at BendFilm Festival before making its broadcast premiere on KQED’s “Film School Shorts” series, hosted by PBS. As a writer/ director/ producer/ actor, her films have screened at Academy-qualifying festivals including: Atlanta, Nordisk Panorama, and Palm Springs among others. A proud SAG member since 1989, Chloe creates heartfelt, humorous stories that explore identity, purpose, and the absurdities of everyday life, immersing audiences in authentic Americana and emotion that lingers long after the screen fades to black.
Chloe returned to Burbank in 2016 to support the 35th Anniversary of Junk for Joy and help her mother run the store while also taking time to write, direct and act in a series shot in Chicago called the All-American Sex Offender, which won “Best Web Series” at the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival in 2020 and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Chloe was selected to develop her feature script, Metanoia, at the Stowe Story Lab and Cine Qua Non Storylines Lab in 2021 and then, in 2022, she revised that script at Cine Qua Non’s Revision Lab in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico.
Currently, Chloe is in post-production on her feature directorial debut, SMILE…the Worst is Yet to Come, a dramatic comedy about infertility, the generational divide, and how we define success. Her interest in a characters psychological experience and being able to make a little look like a lot served her well on the project. Shooting both here in Burbank and in Big Bear she is proud of her achievement. Yet she is not one to sit still for long, she has completed her next script, a dark family comedy about health and the wellness influencers community. I, for one, can’t wait.
Originally published in www.theburbankblabla.com
