Amelia Wyeth Ponirakis is a filmmaker, animator, and media artist originally from Upstate New York. She graduated from Purchase College, SUNY Film Conservatory. In 2022, she worked as a teaching assistant helping with the Experimental Film Workshop class in regards to theory and production. Outside of academics at Purchase College, Amelia has interned at number of places such as the Forum Art Space, the Blackbird Film Festival, and most recently at WXHC X101 radio station. Prior to university Amelia studied two summer's in a row at the New York State Summer School of Media Arts (NYSSSA)  her concentration being in 16mm and Super 8mm filmmaking. Recently she served as a jury member at the Wharton Studio Museum's youth film festival Quiet on The Set in partnership with Cornell Cinema and  is currently working at WCNY PBS as a production assistant and an artist in residence at The Gear Factory.

 

Her films have screened at number of  places within New York State some of which include : Student Experimental Film Festival (SEFF) Binghamton, Millennium Film Workshop, Rod Serling Film Festival, Hudson Valley Film Festival, and Buffalo International Film Festival (BIFF).  In 2023 her short film "CAUGHT THE BUG" (2022) screened internationally at a longtime running underground cinema show Exploding Cinema in London during the summer at IKLECTIK and returned to the city to screen again at Darkroom Film Festival. More recently her film "BLUE LIGHT" (2024)  won two awards  at the 2024 Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival winning "Best Student Short" and "Best Soundtrack" and the film was shown at the Brooklyn  Alamo Drafthouse with the festival partnering with Cyber NY and was sponsored by Kino Lorber, Zeitgeist Films, and many more distribution companies/independent businesses.

 

Amelia often invests into the genres of experimental, surrealist, and sci-fi works on varying formats. She aims to explore the realm of incorporating the environment, performance, and experimental animation into her work.