Robert Eggers

Multi-hyphenate filmmaker Robert Eggers earned a reputation for his eerie and elaborate costumes and production design for a variety of independent shorts before making an auspicious debut as a writer-director of features with the period horror story "The Witch" (2015). Born and raised in New England, Eggers developed an interest in folklore, fairy tales and macabre fiction from an early age, and parlayed that fascination into a career in illustration and design. He began in theater but soon transitioned to independent films as a production designer before making his directorial debut with a 2007 adaptation of "Hansel and Gretel." The following year, he combined live-action and puppets for a version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" that was featured at numerous international film festivals.

Eggers continued to employ his unique vision as a production, costume and art designer for a variety of shorts and features, including the independent horror film "Yellowbrickroad" (2010) and the television documentary series "I Married a Mobster" (Investigation Discovery, 2011- ). In 2013, Eggers directed his third short, a period revenge drama titled "Brothers," before making his feature film debut with "The Witch" (2014), a supernatural thriller set in 17th-century New England. The film, which earned Eggers a place on Filmmaker magazine's list of the 2014 New Faces of Independent Film, premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Dramatic Competition.