Karyn Kusama

Karyn Kusama (born March 21, 1968) is an American independent film director known for the 2000 film Girlfight, which she wrote, directed, and produced. Kusama went on to direct 2005's Æon Flux and 2009's Jennifer's Body. She directed the 2015 horror film, The Invitation, and has recently worked as a television director. 2Early life Kusama grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, to father Haruo Kusama, a child psychiatrist, and mother Susan Kusama (née McGuire), an educational psychiatrist. Her father is Japanese and her mother is white. Kusama graduated from Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1990, Kusama received a BFA in Film & TV from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. 2Career After graduating from NYU, where she won a Mobile Prize for a student film called Sleeping Beauties, Kusama worked as an editor on documentary films, in production on independent film and music videos, as a nanny, and painting house