Kevin Phillips is an American filmmaker and photographer. Born in New Jersey (1982), the middle child of a chocolatier and a copy editor, Phillips attended Savannah College of Art and Design (2001-2006) where he won Best Thesis Film, two years in a row. His short film Too Cool for School premiered at the Cannes Semaine De La Critique (2015). Super Dark Times, his feature directorial debut, premiered at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam (2017) and the Tribeca Film Festival (2017). Highly acclaimed, the film went on to participate in more than a dozen festivals around the world, garnering awards including Best Feature Film at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland (2017). That year he was nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards as “Someone to Watch”.
He followed with the lauded visual album The Lumineers – III, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (2019), as well as South By Southwest (2020), where one of its chapters, Gloria, won the Special Jury Recognition award for Best Director. He has since directed an episode for the anthological horror series Monsterland, for Hulu, as well as a commercial campaign for Ancestry and Webtoon, the latter being shortlisted for a Shots award in 2021. He is in active development on 4 feature films.
In addition to directing, Phillips works as a cinematographer, having collaborated with musical artists such as Grimes, Childish Gambino, Death from Above 1979, Nicki Minaj, Aurora, Yeasayer, and Hozier and global brands like Levi’s, Gap, Nike, Adidas, Dior, Chanel, Jimmy Choo and Beats by Dre. In 2021 he served as the cinematographer on the series pilot Zabawa as well as the feature documentary Lakota Nation vs United States.
He is represented by UTA, Grandview, Prettybird, WPA and Common Good.
