Meira Blaustein

Meira Blaustein is the Co-Founder / Executive & Artistic Director of the Woodstock Film Festival, which was launched in 2000 and has quickly become one of the topmost respected and influential regional film festivals worldwide. Blaustein has been running the annual Film Festival along with its numerous year-round initiatives for over two decades. In 2018 Blaustein created the Woodstock Film Festival’s annual Youth Film Lab, a free 3-week filmmaking intensive for teenagers now in its 7th year with an expansion into the academic year. In 2020 Blaustein founded the Woodstock Film Festival Filmmakers Residency / Incubator in collaboration with White Feather Farm Foundation. The 4-week residency launched in the spring of 2021 and now is in its 4th year.

Prior to the launch of the Woodstock Film Festival Blaustein worked as a film programmer for regional film festivals. During the 90s Blaustein also directed the documentary For Love of Julian, about her first son who was born with profound brain injury and passed away at the age of 18.

A filmmaker by training, Blaustein directed, produced, and consulted on countless feature films, screenplays, and documentaries in various stages, from development through production, from editing to distribution. During her tenure at the Woodstock Film Festival Blaustein has served as juror, speaker, mentor, workshop leader and panelist at a variety of film festivals, universities, and special events throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Blaustein is an activist and has volunteered for multiple political candidate campaigns including presidential, congressional, and senatorial campaigns. Born and raised in Israel, Blaustein graduated from NYC’s School of Visual Arts Cinema Studies after studying photography and film at the San Francisco Art Institute and philosophy and art history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.