Billy Kent

Billy Kent is a writer, director, producer, and educator living in Saugerties, New York. His existential comedies circle a question: How do we figure out how to live, love, connect, and keep going when none of us really knows what we’re doing?

His first feature, THE OH IN OHIO (2006), starred Parker Posey, Danny DeVito, Paul Rudd, Heather Graham, and Liza Minnelli. It premiered at SXSW and internationally at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Critic Wesley Morris called it “one of the sweetest, smartest sex comedies I've ever seen.” His second feature, HAIRBRAINED (2013), starred Brendan Fraser, Alex Wolff, Parker Posey, and Julia Garner.

Billy is currently developing IN THE WIND with Dave Hill, following his short SPARKWHEEL (2024), with Dave Hill and Adam Pally. IN THE WIND asks what we go looking for when we don’t really know what we’re looking for, moving through friendship, grief, music, failure, and the possibility that what we think we want may not be what we need.

Billy has also traveled the world making films with artists including Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson, and Cristina Iglesias, attempting to capture the mysterious and often funny process of making something out of nothing. He began his career producing political satire for MTV and continues to direct comedy and commercials around the world.

The impulse behind much of Billy’s work goes back to his father, who escaped Austria for New York City as a child just before the Nazi invasion. His father died when Billy was 17. Since then, Billy has returned to another question: What do we do with loss? Can humor exist alongside grief, not as an escape from it, but as one of the ways we survive it?

Billy teaches directing at NYU Tisch, where his favorite part of the job is watching students discover their own way of seeing the world and somehow turn it into a film.

Courses

Frame and Sequence, Short Commercial Form

Education

Vassar, (BA) AFI (MFA) VCFA (MFA)