Courtney Balaker

Biography

Courtney Moorehead Balaker is an award-winning filmmaker, theatre director, and co-founder of Korchula Productions. Courtney wrote, directed, and produced Little Pink House, an award-winning Korchula Productions feature film about Susette Kelo’s historic fight to save her home and neighborhood. The film stars two-time Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener (Get Out, Being John Malkovich, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) and Emmy nominee Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love, The Firm, Grey Gardens). The film has been lauded by the likes of The Hollywood Reporter (“The bottom line—it hits a nerve”) and Deadline Hollywood (“Keener nails the combination of anger, grace, and attitude that made Kelo a nationally known crusader”). It has won a variety of awards including the HBO Audience Award at the Provincetown International Film Festival and the Vail Film Festival Audience Award. Courtney’s script was selected as a finalist for the Athena List, which recognizes the best screenplays with strong female protagonists. Courtney’s feature film production credits include The Collector (Josh Stewart), American Pie Presents the Naked Mile (Eugene Levy), and Pulse (Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder). She produced Can We Take a Joke?, a Korchula Productions documentary featuring comedians such as Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Jim Norton. The film has been lauded by The Hollywood Reporter, The Los Angeles Times, and comedy icon Seth MacFarlane, among others. Courtney served as a producer on America in Primetime, an award-winning four-hour PBS documentary series that examines the creative process behind primetime’s most iconic and groundbreaking shows. The series features interviews with Ron Howard, James L. Brooks, Sarah Jessica Parker, Larry David, Norman Lear, Alec Baldwin, David Lynch, Jon Hamm, Danny DeVito, Mary Tyler Moore, and Dick Van Dyke, among others. Courtney began her film career at Neo Art & Logic, a feature film production company with an overall deal with Dimension Films where she developed new screenplays and went on to serve as Vice President of Development. Neo’s credits include He Was A Quiet Man (Christian Slater, William H. Macy), Dracula 2000 (Gerard Butler, Nathan Fillion), and The Prophecy (Christopher Walken). Courtney spent five years in New York City directing Off-Broadway plays. She specialized in contemporary plays with established actors, and her credits include the New York revival of Austin Pendleton's Uncle Bob starring George Morfogen of HBO’s Oz and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who went on to star in films such as Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. “The play has dramatic crackle,” writes Bruce Weber of The New York Times. Other reviewers call it “as funny as it is vicious” (The New York Daily News), and “a wonderful experience energized by powerful performances and taut direction” (The New York Post). Courtney holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Colorado at Denver and a master’s degree in theatre directing from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and King’s College London