Courtney Balaker
Production
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
Known For
Desperate to repay his debt to his ex-wife, an ex-con plots a heist at his new employer's country home, unaware that a second criminal has also targeted the property, and rigged it with a series of deadly traps.
The Collector
When the dead discover a means to contact the living through electronic devices, cellphones and computers become open gateways to monstrosities and destruction.
Pulse
When a motley crew of strangers find themselves trapped in an isolated tavern, they must band together in a battle for survival against a family of flesh-hungry creatures.
Feast
An unhinged office worker who planned to go on a shooting spree at his workplace struggles with his newfound status as a hero after he ends up stopping a shooting spree instead.
He Was a Quiet Man
A Connecticut nurse finds herself at the center of a political firestorm and a Supreme Court case centering on eminent domain.
Little Pink House
From the depths of New York's shadowy streets to the peak of its glittering skyscrapers, the eternal war of good vs. evil reaches new heights as master vampire Lord Malgaard hatches a hideous plot to make every man, woman and child on earth his helpless blood slave! Only the unstoppable squad of ruthless vampire slayers led by modern-day Van Helsing, Dr Jacob Sloane, stands ready to oppose Malgaard and defeat his evil scheme! But when one of Sloane's top agents, the young, sexy Kaitlin Moore, learns she has only months to live, she faces a fateful choice... Succumb to her illness and die young... or live on into eternity as one of the very creatures she's sworn to destroy! A candlelit, fang-filled thriller in the eerie tradition of Buffy, Blade and Banabas!
Sleepless Nights
In the age of social media, nearly every day brings a new eruption of outrage. While people have always found something to be offended by, their ability to organize a groundswell of opposition to – and public censure of – their offender has never been more powerful. Today we're all one clumsy joke away from public ruin. Can We Take A Joke? offers a thought-provoking and wry exploration of outrage culture through the lens of stand-up comedy, with notables like Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Adam Carolla detailing its stifling impact on comedy and the exchange of ideas. What will the future will be like if we can't learn how to take a joke?
Can We Take a Joke?
Zach and Kendra are considered the cutest couple within their peer group. Unfortunately, that all ends when Tim and Tammy move into the neighborhood, knocking them off of their pedestal and forcing them to find a new identity amongst their friends.
Cute Couple
Follows five twenty-somethings who entered college with high hopes, only to be confronted with identity politics, social media hysteria, and cancel culture, leading the students to face anxiety, depression, and fear.
The Coddling of the American Mind
Joseph will is a man in his twenties faced with a job that he hates, a relationship that's going nowhere, and he's about to meet the women of his dreams. As with all dreams, he's about to find that the reality is never the same.