VANESSA VASSAR was born in Fort Worth, TX. She grew up in California where she studied music and dance, and went on to receive university degrees in Media Studies and English. She moved to New York and worked for MTV as a Creative Writer and Editorial Coordinator and eventually directed an image campaign REALITY RUINS EVERYTHING before moving to Berlin, Germany where she directed and produced more than 30 music videos primarily for Polygram and Warner Records.

Vanessa moved to New Mexico in January 2000 and began working on her first documentary AMERICAN WAITRESS. It played at many film festivals, was written up in VARIETY, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER  and MARKEE MAGAZINE and sold to The Sundance Channel, Rialto-TV and The Documentary Channel. She followed it up with an artist profile documentary about an Apache artist entitled DARREN VIGIL GRAY COUNTERCLOCKWISE that she directed for the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian and sold to The Sundance Channel. CINDERELLAS OF SANTA FE screened at the Santa Fe Film Festival, the Living Wage Conference and won Best Documentary at the Iowa Independent Film Festival. It will soon have its broadcast premiere on The Documentary Channel.

Vanessa is working on her next documentary tentatively titled ONE NIGHTSHIFT and is currently developing her first documentary-style feature film DOCUMENTING ALICE. Her band PHONOROID has released three CDs on their European label and has created the entire soundtracks for both AMERICAN WAITRESS and CINDERELLAS OF SANTA FE.