Andrew Hafitz

Andrew Hafitz has been editing films and television since 1995. Along the way, he's worked with Mary Harron (Charlie Says, 2018), Brad Anderson (Beirut, 2018), Whit Stillman (Damsels in Distress, 2012; The Last Days of Disco, 1998), and Larry Clark (Ken Park, 2002; Bully, 2001). Seven of his films have premiered at Sundance, including two in 2020: The Evening Hour, a feature directed by Braden King; and Three Deaths, a short directed by Jay Dockendorf. Hafitz had previously collaborated with both King and Dockendorf on their debut dramatic features. Here, King’s story of an American mapmaker working in Armenia, premiered in Dramatic Competition at Sundance in 2011; Naz & Maalik, Dockendorf’s Brooklyn-set day-in-the-life of gay African-American Muslim teenagers, opened at SXSW in 2015, and was nominated as Best Film (Limited Release) in the GLAAD Media Awards. Other features to premiere in competition at Sundance include Equity (Meera Menon, 2016) and Don't Let Me Drown (Cruz Angeles, 2009). In 1999 Hafitz edited The Lifestyle, a groundbreaking documentary about swinging in America, with Oscar winner Dan Cogan (Icarus) producing and David Schisgall directing. He later teamed with Schisgall on two episodes of MTV’s True Life, both filmed in the Middle East: “I Live in the Terror Zone,” about Palestinian and Israeli youth living in the West Bank; and “I'm in Iraq," shot during the first months of the Iraq war. The latter won the 2005 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Network News Documentary. He has mentored young filmmakers in affiliation with a variety of institutions, including NYU, SVA, the Independent Feature Project, and the Creative Coalition. In 2016 he served as Artist in Residence at the Manhattan Edit Workshop, and, in 2017, as Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts. A graduate of Yale University with a degree in comparative literature, Hafitz is passionate about telling stories in film language that is both articulate and emotional. He lives in Manhattan and Willow, NY, with his wife, Robin, and their two Chinooks, Munjebel and Eighmey.