Welcome to Blissful Spinster, a podcast where I’ll explore my place in the world as a happy single woman in her 50s, and how that intersects with my journey as I hustle to get my first narrative feature film, ALONE GIRL off the ground as a writer/director. 

Hi, my name is Cris Graves and I’m an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who has worked across platforms from film to television to online content. My work has spanned the globe as a producer/director, filming in some of the harshest and most remote areas on our planet. My credits include The Amazing Race, Whale Wars, and Living Undocumented. I’m also an award-winning narrative filmmaker. My projects have screened in various film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival, Oaxaca Film Festival, and Hamilton Film Festival, to name a few. My feature film script ALONE GIRL was a semi-finalist in three categories of the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition 2019, earned a spot on The Bitch List 2020, and reached the top 10% of the 2020 Nicholl Fellowship. And in 2020, I was chosen as one of 25 screenwriters to watch by the Austin Film Festival.

On a more personal note, I’m the youngest of six and a proud Gen-Xer, born in 1970, in New Hampshire but soon found myself moving to Mexico City, Mexico at the tender age of one, where I lived until I was almost 19. This makes me what some term a “third culture kid”… it also means I never quite feel like I fit in… no matter where I am, I’m a perpetual fish out of the water, and I love it. It means I’m in a constant state of learning and curiosity… and that is a beautiful place to be. Now that I’m a certain age, I’ve turned my curiosity inward, I’m writing scripts to direct that explore how, I, a single woman in her 50s (with cats!) fit in the world made to disregard our place in society… don’t worry I make comedies!