Karen Sztajnberg is a Brazilian born filmmaker and video-artist who came to New York with a Fulbright scholarship. "Casa Grande", a feature length fiction film which Karen co-wrote and edited, premiered in competition at Rotterdam in 2014.  It went on to have an award winning track on the international festival circuit, including passages through San Sebastian, BFI London and CPH: PIX. It is currently theatrically distributed in Brazil, France, Benelux and Canada. 

Prior to that, Karen was the recipient of the Sloan Foundation Award for "Volatile", a feature screenplay she wrote while getting her MFA degree at Columbia University. Her extensive background as an editor in documentary and television heavily informs her artistic and screenwriting work.

Pears, a short fiction film written and directed by Karen, is currently making the festival rounds having won the Golden Palm Award at the Mexico International Film Festival.

Presently, she is developing two feature screenplays and hoping to shoot the third chapter of The Narrative of Inadequacy, in the coming year.