Kylie Mungenast

Kylie Mungenast is an experimental/narrative filmmaker drawn to painting a female gaze and solidifying her voice amidst a predominantly cis-male dominated western genre. Mungenast graduated from the University of Tampa College of Arts and Letters with a degree in Film and Media Arts. With an acute focus on directing the actors to engage intimately with their characters, Mungenast enjoys blending digital cinematography with hand-processed 16mm film. Her hybrid short was inspired by and shares a title with Mungenast's own feature screenplay In Bloom (2021), and was an official selection in the XI Almería Western Film Festival in Tabernas, Spain, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Award. Mungenast's fully independent short film debut, titled Esther Is Me and You Are a Liar, expands her directorial vision to explore her transgender lesbian lens beyond the period constraints of the western genre. Esther Is Me and You Are a Liar crafts a neo-psychedelic, post-apocalyptic Tennessee wasteland in which the titular trans woman must navigate to find hormone replacement therapy. It was shot entirely on analog 16mm. In her pastime, Mungenast is always eager for opportunities to travel, and typically chooses destinations based on their proximity to famous roller coasters having ridden over 200 unique attractions across the United States.