Gretchen Somerfeld has written, produced, and directed a feature film and four shorts. All of the films have received worldwide distribution and have been shown at numerous venues, from American Cinematheque to the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. She graduated from NYU film school, was the winner of the Independent Filmmakers Grant from the NEA, and was the honored recipient of the Disney/DGA Directors Fellowship.

Somerfeld has worked in film and television as a script supervisor, production manager, and still photographer. She has directed theatre in New York and Los Angeles and was a member of the Writers/Directors Unit at The Actors Studio. She is the winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for her screenplay Face Value about actress/inventor Hedy Lamarr, which Amy Redford (The Guitar) will be directing in 2008. Face Value was also chosen for the Hamptons Screenwriters Lab in 2005, and Baxter’s other recent screenplay Miami Purity (adapted from the novel of the same name) was recently chosen for Film Independent’s 2007 Screenwriters Lab. As a producer, she recently set up the family film Monkey Trial with Ted Field’s Radar Pictures, and as executive producer has the sci-fi thriller Push (Infinity Features/Summit Entertainment) with Dakota Fanning and director Paul McGuigan, which shot in Hong Kong in 2007.