Dawn Mikkelson

Film/video

2010 McKnight Filmmaking Fellow and named to AV Multimedia Producer’s 2004 National “Top Producers Showcase”, Mikkelson’s work has been seen on PBS, OUTtv, and Free Speech TV, as well as screening at countless international festivals including the Galway Film Fleadh, Cambridge Film Festival, IDFA Docs for Sale (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam), DocuFest Atlanta, Leipzig DOK Market, American Indian Film Festival, Planet in Focus, and Washington DC Environmental Film Festival.  Mikkelson has completed four award-winning feature documentaries. Her films, The Red Tail, Green Green Water, THIS obedience, and Treading Water: a documentary, create illuminate larger societal issues while creating understanding through the intimate stories of individuals.  Her most recent film The Red Tail, directed with Melissa Koch, profiles a former union airline mechanic who lost his job to outsourcing and went to China to find the worker who replaced him.

A former television news reporter at an ABC affiliate, Mikkelson often speaks and writes on issues around documentary filmmaking and social justice for MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) and MovieMaker Magazine and at numerous international festival panels, as well as speaking at colleges and universities across the country.  Mikkelson has taught Documentary Film as Adjunct Faculty at Ottawa University in Kansas, as well as IFP/MN in Minneapolis.