Patrick Shen is a filmmaker and the founder of Transcendental Media specializing in contemplative nonfiction films. Driven by a mission to “agitate the sleep of mankind,” his work utilizes cinematic language to explore existential themes like mortality, wisdom, and the nature of silence. Over a career spanning more than two decades, he has earned 24 awards and 12 nominations.
His feature debut, Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality, won seven Best Documentary awards, including the Grand Prize at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. His follow-up, The Philosopher Kings, was nominated at AFI Silverdocs and honored with Camden’s Emerging Cinematic Vision Award. The acclaimed In Pursuit of Silence—which garnered Planet in Focus’s Best International Feature and a Cinema Eye Honors nomination—saw a global theatrical release in over 150 theaters across nine countries. His upcoming films include In Praise of Shadows, a visual portrait of contemporary life explored through the interplay of light and shadow, and Film¹/ASAP, a multi-generational project that explores human, geological, and cosmic time over six centuries. Early in his career, his work as second unit director on the Emmy-nominated We Served With Pride earned him an invitation to meet President Bill Clinton at the White House.
Shen has presented his work at hundreds of prestigious venues, including SXSW, CPH:DOX, the Smithsonian, Harvard, and Princeton. As an educator, he serves as an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and is a lead instructor for Sundance Collab. Additionally, he has served as a film envoy for the U.S. State Department since 2013, conducting international filmmaking workshops through the American Film Showcase.
Brandon Vedder is a filmmaker whose work explores belief, identity, and the search for meaning through intimate, character-driven storytelling. Over a career spanning more than two decades, he has directed, produced, shot, and edited films around the world.
Vedder began his career making films about musicians before moving into documentary filmmaking and a long-running creative partnership with filmmaker Patrick Shen. Their collaborations include La Source (2013) and In Pursuit of Silence (2016), which premiered at SXSW and received an international theatrical release. In 2015, Vedder directed, shot, and edited the documentary short A Certain Kind of Light, which received six Best Documentary awards and later aired nationally on PBS. His feature directorial debut, Strange Negotiations, premiered at SXSW in 2019 to critical acclaim and went on to screen theatrically in 30 cities.
His latest feature, Illuminations, reunites Vedder and Shen as co-directors. Filmed over four years, the film is an intimate and formally experimental portrait of legendary avant-garde filmmakers Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler and the nearly sixty-year romantic, creative, and devotional life they have built together through cinema.
Vedder is also co-directing Film¹/ASAP with Shen, a feature documentary filmed over nearly a decade about a 639-year musical performance unfolding inside a medieval German church. An alumnus of the SFFILM residency program, Vedder has served as an advisor for Sundance Collab and guest lectured at institutions including Stanford University. His work has received support from The Redford Center, The Rogovy Foundation, Fork Films, and The Fledgling Fund, and has been featured in Variety, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, VICE, and The Washington Post.