BIO

Lanre Olabisi is an award-winning writer/director whose films have played on HBO, Showtime, Netflix, and Hulu. Most recently, he has been directing episodic television, and to date, he has directed four episodes of ABC’s hit series The Rookie and two episodes of the spinoff series The Rookie: Feds.

Lanre is a fellow in both the HBOAccess Directing Program where he had the opportunity to shadow on HBO’s Succession and HBOMax’s Love Life. Afterwards, he was selected into the Disney Directing Program.

Lanre is committed to telling complex and layered stories that veer from conventions. He is adept at non-linear stories, as seen in his latest short film, A Storybook Ending, which is a neo-noir dark comedy based on a feature screenplay of the same name. The feature script was selected into the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab.

Lanre’s feature film work includes August the First and Somewhere in the Middle both are distributed by Film Movement worldwide.

August the First played at over 35 film festivals, including South by Southwest (SXSW) and Karlovy Vary. It won the top prize at seven festivals and was nominated for an IFP Gotham Award. They previously played on Showtime and Netflix.

Lanre's second feature, Somewhere in the Middle, was nominated for Best Outstanding Indie Feature at the Black Reel Awards and also previously streamed on Netflix. It is currently available on PlutoTV and TubiTV.

He taught Screenwriting, Directing, and Acting for Film at the New York Film Academy for 14 years.