Carolyn Robertson is a 19-year-old New York City-based film director, cinematographer, and editor from Scottsdale, Arizona. She founded Scarlet Door Films in 2023, focusing on female and international narratives. Carolyn has made several short films, including a documentary on the Hiroshima bombing and peace movement, which took her to Japan. The film, Paper Prayers, has been screened independently at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Phoenix, and honored at film festivals in NYC, the UK, Italy, Tokyo, and more.

At 15, Carolyn founded the filmmaking club at her high school in the absence of a film program. At 16, she attended USC’s prestigious Warner Bros. Producing/Directing program, where she created films on the Warner Bros. lot and USC sound stages, led green-light meetings with Warner Bros. executives, and practiced skills like editing, writing, and directing.

She brought those lessons back to her club, leading them to earn a Regional Student Production Emmy, third place at the Arizona Student Film Festival, and selections at festivals like the All American High School Film Festival and Student Impact Film Festival. Since then, she has earned recognition for projects like The Bubble (2022), Icebreaker (2023), Glass Station (2024), and Paper Prayers (2023).

Now a freshman completing her BFA in Film and TV Production at NYU, Carolyn has worked on over a dozen student films in various roles such as director of photography, editor, actor, music producer, boom operator, and production assistant. She has also written and directed three of her own short films in New York and volunteered 150+ hours on student sets.