Breakthrough: Amy Seimetz – Get to know Seimetz in the latest Movie Filter

In theaters Friday: Aftershock, The Great Gatsby, Peeples

New on Blu-ray: Jack Reacher, Safe Haven

In his recent—and completely essential—talk on the state of cinema at the San Francisco International Film Festival, director Steven Soderbergh described his ideal (utopian, actually) movie studio scenario where the best young talent in the industry is gathered, and instead of being micromanaged, they are given their budgets then set free to create the films they want to make. One name he mentions including in this fantasy studio stuck out to me, because I didn’t think I’d ever heard it.

So, I’ve spent much of the last week reading up on Amy Seimetz, a 31-year-old actor-writer-producer, and, most recently feature director. Turns out I’d actually seen Seimetz years ago in Girls-creator Lena Dunham’s first feature film, the mixed bag mumblecore comedy Tiny Furniture, but I had not taken much note of her performance, to be honest.

The actress has made a bigger impression on audiences since then, first in festival darlings The Off Hours and The Myth of the American Sleepover, and currently as “mom of the year” to a missing teen on AMC’s The Killing. She will also have a recurring role on HBO’s brand new Christopher Guest-led comedy Family Tree (premiering May 12).

2013 is set to be Seimetz’s breakout year with her role opposite director Shane Carruth in his long-awaited Primer follow-up, the sci-fi love story Upstream Color and a VOD distribution deal for her SXSW award-winning directorial effort, the road thriller Sun Don’t Shine.

If Upstream Color overcomes its artful Terence Malick-ness and catches on with audiences, Seimetz is poised to follow Jennifer Lawrence and Greta Gerwig as the next indie actress to break out in the mainstream. Regardless, with critically acclaimed projects like these and admiration from the likes of Soderbergh and other talent-spotters in the field, she is fast becoming a strong, visionary director in an industry that still suffers from an unfortunate lack of female voices.

Seimetz’s Sun Don’t Shine is available on video on demand here. Watch the trailer for that as well as Carruth’s Upstream Color, co-starring Seimetz, below: