Daniel Nearing
- Director of the MFA in Screenwriting
- Adjunct Professor of Film and TV Production
Canadian-born writer-director Daniel Nearing is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and MacDowell, served as the inaugural Filmmaker in Residence for the City of Chicago, and was named Chicagoan of the Year for Film by the Chicago Tribune in 2017.
His most recently completed film (2023) is SISTER CARRIE, an epic period love story that takes place in Chicago, Montreal and Paris. The film is a hybrid of three timeless literary sources, all of them proto-feminist novels from the United States and France: the landmark Chicago novel by Theodore Dreiser from which it takes its name (1900), Alexander Dumas’ (Fils) “La Dame aux Camélias” (1848), and Abbé Prévost’s “Manon Lescaut” (1731).
His HOGTOWN (2016) looks at the emergence of a multicultural America through the prism of Chicago. The Chicago Sun-Times called it “the most original film made in Chicago about Chicago to date” (Bill Stamets). Ben Kenigsberg of The New York Times named it to his list of the 10 Best Films of 2016: “Daniel Nearing has carved out an original and boldly unfashionable niche. HOGTOWN feels like a find from a forgotten archive.”
CHICAGO HEIGHTS (2010) is an adaptation of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. The “period-less” observation on exurban and small town life played at festivals around the world and was licensed by Netflix. Roger Ebert called it “brilliant and beautiful” and named it to his list of the Best Art Films of the year.
Nearing has an MA in modern and contemporary Literature from the University of Toronto, received an MFA in Film from York University, and was a Producer Resident at Norman Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre. In addition to his work with MIU, Nearing is a professor and coordinator for the MFA in Independent Filmmaking at Governors State University, in the South Chicago area.
He is excited about the challenge of maintaining the currently strong design of the MFA in Screenwriting while exploring new avenues for the program to engage with Writer-Directors and international students.