Kaitlyn T. Busbee is an Iowa-bred, New York-trained, Chicago-based filmmaker. Her award-winning films explore intimate, character-driven stories. Reveling in both the drama and the humor of everyday life, she excavates what makes us tick as humans through moments both big and small.

Busbee is an MFA recipient of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film Program. She received the Martin Scorsese Scholarship, Maurice Kanbar Scholarship, and the 2023 ARRI Volker Bahnemann Award for Outstanding Cinematography. She was also awarded the Black Family Film Prize for her short film Layaway (HollyShorts 2023, Chelsea Film Festival 2023 - Winner of the US Shorts Audience Choice Award). Her forthcoming NYU thesis film, Jarfly, is executive produced by Spike Lee and supported by the 2024 Spike Lee/Sandra Ifraimova Production Fund and the Riese Organization post-production award.

She was selected by Spike Lee as one of three student filmmakers to write and direct branded short films for Coca-Cola and Vitamin Water, centering on the art scene of New York City. She was DP on the short film In Passing, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. Busbee was DP and field producer for Uprooted, part of HBO Max/Sesame Workshop’s Through Our Eyes, a documentary series about the climate crisis told from the perspective of affected children.

Before graduate school, Busbee was hired as co-director, DP, and editor for the indie feature These Hopeless Savages, starring Matt Dellapina (CBS’ Tommy, NBC’s The Blacklist, and Netflix’s The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show), MacKenzie Meehan (CBS’ Bull, HBO’s Vinyl and The Wolf of Wall Street) and Sean Christopher Lewis (award-winning playwright and contributor to NPR’s This American Life). After screening at more than 30 festivals worldwide, the film is now available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

The Legend in My Heart, her feature documentary shot in China, won Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Universe Multicultural Film Festival. Her comedic short, Sexpert Franzen, played Tribeca’s 30 Under 30 Film Festival, where she was named “one of the next wave of gifted young filmmakers.” Her short film, Bed Bugs, screened at thirteen festivals, received five awards, and had its broadcast premiere on PBS.

Busbee is developing her first narrative feature while finishing post-production on Growing Up Rare, a documentary following two siblings coming of age amid medical uncertainty and emerging artistic identities. She is drawn to stories that examine identity, resilience, and the tension between hardship and humor.