Deidre Backs

Deidre Backs is an indie producer, filmmaker, and Film & Media Studies professor at the University of Kansas. She was lead producer on Fancy Dance starring Lily Gladstone, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to play at SXSW and was released by Apple in June 2024. Backs was the recipient of the 2021 Mark Silverman honor as a Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab Fellow and was also a 2022 Women at Sundance/ Adobe Fellow and 2024 Gotham/Cannes Producer Network Fellow. For many years, she worked alongside producer Daniel Lupi with directors such as Steven Spielberg. Deidre began at Alexander Payne's development company and also worked with the director on Nebraska after transitioning to production.