Kern Saxton is an award-winning independent writer, director and editor based in Los Angeles, California.  He received his BFA in Filmmaking with an emphasis on Directing from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Kern's first feature film Sushi Girl, starring Mark Hamill and Tony Todd, was distributed domestically by Magnolia Pictures. His latest endeavor, Stanley Kubrick's Moonshot Odyssey, was a 2015 semifinalist in both the Academy Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting and the Austin Film Festival screenplay competition. Read more.

Kern's work as a screenwriter has been produced into numerous shorts and feature films,  and has won several awards. His screenplay Stanley Kubrick's Moonshot Odyssey was a semi-finalist in both the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting and the Austin Film Festival's Screenplay Competition.

Praise from Academy Nicholl Fellowships readers: 

"VERY, VERY WELL-WRITTEN, WITH A CONFIDENT MASTERY OF THE MEDIUM. WELL-PACED, WELL-PLOTTED, EASY TO READ AND VIVIDLY VISUALIZED. BONUS POINTS FOR GIVING KUBRICK’S WIFE CHRISTIANE AN UNEXPECTED DEPTH AND RESOURCEFULNESS, RATHER THAN BEING THE USUAL SAD-SACK ARTIST’S WIFE."

"THE DIALOGUE IS OUT OF THIS WORLD GOOD. THE WRITER CAPTURES KUBRICK AS A TORN MAN, WANTING TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT, BUT ALSO WANTING TO SURVIVE. THERE ARE NUMEROUS ONE ON ONE CONVERSATIONS THAT JUST SING."

"WHAT IS PARTICULARLY STIMULATING IN THIS READ IS A SMART, WITTY AND WELL RESEARCHED DIALOGUE WHICH PLAYS AROUND WITH SOME OF THE 20TH CENTURY’S MOST PROMINENT WORKS OF LITERATURE AND FILM WITH A VIRTUOSITY AS IF THEY WERE CHILDREN’S TOYS."

"THE CONFRONTATION OF KUBRICK AND ORSON WELLES HAS BEEN DONE WITH THE MOST INTELLIGENT UNDERTONE AND COULD EASILY BECOME ONE OF THOSE UNFORGETTABLE MOMENTS IN MOVIE HISTORY."

Kern's work as a director has also been celebrated. His college thesis short Roadside Convenience, was an official selection of the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival, won Best Student Short at the Emerald Eye Film Festival and took home a bronze star from Houston WorldFest. In 2008, his horror short Deader Living Through Chemistry was hand picked by George A. Romero for first place in Dimension Films' Diary of the Dead MySpace contest and was subsequently distributed on DVD and Blu-ray by the Weinstein Company. Sushi Girl, Kern's first foray into feature filmmaking, premiered at the 2012 Fantasia Film Festival to a standing ovation, and went on to be distributed domestically by Magnolia Home Entertainment's Magnet Releasing banner, and internationally by Phase 4 Films and Epic Pictures.

Kern currently has several projects in active development. In addition to Stanley Kubrick's Moonshot Odyssey, he's preparing to direct his second feature, The Hard Count, a thriller set in the seedy back alleys of Reno, and plans to follow that up with Synthia, a dystopian science-fiction piece, as well as In the Suburbs of Sodom, a television series set in the dangerous world of the mafia-run pornography industry of the 1970s. 

Kern’s work as an editor ranges from feature-length projects to commercials, shorts, music videos, branded content and trailers. Most recently, he cut Lucas Heyne's feature debut Mope, the true story of Steve Driver, a fringe porn actor who went on a murderous rampage with a samurai sword. Mope had its world premiere at Sundance 2019 and was released in North America by Quiver Distribution.