Nate Barlow

Nate Barlow (born Nathanael Jackson Barlow on July 6, 1975) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, to two musicians and teaching parents, he spent two years as a child in Tanzania, where he attended the International School Moshi. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1996, after which he worked as a designer engineer for Symbol Technologies on Long Island before moving to Los Angeles to pursue his filmmaking career.^[1]

Nate Barlow
Born	(1975-07-06) July 6, 1975 (age 50) Middletown, Connecticut
Occupation(s)	director, producer, screenwriter, actor

Barlow wrote the Meghan Markle-starrer Random Encounters, a romantic-comedy directed by Boris Undorf and initially distributed by Gravitas Ventures. Random Encounters was rereleased in the UK as A Random Encounter, on May 7, 2018.^[2] Barlow also co-directed, co-wrote and co-starred in Tales from Beyond, an anthology feature film starring Adam West that won Best Picture Awards at the 2004 ShockerFest International Film Festival and 2004 Shriekfest Film Festivals^[3] before being distributed by Anthem Pictures.

Most recently, Barlow has worked in documentaries, co-producing the scotch whisky documentary The Water of Life - A Whisky Film, distributed nationwide by PBS, and directing the experimental animated short A Brief History of Hollywood, which intertwines the history of the Hollywood Sign with the history of Hollywood technology. A Brief History of Hollywood has played numerous festivals, including Dances With Films,^[4] St. Louis International Film Festival,^[5] Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival,^[6] Sonoma International Film Festival,^[7] and San Francisco Frozen Film Festival.^[8] Film Threat described A Brief History of Hollywood as "fantastic" and as "irresistible nostalgia porn," rating the film 8/10.^[9] His latest project, Independent Spirits - A Whisky Series (a companion piece to The Water of Life), premiered in Edinburgh, Scotland in March 2025 at the inaugural Independent Spirits Festival,^[10] a whisky festival which he also helped produce.

A fan of both classic cinema and The Wizard of Oz, Barlow premiered his restoration of L. Frank Baum's Oz Film Manufacturing Company silent film His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz at the CharlOz Festival in Charlotte, North Carolina,^[11] in September 2024. He restored the film from fresh 4K transfers of three partial 35mm prints: two reels of safety positive, three reels of the tinted Moovical print, and two reels of original picture negative, not known to exist until Barlow rediscovered them at the Library of Congress.

Early in his career, Barlow directed the interview-based documentary short Film Trix 2002 and produced the narrative feature film Hollywood, Pennsylvania, which had a live making-of documentary broadcast from the set onto the World Wide Web^[12] before the concept of live-streaming via mobile phones existed.

Barlow's acting work includes L.A. Twister, the lowest-budgeted film ever to premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre,^[13] and Chance, the directorial debut of Amber Benson, as well as commercials.

Barlow currently lives in Los Angeles.

Filmography

Director

• A Brief History of Hollywood (2020)
• Tales from Beyond (2004)
• Film Trix 2002 (2002)

Producer

• Independent Spirits - A Whisky Series (2025)
• His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz Silent Film Restoration (producer & restorer) (2024)
• The Water of Life - A Whisky Film (co-producer) (2021)
• A Brief History of Hollywood (2020)
• Tales from Beyond (2004)
• Chance (associate producer) (2002)
• Film Trix 2002 (2002)
• Hollywood, Pennsylvania (2001)
• Take It Easy (1999)

Screenwriter

• A Brief History of Hollywood (2020)
• Random Encounters (2010)
• Tales from Beyond (2004)

Actor

• Random Encounters (2010)
• Tales from Beyond (2004)
• L.A. Twister (2004)
• Chance (2002)
• Hollywood, Pennsylvania (2001)
• Yup Yup Man (aka Dark Justice) (2000)
• Killing The Vision (1999)
• Take It Easy (1999)