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Sara Miller Driver (born December 15, 1955) is an American and actress from Westfield, New Jersey. A participant in the independent film scene that flourished in Lower Manhattan from the late 1970s through the 1990s, she gained initial recognition as producer of two early films by Jim Jarmusch, Permanent Vacation (1980) and Stranger Than Paradise (1984). Driver has directed two feature films, Sleepwalk (1986) and When Pigs Fly (1993), as well as a notable short film, You Are Not I (1981), and a documentary, (2017), on the young artist's pre-fame life in the burgeoning downtown New York arts scene before the city's massive changes through the 1980s. She served on the juries of various film festivals throughout the 2000s.Luc Sante, "Sara Driver's Movies Are Doorways Into the Unknown," Liner notes to Driver x 4 DVD collection, 2012.
Driver directed her first feature film, Sleepwalk in 1986. It was awarded the Prix Georges Sadoul (1986) by the Cinémathèque Française,Ligue française de l'enseignement et de l'éducation permanente, "La Revue du cinéma, Volumes 423-428", 1987 the Special Prize at the 1986 International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg, and was the opening night selection for the 25th Anniversary of the International Critics' Week (1986) at the Cannes Film Festival. Sleepwalk was also featured at the Museum of Modern Art's 1987 New Directors/New Films Festival and the Sundance Film Festival (1987). The dim lighting in this film is inspired by an essay by Carl Theodore.
Driver directed the "Bed and Boar" episode of the TV series Monsters (1990). Her second feature film as a director, When Pigs Fly (1993), stars Marianne Faithfull and Alfred Molina and is scored by Joe Strummer. The film received the Best of Festival Feature award at the 1994 Long Island Film Festival. When Pigs Fly premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival, and played a limited engagement at the Lighthouse Cinema on Suffolk Street in New York in 1996.
Driver also wrote and directed the short documentary, The Bowery - Spring, 1994, part of Postcards from New York, an anthology program for French TV. Driver has producer and production credits for many films of Jim Jarmusch, as well as minor roles in three of his films.
Driver's theater work includes the play What the Hell - Zelda Sayre (1977, writer, director); the experimental musical Jazz Passengers in Egypt (1990, director), performed at La Mama, NYC; as well as the play Stairway to Heaven (1994, director), at the Cucaracha Theatre, NYC.Willis, John A. "Theatre World" Volume 51, 1997.
Driver was a juror at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (2004) where a retrospective of her films took place. by Gerald Peary She was also a juror at the Miami International Film Festival (2005), San Sebastián Film Festival (2006), Bahamas International Film Festival (2006), and director Emir Kusturica's Küstendorf Film and Music Festival (2010).
Driver directed Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean‑Michel Basquiat (2017). This film is put together using archival footage and interviews with those who were close to the late artist. It has an approval rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.
In 2021 Driver wrote and acted in a short called Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver. The short was awarded A Short Film Special Jury Award: Screenwriting at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Driver has been described as an "often overlooked linchpin of the downtown New York independent film scene."Dennis Lim, " Sleepwalking in Fantasy Worlds Like This One," New York Times, 16 March 2012. Film critic Lucy Sante describes Driver's movies as "doorways into the unknown." Rosenbaum wrote that Driver's films "belong to what the French call Fantastique— a conflation of fantasy with surrealism, science fiction, comics, horror, sword-and-sorcery, and the supernatural that stretches all the way from art cinema to exploitation by way of Hollywood."Jonathan Rosenbaum, "From Bowles to the Bowery: Sara Driver in Hyper Drive," Liner notes to Driver x 4 DVD collection, 2012.
The moving image collection of Sara Driver is held at the Academy Film Archive.
Driver taught directing in NYU's Graduate Film School (1996–1998), where she received her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1982.
Driver attended NYU alongside Spike Lee and Jim Jarmusch.
| 1980 | Permanent Vacation | Actor: Nurse, Production Manager, Assistant Director |
| 1981 | You Are Not I | Director, Writer, Producer |
| 1984 | Stranger Than Paradise | Actor: Girl with hat, Producer, Production Manager |
| 1986 | Sleepwalk ( Year of the Dog) | Director, Writer, Producer |
| 1986 | Down by Law | Production Troubleshooter |
| 1989 | Mystery Train | Actor: Airport clerk |
| 1989 | Bloodhounds of Broadway | Actor: Yvette |
| 1990 | Monsters (episode "Bed and Boar") | Director |
| 1991 | Keep It for Yourself | Actor |
| 1991 | Night on Earth | (uncredited crew member) |
| 1993 | When Pigs Fly | Director, Writer |
| 1999 | Story Consultant | |
| 2005 | Broken Flowers | On credits as 'idea inspired from' |
| 2013 | Only Lovers Left Alive | On credits as 'instigation and inspiration' |
| 2017 | Director | |
| 2019 | The Dead Don't Die | Actor: Coffee Zombie |
| 2021 | Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver | Writer, Actor |
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