CUTTER HODIERNE is an award-winning film director best known for his debut feature film FISHING WITHOUT NETS, a fictional story of pirates in Somalia told from the perspective of the pirates, which won the Directing Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

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Just before Cutter was born, his parents sold everything they owned, quit their jobs, and bought a 32-foot cutter-rigged sailboat. Named after this boat, Cutter is his real name. He spent his early years in the South Pacific Ocean and Japan, growing up in Washington, DC where he got his start making short films and music videos for local artists such as the legendary Chuck Brown. He dropped out of college after just two semesters to pursue filmmaking, supporting himself directing countless music videos and regional spots. By age 22, he was hired to make films for U2 on their historic '360-Tour' in Europe and North America.

 

Cutter took his earnings from the tour and flew to East Africa to research and make a short-film about pirates in Somalia. Cast entirely with a rag-tag crew of Somali actors whom Cutter met on the streets of Mombasa, the short film FISHING WITHOUT NETS went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, screening worldwide at film festivals, winning countless awards before it was expanded into the first fictional feature film produced and financed by VICE.

 

Cutter was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film and workshopped Fishing Without Nets at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, before shooting his Somali language epic on location in East Africa with a cast of Somali actors, on speedboats and oil tankers in the Indian Ocean, in a massive production with hundreds of extras, shot over 100 days. The screenplay is based on true stories and the lives of the actors in the movie. The film premiered at Sundance where Cutter won the Directing Award, and the film garnered many awards and accolades and was released worldwide by VICE and 20th Century Fox. 

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Recently Cutter designed BERLIN WALL: A VR EXPERIENCE at the Newseum in Washington, DC, where he turned one of their physical exhibitions into an interactive VR experience. Cutter also directed the upcoming VR Film about the 2017 NBA FINALS for Oculus & the NBA.