Rose Troche

While studying at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Troche made several short films while in school such as Let's Go Back to My Apartment and Have Sex (1990), This War Is Not Over (1991) and Gabriella series of short films in (1991–1993).[6]

Rose Troche did three features before she went into television, Go Fish, Bedrooms and Hallways and The Safety of Objects. These three films were made over the course of ten years.[10][11]

After completing The Safety of Objects, Troche realized that she had only directed so much content and wanted to work on her craft of directing. She wanted to work on projects that were immediate work not something that was going to take three years to make.[10][11]

Her directorial debut was the groundbreaking film Go Fish (1994), a lesbian love story. Made on a shoestring budget, it was one of the truly "independent" films of the mid 90s, and certainly one of the first in the lesbian genre. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994. The film was co-written and co-produced with Guinevere Turner, who was Troche's girlfriend at the time. Her next feature film was Bedrooms and Hallways (1998) which explored sexuality.[12]

She also directed The Safety of Objects (2001), which was adapted from the short stories of A. M. Homes and focused on heterosexual love in suburbia.

She was also a producer for both Go Fish and The Safety of Objects, as well as for Stacie Passon's 2013 film Concussion.

Rose Troche, a Latina director teamed up with her then partner and co-writer to finance on their own an experimental lesbian feature. It was the first film to be sold to a distributor during the Sundance Film Festival. With the small amount of approximately $8000, started their road to a Samuel Goldwyn $450,000 sale. Help along the way with Vachon's company Killer Films who contributed $5000 when funds ran out and John Pierson bankrolled the remaining $53,000. "Troche's Latina identity was (problematically) written out of the marketing campaign and the film was promoted on the basis of her gender and sexuality."[13] The film was released during gay pride month in June 1994 and eventually grossed $2.4 million. Go Fish proved the marketability of lesbian issues for the film industry.[14] Troche mentioned that during the filming of Go Fish (1994), at one point she didn't have money to pay her phone and electric bills.[15] The film also put a label on her and critics considered her "a professional queer", a fact that she sometimes hated: "Go Fish made me such a card-carrying member. It is, like, boring. I go into interviews for Bedrooms and Hallways and all anyone can talk about is being gay, gay, gay."[14] "If you're gay, and you sleep with someone of the opposite sex, does that make you straight? Troche muses afterward. "I've done it, and I don't consider myself straight at all."[16]

In 1997, Troche moved to London to direct the film Bedrooms and Hallways (1998) with British producer Dorothy Berwin and her partner Ceci Dempsey. The film was backed by a major studio so it was completed fast. It was a film that was exploring the romantic complications among a diverse group of gay, straight, and undecided characters.[6] Troche said she wanted to make a film "that's genderless, without sexual identity and politics." The movie is a sex farce that tries to challenge conventional and rigid views on gender and sexual orientation. The film won the Audience Award at the 1998 London Film Festival.[14]

Troche returned to the United States, and to her previous supporter, Christine Vachon, and British financiers in order to direct The Safety of Objects (2001). The film was made from the short stories of A.M. Homes, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Troche.[6] Troche used seven of the 11 stories in the collection, melding the suburban vignettes into one story. The ensemble cast with Glenn Close, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Kay Place, Patricia Clarke and Dermot Mulroney does an excellent job of delivering Troche's vision of one emotional arc to the seamlessly blended narratives.[17]

Her television work is just as extensive as her film work. She directed an episode of the HBO hit drama Six Feet Under. And for three seasons, she has been a director and writer for the Showtime series The L Word, a show about lesbian friends living in Los Angeles. She has served as the associate producer for the series and was recently promoted to co-executive producer. She has also expanded her writing and directing credits, writing an episode for the series South of Nowhere and directing an episode of the series Touching Evil, as well as Ugly Betty and Law & Order. Troche got offered to do and episode of Six Feet Under (2001), and she enjoyed the beauty of being able to work with three cameras, it opened up her world to a different way of filming. Since she had filmed low budget independent film it was a nice change and more opportunity to be creative.[10]

Season 2 Episode 3 was written by Kate Robin and was directed by Troche. In 2002, Six Feet Under won the Peabody Award and Rose Troche was one of the directors for one of the episodes.[18]

Troche was the co-executive producer and writer, of this popular series about a group of Los Angeles lesbians of which she has also directed several episodes.[14] For Troche, casting for The L Word, "a lot of convincing" and some volleying of "you don't understand, but our audience will." Troche says her films are all connected to various stages in her life. Making a lesbian film was important to her when she was younger; she is very pleased with her current project, writing and directing the first lesbian series to screen on American television. The L Word discussed hot topics such as selecting a sperm donor, bringing out a "straight" girl, lesbian bed death, bisexuality, living in the closet and the number of degrees of separation between lesbian ex-lovers.[19][8]

Troche was the consulting producer on five episodes.[20]