Lisa Cholodenko earned an MFA at Columbia University Film School where
she made an award-winning short film Dinner Party (1997) Her feature
High Art (1998) won the National Society of Film Critics award for Ally
Sheedy's performance and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at
Sundance. Both "High Art" and Laurel Canyon (2002) premiered at Cannes
Director's Fortnight.
She and her longtime companion Wendy Melvoin have a son by a sperm donor. This family situation is also the plot of Lisa Cholodenko's movie The Kids Are All Right (2010), which is dedicated 'to Wendy and Calder', the latter being the son of the two women in real life.