The career of film director Kimberly Peirce was born out of patience and belief. A former photographer and literature student who went on to pursue film in graduate school, Peirce became enraptured with the story of Brandon Teena, a charming transgendered teen who grew up as Teena Brandon before being murdered within the unaware Nebraska community which had succumbed to his charisma. It was a story Peirce knew she had to tell and did, with surefooted direction, after an arduous five-year journey.

Peirce was born on Sept. 8, 1967.in Harrisburg, PA, where she lived until the age of four and where her father’s family had been mainstays of the town. As a kid, Peirce was fascinated by the notions of femininity and masculinity, prompting her to form a group which she dubbed her “Tomboy Club.” Peirce’s upbringing extended to family relocations in New York and Puerto Rico, then Miami, where she attended Miami Sunset High School.

After graduating high school, Peirce left Florida to study at the University of Chicago. Running out of tuition money, she took some time off to head to Japan to teach English and work in Kobe as a photographer. After two years, she went back to school and was able to finish up with a dual degree in both English and Japanese literature. Looking for a serious career direction, Peirce opted to go to film school and was accepted into the film program at Columbia University, returning to New York City in 1990.

Early in 1994, Peirce became familiar with Brandon Teena’s story while working on her thesis film – the true story of a woman who had posed as man to fight in the Civil War. Engaged by a Village Voice article on Teena’s late 1993 murder, she decided to visit the farmhouse site of the murder in Falls City, NE and witness the courtroom trial of one of his killers, Tom Nissen. Peirce went on to film a short version of “Boys Don’t Cry” in 1995 while at Columbia, which sprung from the screenplay she had meticulously written with the help of Andy Bienen, a writer she had befriended in the program. Bienen assisted Peirce over a tough writing process that stretched well beyond a year. The director went back to Falls City in 1996, met with coroners and law figures involved in the case, interviewed Teena’s love interest Lana Tisdale and her mother, and amassed an unfathomably large amount of court documents.

Peirce spent over three years trying to find a Brandon for the feature version, intent on hiring a female actor as opposed to a transgendered one. It was a difficult search, compounded by the reluctance of known actors to take the gamble and actors who just were not a proper fit. Peirce finally chose the somewhat unknown Hillary Swank, an actress then best known as the successor to Ralph Macchio in “The Next Karate Kid” (1994) and appearances on Fox’s “Beverly Hills 90210” (1990-2000). Swank had submitted the most convincing audition Peirce had seen via tape and so flew to New York to audition in person and dressed in character. It was one month before Peirce was ready to shoot her movie and knew she had found her perfect Brandon Teena.

Shot over 30 days in Dallas and its surrounding parts in the latter part of 1998, “Boys Don’t Cry” was picked up by Fox Searchlight for final tweaks after Peirce showed a 20-minute section of the movie at the Sundance festival in early 1999. Released in the fall, the movie went on to become a critical and financial success, as well as make a major star out of Swank. Peirce herself won a National Board of Review Award that year for her direction and an Independent Spirit Ward in 2000, which she shared with the producers in the category of “Best First Feature Over $500,000.” Still, the film’s biggest accolades were reserved for the performers themselves, most notably at that year’s Oscars. A Best Supporting Actress category nomination for Chloe Sevigny, who played Tisdale – Brandon’s girlfriend – and a win for leading actress Swank. Still, the movie left a sour impression on Tisdale, as portrayed onscreen by Chloe Sevigny, who ended up suing the studio in a suit that was later settled out of court.

Following “Boys Don’t Cry,” Peirce was permanently settled in New York and looking towards future projects. Over the years, her name would be attached to various prestige projects, including a brief flirtation with adaptations of novels such as Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius in 2003, then, more notably, Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, following Steven Spielberg’s departure from the director’s chair. “Memoirs” was ultimately made in 2005 by “Chicago” (2002) helmer Rob Marshall.

At the start of 2006, Peirce had her first formal credit since “Boys” after directing an episode of Showtime’s lesbian drama “The L Word” (2004- ). She also began developing the feature “Silent Star” for Dreamworks; an account of the mysterious murder of silent movie director William Desmond Taylor. She was already hard at work, however, on another timely story that had fueled her passion. As the director and co-writer of “Stop Loss” (2007), a drama about an American soldier on leave from Iraq who defies the legal requirement that would send him back overseas into active duty. That summer, Peirce was down in Texas, with a large ensemble cast in tow and the muscle of Paramount Pictures and in-house producer Scott Rudin, filming her second feature for a fall 2007 release.