Miranda July is an artist who works successfully in multiple mediums, perhaps equally well-known for her films and her fiction. Born in 1974 in Barre, Vermont, and raised in Berkeley, California, July dropped out of college in her early twenties and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she began exploring performance art before becoming a filmmaker.

July's first full-length movie, Me and You and Everyone We Know, for which she both starred and directed, was released in 2004 and racked up some of the most significant independent film awards, including the Caméra d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at Sundance. The movie is a romantic dramedy about a recently separated shoe salesman living with his two children and developing a relationship with a video artist (played by July). Subplots revolve around the salesman's young sons catfishing an adult woman and the sexual awakening of two teenage girls who live next door.

In 2007, July ...