FRANK MOSLEY is an actor and filmmaker from Texas now living in Los Angeles. He is an alumnus of the 2015 Berlinale Talents, the 2017 NYFF Artist Academy at Lincoln Center, and Black Factory Cinema’s 2016 Auteur Workshop led by Abbas Kiarostami in San Antonio de los Banos, Cuba. He participated as an actor in the 2016 Austin Film Society Artist Intensive under the direction of Charles Burnett. Frank is also the curator of Required Reading, a staged reading series in Los Angeles that highlights new work from both emerging and established playwrights.
ACTING
His starring work opposite Lily Gladstone and Krisha Fairchild in Freeland (SXSW, SFFILM 2020, MUBI) was called "excellent... compellingly slippery" (The Hollywood Reporter) and that he’s “a dependably fantastic American indie mainstay" (Filmmaker Magazine). Other starring work includes Obex (Sundance 2025), Collective Unconscious (SXSW, BAMCinemaFest 2016, The Criterion Channel), Americana (SIFF, Fantasia 2016), The Ghost Who Walks (Netflix Top Ten Film 2020), and alongside David Arquette in Quantum Cowboys (Fantastic Fest 2022, Factory 25), for which they were called “a divinely sinister duo” (Variety). For his leading role in Some Beasts, he won a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Performance at the 2016 Sarasota Film Festival and was named "one of the best performances of 2017" (Film Pulse). His breakout role in The Other Side of Paradise (AFI Dallas 2009) was declared “a potent dose of sexual chutzpah” (Variety) and “an appealing performance with intriguing elements of depth” (The Hollywood Reporter).
Supporting roles include Rent Free (Tribeca, Frameline 2024), Love and Work (Slamdance 2024), Dear Mr. Brody (Telluride 2021, Discovery Plus), The Carnivores (SXSW, OutFest 2020), Chained for Life (BFI London 2018, NYTimes Critics Pick, Kino Lorber), Thunder Road (SXSW Grand Prize, ACID Cannes 2018), Shoot the Moon Right Between the Eyes (DIFF Jury Prize, Indie Memphis 2018), Person to Person (Sundance, SXSW 2017, Magnolia Pictures), They Had It Coming (Jeonju, New Horizons FF 2015), Upstream Color (Sundance Jury Prize, Berlinale, New Directors/New Films 2013), and Wuss (AFI Jury Prize, SXSW 2011). Short films include Vimeo Staff Picks such as The Event (Fantastic Fest, Slamdance 2022), Don't Ever Change (Fantasia 2017, ALTER), The Procedure (Sundance Jury Prize 2016, Adult Swim), and Cork's Cattlebaron (Hamptons, Austin FF 2012); and others such as Destroyer (New/Next, Oak Cliff FF 2024), Kin (PIFF, Brooklyn FF 2021), Innards (BAMCinemaFest, Chicago IFF 2017), and The Bulb (Slamdance 2016, NightFlight Plus). He starred in the Toadies music video “Rattler’s Revival” and acted in Rachel Maclean’s installation It’s What’s Inside That Counts (TATE Britain 2016). He also performed on two Audible Original podcasts, We Are As Gods (2022) and Stories of the Stalked (Peabody nomination 2023).
DIRECTING
Mosley’s recent work includes the short films Good Condition (Fantasia, Aspen ShortsFest, New/Next 2023) and The Event (Slamdance, Fantastic Fest, Palm Springs ShortsFest 2022), which debuted online as a Vimeo Staff Pick and was named a “Top 12 Film of 2023” on NoBudge. His Perception Trilogy, which includes Parthenon (Slamdance, Aesthetica Short FF 2018), Casa De Mi Madre (Champs-Elysees, Marfa FF 2017), and Spider Veins (Sidewalk, Eastern Oregon FF 2016), has been called “a miracle of economy… by a major cinematic voice” (Vague Visages). Other work includes his looped gallery installation Two Story (Dallas Museum of Art 2013, Edinburgh Art Festival 2014); his debut feature Hold (DIFF 2010, Fandor); and Her Wilderness, his 2014 experimental, interactive feature which has been called "a beguiling experience" (The Playlist) and “a mesmerizing film by a superb actor and filmmaker" (RogerEbert.com).
Fandor presented his first ever retrospective in a 2016 online edition called Frank Mosley: The Affable Experimentalist. Highlighting his two features and installation work, they wrote: "Thoughtful, approachable, and unpretentiously curious about the nature of motion-picture artifice, he’s the sort of experimentalist we don’t see often enough. Possibly Mosley’s best asset, performance-wise, is a pair of soulful eyes, behind which there always seems to be something going on.” In summer 2018, The Spectacle Theater in Brooklyn, NYC presented a retrospective of his work entitled, A Fortnight With Frank Mosley. In their program notes, Spectacle wrote: "His fascination with matters of identity, memory, and temporality bleed through every frame of his films – few directors working today can touch Mosley’s narrative and media savvy." Kinoscope acquired the entirety of Mosley’s directorial efforts in 2020. As part of their online retrospective called Frank Mosley: Actor, Director, Adventurer, Kenji Fujishima wrote: “Chances are, if you closely follow the American independent filmmaking scene, you’ve seen Frank Mosley. But while he has amassed a considerable body of work as an actor, he is also a filmmaker, one whose directorial work evinces the same restless adventurousness that dictates his choice of roles as an onscreen performer. Though his films vary wildly in subject matter and style, they all display an artist who is constantly testing himself, willing to try new things, often attempting to reach for effects and emotions that are not easy to describe or pin down.”
ADVISING
With his wife, filmmaker and writer Joslyn Jensen, Frank is the founder of Script Eater, a screenplay coverage and feedback company for writers at any level of experience. Frank also offers independent coaching for actors and directors via Sidetime. He has been a reader for the Slamdance Screenplay Competition since 2020, in addition to serving on juries and panels for The Indie Awards (inaugural year), Flies Collective Film Grant, Dallas Video Festival, Lone Star International Film Festival, Oak Cliff Film Festival, The Sparrow Film Project, and the Sidewalk Film Festival. Frank has lectured and mentored at the USC School of Dramatic Arts, Brooklyn College (Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema), Dallas Museum of Art, Northwest Film Forum, The University of British Columbia, Northwestern University, Southern Methodist University, Kansas University, KD Studio and Conservatory, Austin Community College, Austin HS, Volcano Vista HS, and Chateauguay Valley Regional HS (Quebec). He has contributed to publications such as Anthem Magazine, This Long Century, The Talkhouse, Filmmaker Magazine, The Seventh Row, KERA’s Art N Seek, and Langdon Review of the Arts. Frank holds a B.A. in English literature from the University of Texas at Arlington.