CASSIDY BATIZ is a director, writer, and editor from Dallas, Texas, based in Brooklyn, New York. She recently graduated with an MFA in Film from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she was awarded the Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Scholarship and the W.T.C. Johnson scholarship to attend. Her narrative short BIG LOT has screened at festivals nationally and was nominated for a Best Screenplay Award. She is the recipient of the Alan Landsburg Documentary Production Award for her forthcoming short documentary, METAL DAD, and winner of the Black Family Thesis Prize for her short film screenplay, BROTHER. She was recently a fellow at the NYU Production Lab Feature Film Development Studio and a winner of the 2025 Purple List Screenplay Award with her Texas-set feature script, SWEETWATER. As an editor, Cassidy has worked for The New York Times and for independent documentary filmmakers. Cassidy obtained a BFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, with a minor in Creative Writing. Her photographs have appeared in Phaidon, Vice, and Radius Books, among others. While at RISD, she was awarded the Photography Departmental Award of Excellence.