"...Ms. Summers's portrayal of the teenage Melanie - a distraught and forlorn figures - is mesmerizing. Her face is a roadmap of her emotions, her dark eyes windows into the depths of her pain..."
Awards:
2023 QUARTERFINALIST, American Retail, Screen Craft Film Fund
2023 HONORABLE MENTION, American Retail, Big Apple Film Fest Screenplay Competition
2023 HONORABLE MENTION, The Wanderer, Big Apple Film Fest Screenplay Competition
2022 WINNER The Wanderer, Slamdance Mentorship Award (Featured in Variety)
2022 QUARTERFINALIST, The Wanderer, Slamdance Screenplay Competition
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2019 SEMI FINALIST for Best Screenplay, Truth, Inc., Big Apple F.F.
2019 WINNER Best Thriller Film, Truth, Inc., Indie Shorts Awards
2018 WINNER Best Actress, Butterflies, Philadelphia Film Festival
2018 WINNER Best Short Film, Butterflies, Philadelphia Independent F.F.
2018 WINNER Best Screenplay Butterflies, Kew Gardens F.F.
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
Carlotta Summers is a multiple award winning, biracial actress, director, and daydreamer based in NYC. She was most recently the recipient of the Slamdance Mentorship Award out of 4,200 submissions for her pilot, The Wanderer, featured in Variety here!
Carlotta holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts having studied under the Experimental Theatre Wing and Stonestreet Studios. A few of her feature film and television credits include Big Dogs, (Amazon Prime) & a supporting role in Lupe, which premiered at the Cinequest Film Festival in 2019 (HBO Max).
As a filmmaker, Carlotta’s first film Butterflies screened at the academy qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival, won Best Short Film and Best Actress at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival as well as Best Screenplay at Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema. It is now streaming on Amazon Prime!
Carlotta was also an Associate Producer for the short film, Ponyboi Co-Produced by Stephen Fry & Emma Thompson, which made its NY Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019.
March 2024, Carlotta wrapped production, Directing and Co-starring in a short proof of concept, American Retail with Bailey Bass (Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Interview with a Vampire) and Geneva Carr (Bull).
She has since served as a screener for the SXSW Film Festival 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 program. Carlotta was most recently a mentor for the National Theater Institute and Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's summer film workshop.
Carlotta is certified in all 8 weapons (Hand to Hand, Rapier and Dagger, Single Sword, Sword and Shield, Quarterstaff, Knife, Broadsword, and Smallsword --her favorite) with the SAFD. She takes boxing and whip in her spare time. She is both a lover and a fighter.
Carlotta’s goal is to continue to advance the work of minority filmmakers in the industry while paving the way for representation on the screen. Her favorite subjects challenge perception, examine identity, investigate curiosities, and defy casting conventions.
"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment"
· Ralph Waldo Emerson ·
