Bio

Mitch McCabe is a Detroit-based queer artist, filmmaker and educator whose work spans narrative, nonfiction and experimental film, mining themes of class, politics and identity grounded in their native Midwest.

A 2026 Guggenheim Fellow, their short and feature films have screened at Sundance, True/False, New Directors/New Films, Sheffield, Ann Arbor, Camden, Clermont-Ferrand, Winterhür, Edinburgh, Media City and New York Film Festivals., as well as McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, the Walker Art Center, Lincoln Center, and Anthology Film Archive.

Their short films include: CIVIL WAR SURVEILLANCE POEMS- PART 1 (2020), YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO (2023), TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (Sundance, 2007), SEPTEMBER 5:10PM (New York Film Festival, 2000), HIGHWAY 403, MILE 39 (New York Film Festival, 2000), and PLAYING THE PART (1995, Sundance, New Directors/New Films). Their feature HBO documentary YOUTH KNOWS NO PAIN screened at IDFA, Lincoln Center and AFI Silverdocs.

McCabe’s 2024 film, 23 MILE premiered at True/False Film Festival, going onto screen at Margaret Meade and Dokufest Film Festivals, where it won the TruthDox award. A past fellow of MacDowell and the Flaherty Seminar, McCabe’s work has been supported by MASS MoCA, NYSCA, Princess Grace Foundation, Yaddo, LEF, Jerome and Djerassi Foundations.

They received their BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard College and their MFA from New York University. They live and work in Detroit, Michigan, where they own a 100 year-old house.

They are working on the full multi-part feature film project of CIVIL WAR SURVEILLANCE POEMS (Creative Capital Finalist, 2025) and LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU'RE CLOSE.