Katie Barkel

Katie Barkel is an accomplished video editor and film director who has been creating films for over 15 years.

 

Katie earned her degree in Film & Video Studies from the University of Michigan, where she first learned how to shoot and edit on 16mm film. Katie worked as a camera assistant on feature films, commercials, and music videos during the Michigan film tax incentives era before transitioning into work as a creative video editor. She worked at the global agencies Weber Shandwick and Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the University of Michigan, and for herself as a freelancer before joining the team at Craft Worldwide in 2019. In 2024, she created award-winning work for MRM Detroit’s Car Bravo x Barbie campaign (Cannes Bronze Lion, D&AD Wood Pencil, New York Festivals Silver Award). Following the closure of Craft Worldwide's Detroit office in 2025, Katie founded Formation Films LLC, a woman-owned creative studio focusing in post-production, branded content, and documentary filmmaking. Katie has also mentored the next generation of artists by teaching video production, editing, and visual storytelling at the College for Creative Studies.

 

As a director, Katie has collaborated with influential figures such as musician Sixto Rodriguez and author Tiya Miles. Her short films have screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, MoMA’s PopRally, Detroit Film Theater, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, among other festivals and art galleries across North America and Europe. In 2024, Katie produced, directed, and edited a short documentary about the life and work of poet James D. Fuson which premiered at the Freep Film Festival. Katie's newest film, a short documentary about interdisciplinary artist Elise Marie Martin shot on 16mm, premiered in a broadcast on Detroit PBS in April 2026.