Meet Jon Kasbe, Busy Philipps’ Emmy-winning director boyfriend who’s 11 years her junior
He picked up the camera at 12, won the Emmy for a short film and his feature When Lambs Become Lions (2018) also bagged multiple awards
Actress Busy Philipps, who you might know from Girls5eva (2021-present) and White Chicks (2004), appears to have found love in director Jon Kasbe. Notwithstanding the fact that he’s 11 years younger than her, Kasbe and Philipps appeared to be very much in love as they shared a kiss at the US Open last week.
So, who is Jon Kasbe and what do we know about him?
What does Jon Kasbe do for work?
Jon Kasbe is an Australian-Indian filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for his documentaries; his first feature about elephant poaching in Africa, When Lambs Become Lions (2018), won several awards, including the 2017 Sundance Documentary Fund and the best editing award at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
Kasbe also co-directed the Showtime documentary Sophia (2022) with Crystal Moselle, which is about the humanoid robot of the same name. It premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.
He made his first documentary as a preteen
Kasbe realised his penchant for documentaries from a very early age. In an interview during the Ninth Annual Carrboro Film Festival, he revealed that he was first inspired to pick up the camera at 12 after his grandfather, who was a missionary in India, faced a life-threatening experience.
“He was kidnapped, beaten, doused in gasoline to be set on fire because of the work he was doing,” he shared candidly. “I was confused and angry and not sure what to do. It was one of the first times in my life I felt truly convinced about something. A few weeks later, I spent my savings on a flight to India to create a documentary.”
In a separate interview with Sony, Kasbe mentioned how that first documentary made him “addicted to meeting new people and getting into these really strange worlds using a camera”.