Caran received her Master of Fine Arts from the Graduate Film Dept. of New York University. Her first feature screenplay, Bury Me Standing, was developed at the Cannes Film Festival's - Cinefoundation Residency in Paris. It later went on to win the 1st Place Richard Vague NYU Alumni Screenwriting Award, the IFP Gordon Parks Screenplay Award, The Media Arts Grant (formally known as the Rockefeller Grant), and is the winner of the US 2007 Sundance/NHK award and the 2007 Sundance Annenberg Award. Bury Me Standing was work-shopped at the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and later went on to the Sundance Filmmaker's Lab. Production for Bury Me Standing is slated for Summer 2009 starring Mos Def, Kerry Washington, and Alfre Woodard,. Caran Hartsfield has won numerous honors and awards for her short films, Double-Handed, kiss it up to god, and KING including: 2nd Place at Cannes Film Festival - Cinefoundation, the Director's Guild of America Award, the Martin Scorsese Fellowship, the Spike Lee Fellowship, the Warner Bros Grant, and the New York Foundation for the Arts Film Fellowship (among others). KING screened at Sundance Film Festival 2007.