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Mike Rohl is known for The Princess Switch (2018), The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020) and The Princess Switch 3 (2021).- Director
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Rikki Beadle Blair was born on 25 July 1961 in Camberwell, London, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Kickoff (2011), Bashment (2011) and Stonewall (1995).- Director
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Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and Eileen Hitchcock (born 1892). Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. His first job outside of the family business was in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in movies began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals.
Hitchcock entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. It was there that he met Alma Reville, though they never really spoke to each other. It was only after the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill and Hitchcock was named director to complete the film that he and Reville began to collaborate. Hitchcock had his first real crack at directing a film, start to finish, in 1923 when he was hired to direct the film Number 13 (1922), though the production wasn't completed due to the studio's closure (he later remade it as a sound film). Hitchcock didn't give up then. He directed The Pleasure Garden (1925), a British/German production, which was very popular. Hitchcock made his first trademark film in 1927, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) . In the same year, on the 2nd of December, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock who was born on July 7th, 1928. His success followed when he made a number of films in Britain such as The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Jamaica Inn (1939), some of which also gained him fame in the USA.
In 1940, the Hitchcock family moved to Hollywood, where the producer David O. Selznick had hired him to direct an adaptation of 'Daphne du Maurier''s Rebecca (1940). After Saboteur (1942), as his fame as a director grew, film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's', for example Alfred Hitcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972).
Hitchcock was a master of pure cinema who almost never failed to reconcile aesthetics with the demands of the box-office.
During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralyzing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. On March 7, 1979, Hitchcock was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award, where he said: "I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen and their names are Alma Reville." By this time, he was ill with angina and his kidneys had already started to fail. He had started to write a screenplay with Ernest Lehman called The Short Night but he fired Lehman and hired young writer David Freeman to rewrite the script. Due to Hitchcock's failing health the film was never made, but Freeman published the script after Hitchcock's death. In late 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. On the 29th April 1980, 9:17AM, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. His funeral was held in the Church of Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Father Thomas Sullivan led the service with over 600 people attended the service, among them were Mel Brooks (director of High Anxiety (1977), a comedy tribute to Hitchcock and his films), Louis Jourdan, Karl Malden, Tippi Hedren, Janet Leigh and François Truffaut.- Director
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Mary Harron (born January 12, 1953) is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. She gained recognition for her role in writing and directing several independent films, including I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), American Psycho (2000), and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). She co-wrote American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page with Guinevere Turner. Although Harron has denied this title, she has been thought to be feminist filmmaker due to her film on lesbian feminist Valerie Solanas, in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), and a queer story-line within her teenage Gothic horror, The Moth Diaries (2011).- Writer
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Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight creative relationship with her sister Lilly. After the siblings dropped out of college, they started a construction business and wrote screenplays. Their 1995 script, Assassins (1995), was made into a movie, leading to a Warner Bros contract. After that time, the Wachowskis devoted themselves to their movie careers. In 2012, during interviews for Cloud Atlas and in her acceptance speech for the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award, Lana spoke about her experience of being a transgender woman, sacrificing her much cherished anonymity out of a sense of responsibility. Lana is known to be extremely well-read, loves comic books and exploring ideas of imaginary worlds, and was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in creating Cloud Atlas.- Writer
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Director, writer, and producer Lilly Wachowski was born in 1967 in Chicago, the daughter of Lynne, a nurse and painter, and Ron, a businessman. Lilly was educated at Kellogg Elementary School in Chicago, before moving on to Whitney M. Young High School. After graduating from high school, she attended Emerson College in Boston but dropped out.
Lilly teamed up with her older sibling, Lana Wachowski, and began working on films. Their first script was optioned and formed the basis for the film Assassins (1995). The Wachowskis went on to make their directorial debut with the self-written Bound (1996), which was well-received. They followed this with the smash hit The Matrix (1999) and went on to produce two successful sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003).
Other projects include scripting and producing the cult hit V for Vendetta (2005), a live-action version of a Japanese anime series; Speed Racer (2008); Cloud Atlas (2012); and the ambitious epic Jupiter Ascending (2015).- Producer
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Matthew Vaughn is an English film producer and director. He is known for producing such films as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) and for directing the crime thriller, Layer Cake (2004), the fantasy epic, Stardust (2007), the superhero comedy, Kick-Ass (2010), and the superhero film, X-Men: First Class (2011). Vaughn was educated at Stowe School in Buckingham, England. Taking a gap year between Stowe and university, he traveled the world on a Hard Rock Cafe tour and landed in Los Angeles, U.S. Here, he began working as an assistant to a director. He returned to London, attending University College London where he studied anthropology and ancient history. But the film bug had taken hold. He dropped out of university after a few weeks and returned to Los Angeles to start his career. He quickly realized, however, that everyone in town was trying to do the same thing, so he crossed back over the Atlantic to make a name for himself in England. At 25, he produced a little-seen thriller, The Innocent Sleep (1995), starring Annabella Sciorra and Michael Gambon. Vaughn continued as a producer on close friend Guy Ritchie's film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). The film was a success in all aspects; earning Vaughn and Ritchie £9 million each. Vaughn would go on to produce Ritchie's equally acclaimed Snatch (2000) and the critically-mauled, Swept Away (2002). Vaughn made his directorial debut in 2004 with Layer Cake (2004). The film was well-received and its success led to Vaughn being tapped to direct X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) but he later dropped out only two weeks before filming began. Vaughn was, subsequently, very critical of Brett Ratner's direction of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (aka X-Men 3). Vaughn next directed Stardust (2007) and a movie adaption of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass. He was also in talks to direct an adaptation of "Thor", but left that project. In May 2010, 20th Century Fox confirmed that Vaughn will direct X-Men: First Class (2011) and announced the film will be released on June 3, 2011. Vaughn is best known for starting his career working as a producer for the Guy Ritchie films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Snatch (2000) and Swept Away (2002). Jane Goldman is one the screenwriters who Vaughn collaborated with for the films, Stardust (2007), Kick-Ass (2010) and the upcoming X-Men: First Class (2011). The actors that Vaughn usually works with in his films are Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Jason Flemyng, Adam Fogerty, Sienna Miller, Brad Pitt (as a producer on Kick-Ass (2010)), Mark Strong, Robbie Gee, Alan Ford, Tamer Hassan and Dexter Fletcher. Vaughn's wife is German supermodel Claudia Schiffer, whom he married in Shimpling, Suffolk, in 2002. The couple have three children: son Caspar Matthew (born 30 January 2003), daughter Clementine de Vere Drummond (born 11 November 2004) and a second daughter, Cosima Violet (born 14 May 2010). They have homes in Suffolk and Notting Hill. He has hired ex-Gurkha soldiers for security for him and his wife following reports of stalkers apparently intruding their house.- Producer
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One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, producer or writer since launching the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975), and he has done more to define popular film-making since the mid-1970s than anyone else.
Steven Allan Spielberg was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Leah Frances (Posner), a concert pianist and restaurateur, and Arnold Spielberg, an electrical engineer who worked in computer development. His parents were both born to Russian Jewish immigrant families. Steven spent his younger years in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona, and later Saratoga, California. He went to California State University Long Beach, but dropped out to pursue his entertainment career. Among his early directing efforts were Battle Squad (1961), which combined World War II footage with footage of an airplane on the ground that he makes you believe is moving. He also directed Escape to Nowhere (1961), which featured children as World War Two soldiers, including his sister Anne Spielberg, and The Last Gun (1959), a western. All of these were short films. The next couple of years, Spielberg directed a couple of movies that would portend his future career in movies. In 1964, he directed Firelight (1964), a movie about aliens invading a small town. In 1967, he directed Slipstream (1967), which was unfinished. However, in 1968, he directed Amblin' (1968), which featured the desert prominently, and not the first of his movies in which the desert would feature. Amblin' also became the name of his production company, which turned out such classics as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg had a unique and classic early directing project, Duel (1971), with Dennis Weaver. In the early 1970s, Spielberg was working on TV, directing among others such series as Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Murder by the Book (1971). All of his work in television and short films, as well as his directing projects, were just a hint of the wellspring of talent that would dazzle audiences all over the world.
Spielberg's first major directorial effort was The Sugarland Express (1974), with Goldie Hawn, a film that marked him as a rising star. It was his next effort, however, that made him an international superstar among directors: Jaws (1975). This classic shark attack tale started the tradition of the summer blockbuster or, at least, he was credited with starting the tradition. His next film was the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a unique and original UFO story that remains a classic. In 1978, Spielberg produced his first film, the forgettable I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), and followed that effort with Used Cars (1980), a critically acclaimed, but mostly forgotten, Kurt Russell/Jack Warden comedy about devious used-car dealers. Spielberg hit gold yet one more time with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with Harrison Ford taking the part of Indiana Jones. Spielberg produced and directed two films in 1982. The first was Poltergeist (1982), but the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg also helped pioneer the practice of product placement. The concept, while not uncommon, was still relatively low-key when Spielberg raised the practice to almost an art form with his famous (or infamous) placement of Reese's Pieces in "E.T." Spielberg was also one of the pioneers of the big-grossing special-effects movies, like "E.T." and "Close Encounters", where a very strong emphasis on special effects was placed for the first time on such a huge scale. In 1984, Spielberg followed up "Raiders" with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which was a commercial success but did not receive the critical acclaim of its predecessor. As a producer, Spielberg took on many projects in the 1980s, such as The Goonies (1985), and was the brains behind the little monsters in Gremlins (1984). He also produced the cartoon An American Tail (1986), a quaint little animated classic. His biggest effort as producer in 1985, however, was the blockbuster Back to the Future (1985), which made Michael J. Fox an instant superstar. As director, Spielberg took on the book The Color Purple (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, with great success. In the latter half of the 1980s, he also directed Empire of the Sun (1987), a mixed success for the occasionally erratic Spielberg. Success would not escape him for long, though.
The late 1980s found Spielberg's projects at the center of pop-culture yet again. In 1988, he produced the landmark animation/live-action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The next year proved to be another big one for Spielberg, as he produced and directed Always (1989) as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Back to the Future Part II (1989). All three of the films were box-office and critical successes. Also, in 1989, he produced the little known comedy-drama Dad (1989), with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, which got mostly mixed results. Spielberg has also had an affinity for animation and has been a strong voice in animation in the 1990s. Aside from producing the landmark "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", he produced the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993), Pinky and the Brain (1995), Freakazoid! (1995), Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (1998), Family Dog (1993) and Toonsylvania (1998). Spielberg also produced other cartoons such as The Land Before Time (1988), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Casper (1995) (the live action version) as well as the live-action version of The Flintstones (1994), where he was credited as "Steven Spielrock". Spielberg also produced many Roger Rabbit short cartoons, and many Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons specials. Spielberg was very active in the early 1990s, as he directed Hook (1991) and produced such films as the cute fantasy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He also produced the unusual comedy thriller Arachnophobia (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). While these movies were big successes in their own right, they did not quite bring in the kind of box office or critical acclaim as previous efforts. In 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park (1993), which for a short time held the record as the highest grossing movie of all time, but did not have the universal appeal of his previous efforts. Big box-office spectacles were not his only concern, though. He produced and directed Schindler's List (1993), a stirring film about the Holocaust. He won best director at the Oscars, and also got Best Picture. In the mid-90s, he helped found the production company DreamWorks, which was responsible for many box-office successes.
As a producer, he was very active in the late 90s, responsible for such films as The Mask of Zorro (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Deep Impact (1998). However, it was on the directing front that Spielberg was in top form. He directed and produced the epic Amistad (1997), a spectacular film that was shorted at the Oscars and in release due to the fact that its release date was moved around so much in late 1997. The next year, however, produced what many believe was one of the best films of his career: Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film about World War Two that is spectacular in almost every respect. It was stiffed at the Oscars, losing best picture to Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Spielberg produced a series of films, including Evolution (2001), The Haunting (1999) and Shrek (2001). he also produced two sequels to Jurassic Park (1993), which were financially but not particularly critical successes. In 2001, he produced a mini-series about World War Two that definitely *was* a financial and critical success: Band of Brothers (2001), a tale of an infantry company from its parachuting into France during the invasion to the Battle of the Bulge. Also in that year, Spielberg was back in the director's chair for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a movie with a message and a huge budget. It did reasonably at the box office and garnered varied reviews from critics.
Spielberg has been extremely active in films there are many other things he has done as well. He produced the short-lived TV series SeaQuest 2032 (1993), an anthology series entitled Amazing Stories (1985), created the video-game series "Medal of Honor" set during World War Two, and was a starting producer of ER (1994). Spielberg, if you haven't noticed, has a great interest in World War Two. He and Tom Hanks collaborated on Shooting War: World War II Combat Cameramen (2000), a documentary about World War II combat photographers, and he produced a documentary about the Holocaust called Eyes of the Holocaust (2000). With all of this to Spielberg's credit, it's no wonder that he's looked at as one of the greatest ever figures in entertainment.- Writer
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Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the biggest blockbusters ever made and became one of the most celebrated filmmakers of modern cinema.
At 7 years old, Nolan began making short films with his father's Super-8 camera. While studying English Literature at University College London, he shot 16-millimeter films at U.C.L.'s film society, where he learned the guerrilla techniques he would later use to make his first feature, Following (1998), on a budget of around $6,000. The noir thriller was recognized at a number of international film festivals prior to its theatrical release and gained Nolan enough credibility that he was able to gather substantial financing for his next film.
Nolan's second film was Memento (2000), which he directed from his own screenplay based on a short story by his brother Jonathan Nolan. Starring Guy Pearce, the film brought Nolan numerous honors, including Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay. Nolan went on to direct the critically acclaimed psychological thriller, Insomnia (2002), starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank.
The turning point in Nolan's career occurred when he was awarded the chance to revive the Batman franchise in 2005. In Batman Begins (2005), Nolan brought a level of gravitas back to the iconic hero, and his gritty, modern interpretation was greeted with praise from fans and critics alike. Before moving on to a Batman sequel, Nolan directed, co-wrote, and produced the mystery thriller The Prestige (2006), starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as magicians whose obsessive rivalry leads to tragedy and murder.
In 2008, Nolan directed, co-wrote, and produced The Dark Knight (2008). Co-written with by his brother Jonathan, the film went on to gross more than a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Nolan was nominated for a Directors Guild of America (D.G.A.) Award, Writers Guild of America (W.G.A.) Award and Producers Guild of America (P.G.A.) Award, and the film also received eight Academy Award nominations. The film is widely considered one of the best comic book adaptations of all times, with Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker receiving an extremely high acclaim. Ledger posthumously became the first Academy Award winning performance in a Nolan film.
In 2010, Nolan captivated audiences with the Sci-Fi thriller Inception (2010), starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, which he directed and produced from his own original screenplay that he worked on for almost a decade. The thought-provoking drama was a worldwide blockbuster, earning more than $800,000,000 and becoming one of the most discussed and debated films of the year, and of all times. Among its many honors, Inception received four Academy Awards and eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Nolan was recognized by his peers with a W.G.A. Award accolade, as well as D.G.A. and P.G.A. Awards nominations for his work on the film.
As one of the best-reviewed and highest-grossing movies of 2012, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) concluded Nolan's Batman trilogy. Due to his success rebooting the Batman character, Warner Bros. enlisted Nolan to produce their revamped Superman movie Man of Steel (2013), which opened in the summer of 2013. In 2014, Nolan directed, wrote, and produced the Science-Fiction epic Interstellar (2014), starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. released the film on November 5, 2014, to positive reviews and strong box-office results, grossing over $670 million dollars worldwide.
In July 2017, Nolan released his acclaimed War epic Dunkirk (2017), that earned him his first Best Director nomination at the Academy Awards, as well as winning an additional 3 Oscars. In 2020 he released his mind-bending Sci-Fi espionage thriller Tenet (2020) starring John David Washington in the lead role. Released during the COVID-19 pandemic, the movie grossed relatively less than Nolan's previous blockbusters, though it did do good numbers compared to other movies in that period of time. Hailed as Nolan's most complex film yet, the film was one of Nolan's less-acclaimed films at the time, yet slowly built a fan-base following in later years.
In July 2023, Nolan released his highly acclaimed biographic drama Oppenheimer (2023) starring Nolan's frequent collaborator Cillian Murphy- in the lead role for the first time in a Nolan film. The movie was a cultural phenomenon that on top of grossing almost 1 billion dollars at the Worldwide Box office, also swept the 2023/2024 award-season and gave Nolan his first Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, D.G.A. and P.G.A. Awards, as well as a handful of regional critics-circles awards and a W.G.A. nomination. Cillian's performance as quantum physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was highly acclaimed as well, and became the first lead performance in a Nolan film to win the Academy Award.
During 2023, Nolan also received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI). In March 2024, it was announced that Nolan is to be knighted by King Charles III and from now on will go by the title 'Sir Christopher Nolan'.
Nolan resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Academy Award winner producer Dame Emma Thomas, and their children. Sir Nolan and Dame Thomas also have their own production company, Syncopy.- Director
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Cheryl Dunye was born on 13 May 1966 in Liberia. She is a director and producer, known for The Watermelon Woman (1996), The Owls (2010) and Mommy Is Coming (2012).- Director
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Norma Bailey was born in 1949 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She is a director and producer, known for Mary Kills People (2017), Cowboys and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story (2003) and The Capture of the Green River Killer (2008).- Producer
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Mohawk filmmaker Tracey Deer's debut feature Beans, a coming-of-age story about a young Mohawk girl's experiences during the Oka Crisis, screened at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to critical acclaim. Tracey was also honored with the prestigious TIFF Emerging Talent Award, presented to her by Ava DuVernay, and chosen as one of Variety's 10 Screenwriters to Watch. The searing performances and poignant storytelling in Beans earned it 2nd Runner Up for the TIFF People's Choice Award. Beans went on to win Best Canadian Film and Most Popular Canadian Narrative (Audience Choice) at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
Beginning her career in documentary, Tracey teamed up with Rezolution on feature documentaries One More River: The Deal that Split the Cree, Mohawk Girls, and Club Native, as well as the documentary series Working it Out Together, seasons I & II. This collaboration continued into fiction television with the critically acclaimed dramedy Mohawk Girls, which ran for five seasons and on which she shared showrunning duties with creative partner Cynthia Knight.
Tracey's work has been honored with two Gemini Awards and numerous awards from multiple film festivals, including Hot Docs. She has worked with the CBC, the National Film Board (NFB), and numerous independent production companies throughout Canada in both documentary and fiction. She was nominated four years in a row for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Comedy Series for Mohawk Girls and honored at TIFF 2016 as a recipient of the Birks Diamond Tribute Award.
Tracey began production on Beans right after returning from LA, where she was a writing co-EP on season 3 of the Netflix/CBC series Anne with an E, working alongside showrunner Moira Walley-Beckett (an Emmy winner for Breaking Bad). Tracey wrote one episode of Anne with an E and co-wrote a second. Her projects in development include Inner City Girl, a feature about aboriginal gang life, with Original Pictures.
Tracey strongly believes in giving back to the community. She chairs the board of directors of Women in View, a non-profit that promotes greater diversity and balance in Canadian media, from the standpoint of employment equity, creative authority and gender representation. In 2017, she was appointed to the board of directors of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. She has mentored emerging talent as leader of the Director Training Program at the imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival. She has also been a guest mentor at the National Screen Institute (NSI) New Indigenous Voices Program and a directing mentor for NSI's new IndigiDocs training course.- Producer
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Clement Virgo is one of Canada's foremost film directors. In 2015 he directed and co-wrote a six part miniseries adaptation of the Lawrence Hill novel The Book of Negroes (2015) which debuted to record-breaking numbers on the CBC in Canada and on BET in the U.S. and won twelve Canadian Screen Awards and was nominated for two U.S. Critics Choice Television Awards for Best Limited Series and Best Actress in a Limited Series (Aunjanue Ellis). Additional accolades include the 2015 Cablefax Award and C21 International Drama Award for Best Miniseries and four 2015 NAACP Image Award Nominations including Best Miniseries, Best Actor (Cuba Gooding Jr.), Best Actress (Ellis), and Best Writing (Virgo, Hill).
His TV directing credits include American Crime (2015), The Wire (2002), and the entire first season of the OWN network drama series Greenleaf (2016), on which he is also serving as Executive Producer with _Oprah Winfrey_. Virgo's feature films include the 2007 boxing drama Poor Boy's Game (2007), (Berlin, TIFF, AFF Audience Award), Lie with Me (2005 - Berlin, TIFF, Pusan), and Love Come Down (2000 -Berlin, Toronto). Virgo's first feature Rude (1995) premiered at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard and went on to screen at numerous festivals around the world including Toronto, London and Sundance. Since 2010, Virgo has also presented a series of intimate annual talks to celebrate Black History Month in Toronto with such notable guests as Lee Daniels, _Norman Jewison_, _Spike Lee_, _Pam Grier_, John Singleton, and _Chris Tucker (I)_.- Producer
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Pete Docter is the Oscar®-winning director of "Monsters, Inc.," "Up," and "Inside Out," and Chief Creative Officer at Pixar Animation Studios. He is currently directing Pixar's feature film "Soul" with producer Dana Murray, which is set to release June 19, 2020.
Starting at Pixar in 1990 as the studio's third animator, Docter collaborated and help develop the story and characters for "Toy Story," Pixar's first full-length animated feature film, for which he also was supervising animator. He served as a storyboard artist on "A Bug's Life," and wrote initial story treatments for both "Toy Story 2" and "WALL.E." Aside from directing his three films, Docter also executive produced "Monsters University" and the Academy Award®-winning "Brave."
Docter's interest in animation began at the age of eight when he created his first flipbook. He studied character animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California, where he produced a variety of short films, one of which won a Student Academy Award®. Those films have since been shown in animation festivals worldwide and are featured on the "Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2." Upon joining Pixar, he animated and directed several commercials, and has been nominated for eight Academy Awards® including Best Animated Feature-winners "Up" and "Inside Out" and nominee "Monsters, Inc.," and Best Original Screenplay for "Up," "Inside Out" and "WALL.E." In 2007, "Up" also was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.- Director
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Guy Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK on September 10, 1968. After watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) as a child, Guy realized that what he wanted to do was make films. He never attended film school, saying that the work of film school graduates was boring and unwatchable. At 15 years old, he dropped out of school and in 1995, got a job as a runner, ultimately starting his film career. He quickly progressed and was directing music promos for bands and commercials by 1995.
The profits that he made from directing these promos was invested into writing and making the film The Hard Case (1995), a 20-minute short film that is also the prequel to his debut feature Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Sting's wife, Trudie Styler, saw The Hard Case (1995) and invested in the feature film. Once completed, 10 British distributors turned the film down before it eventually was released in the UK in 1998 and in the US in 1999; the film put Ritchie on the map as one of the hottest rising filmmakers of the time, and launched the careers of actors Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, and Vinnie Jones, among others.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) was followed by Snatch (2000), this time with a bigger budget and a few more familiar faces such as Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina, Benicio Del Toro alongside returning actors Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Jason Flemyng. At the end of 2000, Ritchie married the pop superstar Madonna in Scotland, and proceeded to work with his famous wife on a variety of film and video projects, including the short Star (2001), made for BMW and co-starring Clive Owen, and the controversial video "What It Feels Like for a Girl," which was called out for its violence. In 2002, the couple embarked on a remake of the 1974 Lina Wertmüller film Swept Away (2002); the new film was a critical and commercial flop, winning five Razzie Awards. Ritchie followed up with the Vegas heist film Revolver (2005), which was panned, but won favor with the crime thriller RocknRolla (2008), which featured a game, energetic cast and brought American attention to rising stars Gerard Butler and Tom Hardy.
The next year saw the release of Sherlock Holmes (2009), starring Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and Jude Law as his cohort Dr. Watson. The film received mostly good reviews but, more important for Ritchie's career, was a solid blockbuster hit that grossed more than $520 million dollars worldwide and spawned a sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Ritchie is tentatively scheduled to direct an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
Ritchie has two sons with Madonna: Rocco, born in 2000, and an adopted son, David, born in 2005. In late 2008, the couple confirmed reports that they were splitting up, and agreed to a divorce settlement that was finalized in December of that year. In September 2011, Ritchie's girlfriend, model Jacqui Ainsley, gave birth to a son, Rafael, and in July 2012 the couple announced they were expecting their second child.- Director
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François Ozon was born on 15 November 1967 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for In the House (2012), 8 Women (2002) and Swimming Pool (2003).- Producer
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David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) from 1981-1983. Fincher left ILM to direct TV commercials and music videos after signing with N. Lee Lacy in Hollywood. He went on to found Propaganda in 1987 with fellow directors Dominic Sena, Greg Gold and Nigel Dick. Fincher has directed TV commercials for clients that include Nike, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Heineken, Pepsi, Levi's, Converse, AT&T and Chanel. He has directed music videos for Madonna, Sting, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, George Michael, Iggy Pop, The Wallflowers, Billy Idol, Steve Winwood, The Motels and, most recently, A Perfect Circle.
As a film director, he has achieved huge success with Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999) and, Panic Room (2002).- Producer
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Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.
He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil obstetrician and gynecologist, and Nelliate C. Shyamalan, a Malayali doctor. His passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super-8 camera at age eight, and even at that young age began to model his career on that of his idol, Steven Spielberg. His first film, Praying with Anger (1992), was based somewhat on his own trip back to visit the India of his birth. He raised all the funds for this project, in addition to directing, producing and starring in it. Wide Awake (1998), his second film, he wrote and directed, and shot it in the Philadelphia-area Catholic school he once attended--even though his family was of a different religion, they sent him to that school because of its strict discipline.
Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense (1999), which was a commercial success and later nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Shyamalan team up again with Bruce Willis in the film Unbreakable (2000), released in 2000, which he also wrote and directed.
His major films include the science fiction thriller Signs (2002), the psychological thriller The Village (2004), the fantasy thriller Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010), After Earth (2013), and the horror films The Visit (2015) and Split (2016).- Producer
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Park Chan-wook was born on 23 August 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a producer and writer, known for Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022). He is married to Eun-hee Kim. They have one child.- Director
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Thirty-one years ago, filmmaker Julie Dash broke racial and gender boundaries with her Sundance award-winning film (Best Cinematography) Daughters of the Dust. She became the first African American woman to have a wide theatrical release of her feature film. The Library of Congress placed Daughters of the Dust and her UCLA MFA senior thesis Illusions in the National Film Registry. These two films join a select group of American films preserved and protected as national treasures by the Librarian of Congress. Dash recently designed two rooms for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and VOGUE, In American: An Anthology of Fashion, featured at the NYC Met Gala 2022.- Writer
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Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future director Jennifer Lynch shortly after he turned 21. That experience, plus attending art school in a particularly violent and run-down area of Philadelphia, inspired Eraserhead (1977), a film that he began in the early 1970s (after a couple of shorts) and which he would work on obsessively for five years. The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though The Elephant Man (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility. Its enormous critical and commercial success led to Dune (1984), a hugely expensive commercial disaster, but Lynch redeemed himself with the now classic Blue Velvet (1986), his most personal and original work since his debut. He subsequently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with the dark, violent road movie Wild at Heart (1990), and achieved a huge cult following with his surreal TV series Twin Peaks (1990), which he adapted for the big screen, though his comedy series On the Air (1992) was less successful. He also draws comic strips and has devised multimedia stage events with regular composer Angelo Badalamenti. He had a much-publicized affair with Isabella Rossellini in the late 1980s.- Director
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Lasse Hallström inherited his enthusiasm for film from his father, who was an amateur filmmaker. In high school he made his first short film, which was released on Swedish television. Hallström then began working as a director, cameraman and editor for Swedish television. He also made music videos and worked with the cult band "ABBA", for whom he directed the 1977 film "ABBA: The Movie". He moved from television to film and directed Swedish productions such as "A Lover And His Lass" (1974), "Der Gockel" and "Happy We". By the mid-1980s he had long since established himself in his homeland and made his international breakthrough as an author and director in 1985 with "My Life as a Dog" (1985). In his warm-hearted film, Hallström tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy in the 1950s. Audiences and critics worldwide were thrilled and Hallström received Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.
The members of the "New York Film Critics Circle" named the production "Best Foreign Film." Hallström then brought the successful Astrid Lindgren stories "We Children from Bullerbü" (1986) and "News from Us Children from Bullerbü" (1986) to the screen. In 1991 he worked with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss on his first American film, "A Charming Disgust." This was followed in 1993 by the hit film "Gilbert Grape - Somewhere in Iowa", for which Hallström was director and producer. The film starred Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis and the young Leonardo DiCaprio, who received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a disabled boy. Hallström himself was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director for Gilbert Grape: Somewhere in Iowa. In 1994 he married the actress Lena Olin; together they became parents of two children.
After the failure of "The Power of Love" (1995) with Julia Roberts, Lasse Hallström returned to his strengths and delivered the drama "God's Work and the Devil's Contribution" in 1999. The critics were once again full of praise and Hallström was pleased to receive another Oscar nomination. The subtle comedy "Chocolat" (2000) with Juliette Binoche, Judy Dench and Johnny Depp was his next work, which was nominated for five "Oscars" in 2001. In 2002, Hallström's tragicomedy "Ship Reports" was released in German cinemas. With "An Untamed Life" from 2005, he brought a drama to cinemas that not only shined with its plot, but also with excellent actors such as Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez. Hallström settled privately in the USA and Sweden. In 2018 he directed the American fantasy film "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms".- Director
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John Dahl was born on 15 June 1956 in Billings, Montana, USA. He is a director and writer, known for The Last Seduction (1994), Kill Me Again (1989) and Rounders (1998). He is married to Beth Jana Friedberg. They have four children.- Producer
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STAN BROOKS is an award-winning producer of film and television with over 30 years of industry experience. He has produced more than 70 movies for film and television since 1989, when he founded his first independent production company, Once Upon a Time Films.
Brooks made his directorial debut with the film Perfect Sisters - starring Academy Award Nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) Georgie Henley (The Chronicles of Narnia Series), and Academy Award Winner Mira Sorvino (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion). The film opened in theaters across the nation and in Canada with international release following. Receiving praiseworthy reviews from both The Los Angeles Times and New York Times, Perfect Sisters continues to dominate on Hulu, Netflix, VOD and digital downloads.
Brooks directed his second feature with the true-crime drama, The Grim Sleeper, starring Dreama Walker (Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23), Macy Gray (Training Day), Ernie Hudson (Call Me Crazy) and Michael O'Neill (Dallas Buyers Club). The Grim Sleeper follows LA Weekly reporter Christine Pelisek (Walker) as she doggedly investigates the unsolved murders of dozens of women in Los Angeles and soon realizes one person is responsible for many of these deaths that began over 20 years earlier. The Grim Sleeper aired on Lifetime Television and Brooks won his 4th PRISM AWARD for the film in 2015 for its authentic storytelling of mental illness and substance use issues.
Most recently, Brooks directed his second episode of MARVEL'S, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for ABC. His first, A Life Earned, aired in December 2017. His second episode is set to air in 2020, during the final season of A.O.S.
Brooks' produced TV Movie, Prayers For Bobby, earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Made for Television Movie and Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for Sigourney Weaver for her portrayal of Mary Griffith.
Brooks' 50th film, The Capture of the Green River Killer, starring Tom Cavanagh delivered record ratings to the 10-year-old Lifetime Movie Network, averaging 2.4 million viewers for Part 1 and 2.6 million for Part 2. At the time it was the highest rated program in the network's history.
His miniseries, Broken Trail starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church, directed by the legendary Walter Hill, won four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries; Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries; and Best Casting for a Miniseries, Movie or Special. It was also nominated for three Golden Globe awards in the categories of Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. In addition to winning the coveted DGA award for Outstanding TV Movie or Miniseries and receiving four S.A.G. Award nominations, Broken Trail was honored with an astounding 16 Emmy nominations, providing AMC with not only the highest rated scripted program on cable in over ten years, but also the most Emmy nominations for a miniseries since Roots.
Brooks has produced films for all the major broadcast and cable networks and has worked with some of the best actors, directors and writers in the industry. Of particular note are Sigourney Weaver, Diane Keaton, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (who directed his only film for Brooks), Jennifer Love Hewitt, Matthew Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, Keanu Reeves, Brad Whitford, James Marsters, Lou Diamond Philips, Jamie-Lynn Siegler, Fran Drescher, Marissa Winokur, Brian Dennehy, Sam Neill, Faith Ford, Jennie Garth, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Queen Latifah, Jack Palance, Michael Moriarty, Annette Funicello, John Candy, Sharon Lawrence and many more.
Prior to starting Stan & Deliver Films and Once Upon a Time Films, Brooks served as President of Guber-Peters Television. Under his leadership the company produced numerous projects including Rain Man, which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar at the 1988 Academy Awards.
Of all his accomplishments, Brooks' considers his 1994 founding of The Hollywood Indies Little League Foundation - a charitable organization, which brought Little League back to an abandoned park in South Central Los Angeles - his greatest pride. It is now the largest Little League program in Los Angeles. In 1996, Brooks was recognized by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for his special contribution to the parks and children of L.A.
As a graduate of Brandeis University, Brooks holds a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master's degree in Fine Arts from the American Film Institute. In addition, he is an Adjunct professor at the American Film Institute for the Advanced Film & Television Studies.- Director
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John Barnard is known for Menorca (2016), The Sheepdogs Have at It (2012) and The Perfect Match (2019).- Director
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He grew up in Versailles with a family who was very influenced by pop music. When he was young, Gondry wanted to be a painter or an inventor. In the 80s he entered in an art school in Paris where he could develop his graphic skills and where he also met friends with whom he created a pop-rock band called Oui-Oui. The band released 2 albums ('Chacun tout le monde' and 'Formidable') and several singles until their separation in 1992. Gondry was the drummer of the band and also directed their video clips in which it was possible to see his strange world, influenced by the 60s and by his childhood. One of his videos was shown on MTV and when Björk saw it, she asked him to make her first solo video for 'Human Behaviour'. The partnership is famous: Gondry directed five other Björk's videos, benefiting by the huge budgets. This led to commissions for other artists around the world, including Massive Attack. He also made a lot of commercials for Gap, Smirnoff, Air France, Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas, Polaroid and Levi - the latter making him the most highly-awarded director for a one-off commercial.
Hollywood became interested in Gondry's success and he directed his first feature movie Human Nature (2001), adapting a Charlie Kaufman's scenario, which was shown in the 2001 Cannes Festival. Although it wasn't a big success, this film allowed him to direct Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), for which he again collaborated with Charlie Kaufman. The movie became a popular independent film and he and his co-writers won an Oscar for it.- Director
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Ana Lily Amirpour was born in Margate, Kent, England, UK. She is a director and writer, known for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), The Bad Batch (2016) and Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021).- Producer
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Lana Wilson is an Emmy-winning and two-time Spirit Award-nominated writer and director. Transformative quests for meaning and humanity connect her diverse body of work across documentaries, short films, and episodic. Her most recent film, the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana (2020), was the opening night film of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and is a Netflix Original. Miss Americana was a New York Times Critic's Pick, an IndieWire Critic's Pick, and was named one of the Five Best Documentaries of the Year by the National Board of Review.
Wilson's previous feature film, The Departure (2017), about a punk-turned-priest in Japan, was critically acclaimed for being a poetic, profound, and moving exploration of what makes life worth living. The Departure premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017, played at festivals around the world, and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. The Departure was called "A work of art" by the San Francisco Chronicle, "A genuinely spiritual experience" by the Washington Post, and "Tender and moving...like a haiku" by the New York Times. The film was acquired by FilmRise and theatrically released in 30 US cities, beginning with a held-over run at New York's Metrograph. The Departure has a rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating "universal acclaim."
Wilson's first film, After Tiller (2013), goes inside the lives of the four most-targeted abortion providers in the country, taking a powerful and complex look at one of the most incendiary issues of our time. After Tiller premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013, and went on to win an Emmy Award for Best Documentary. It was also nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, four Cinema Eye Honors, a Satellite Award, and the Ridenhour Prize. After Tiller was acquired by Oscilloscope and released in theaters in 50 US cities. The film was named one of the five best documentaries of the year by the National Board of Review, and featured in "Best of 2013" lists in the LA Times, Village Voice, Indiewire, Artforum, and more. Flavorwire named it one of the "50 Best Documentaries of All Time."
Wilson also works in episodic and short-form filmmaking. She created and directed A Cure for Fear (2018), a short-form series about a groundbreaking scientist that played at SXSW and was nominated for the 2019 International Documentary Association Award for Best Short-Form Series.
Wilson has been awarded artist fellowships from the Sundance Institute, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Film Independent, and was named to DOC NYC's inaugural "40 Under 40" list. She is a recipient of the 2019 Chicken & Egg Award. Wilson has given talks at a range of contemporary art and film institutions, and has been a featured guest on NPR, MSNBC, WNYC, Huffington Post Live, Democracy Now, and many other programs. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a graduate of Wesleyan University.- Writer
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Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early 1980s, attending the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). Her first short film, Peel (1982) won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. Her other short films include A Girl's Own Story (1984), Passionless Moments (1983), After Hours (1985) and the tele-feature 2 Friends (1986), all of which won Australian and international awards. She co-wrote and directed her first feature film, Sweetie (1989), which won the Georges Sadoul prize in 1989 for Best Foreign Film, as well as the LA Film Critics' New Generation Award in 1990, the American Independant Spirit Award for Best Foreign Feature, and the Australian Critics' Award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. She followed this with An Angel at My Table (1990), a dramatization based on the autobiographies of Janet Frame which won some seven prizes, including the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1990. It was also awarded prizes at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals, again winning the American Independent Spirit Award, and was voted the most popular film at the 1990 Sydney Film Festival. The Piano (1993) won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, making her the first woman ever to win the prestigious award. She also captured an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 1993 Oscars, while also being nominated for Best Director.- Director
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A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be critiqued by people like Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Sontag. Later she earned a scholarship to study film at Columbia University School of Arts, graduating in 1979. She was also a member of the British avant garde cultural group, Art and Language. Kathryn is the only child of the manager of a paint factory and a librarian.- Director
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Lisa Cholodenko earned an MFA at Columbia University Film School where she made an award-winning short film Dinner Party (1997) Her feature High Art (1998) won the National Society of Film Critics award for Ally Sheedy's performance and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at Sundance. Both "High Art" and Laurel Canyon (2002) premiered at Cannes Director's Fortnight.- Producer
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New Yorker Lena Dunham is the daughter of a painter, Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons, a designer and photographer. Dunham was educated at Oberlin College, Ohio, graduating with a creative writing degree. It was while at Oberlin that she began writing shorts and feature films. In 2009, Dunham created the web series Delusional Downtown Divas (2009), which gained a cult following.
Also in 2009, Dunham released Creative Nonfiction (2009), her first feature film. She went on to write, direct and star in Tiny Furniture (2010), which scored two Independent Spirit Award nominations. In 2012, Dunham came to the attention of a wider audience with the HBO series Girls (2012) created by and starring Dunham and executive produced by Judd Apatow.- Director
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Two time Emmy-nominated actress and director Lynn Shelton fell ill and was taken to a Los Angeles, California hospital. During her medical examination it was found that she had been suffering, without diagnosis or any apparent symptoms, from acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood. She died just a few days later on May 16, 2020 at age 54.- Director
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Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two daughters, Romy and Cosima. She was previously married to Spike Jonze.- Director
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Shelagh Carter is a Lifetime Member of The Actors Studio as an Actress and Director, and a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre's Directors Lab in Toronto. As a director, Shelagh has created work for over fifteen years. Night Travellers, her third short film, was a National Screen Institute Drama Prize winner in 2007. Her award winning 35 mm short, One Night, filmed as part of the Canadian Film Centre's Short Dramatic Film 2009 series, screened at several international film festivals. She has also won world festival recognition with her experimental narrative short films Canoe, Rifting/Blue, and Is It My Turn.
Shelagh's first feature film called Passionflower, the story of Sarah, an 11-year-old girl, forcing her family to come to terms with her mother's increasing mental instability, has earned film festival attention and honors. Her indie feature, Before Anything You Say, an innovative drama based on a true story, has won international nominations and awards, most recently Best Manitoba Director 2018 by the DGC. Her third feature film, Into Invisible Light, has been honoured with several awards and nominations, including most recently winning the Directors' Choice Independent Spirit Award at the Sedona International Film Festival 2020. and on behalf of the film, Shelagh was awarded Best Director, at the Swedish International Film Festival, July 2021. Recently, the Swedish Festival expressed interest in Passionflower and invited it to be juried for their monthly series. Most appreciated, it was awarded Best International Feature Film, May 2022.
Shelagh's next feature, a New York City romantic comedy titled Love, Repeat, screened on Lifetime in 2020. The Woman Who Swallowed West Hawk Lake, a psychological horror film, is also in development.- Director
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Shira Piven was the child of theatre people and established herself as an actress and then stage director in Chicago and later in New York, where she was the founder and artistic director of Water Theatre Company between 1999 and 2003. Their hit show Pilgrims was and adapted and directed by Ms. Piven, produced by Mike Nichols and based on 3 short stories from the collection Pilgrims in collaboration with the author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love.)
Her first feature film Fully Loaded recently won the audience Favorite Feature award at Palm Beach International Film Festival as well as best Feature at both The River's Edge International and Carmel Art and Film Festivals. It also was featured at the Boston, San Luis Obispo, Talking Pictures and Newport Beach film festivals. It was released by Starz. She recently directed a short documentary on the life of guitar legend Wayne Kramer produced by the award winning filmmaker/producers Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet soon to air on PBS.
Shira has directed over 20 stage productions, many of them original adaptations, in New York, Chicago, LA, and directed three critically acclaimed productions (by Odets, Mamet. And Arthur Miller) for Washington D.C.'s Theatre J. She was also director and a founding member of burn Manhattan spontaneous theatre, a groundbreaking group performing entirely improvised physical theatre throughout New York City. In Los Angeles Shira developed and directed the plays Little and All Cake No File at the Actors Gang Theatre and Fully Loaded at UCB Theatre. She directed Ed Asner in the new play Number of People at the Pasadena Playhouse, and at Hartford Stage. She was invited by Nora Ephron to workshop and develop the book Love, Loss, and What I Wore for the stage, which later went on to its current Off- Broadway run. She wrote and directed several programs of original short plays at the Ontological-Hysteric theatre in New York and also in LA, and directed writer/performer Cindy Caponera in Ms. Caponera's A Debutante's Ball, both in New York at LaMama and in Chicago at Victory Gardens Theatre.
Film and digital credits include Fully Loaded, which she directed and co-wrote. Wrote and directed the short That's Not Racist. Developed and directed the following shorts through improvisation: The Dog Park, Self Help Group and the short trilogy I Human. She also directed and was a contributing writer for 12 episodes of the political web series Tastes Like Home. Other film work includes sequences for the stage productions Death of a Judge and The Shoemakers, sequences for Tastes Like Home, and preliminary filming on an original feature length film/ documentary The Perfect Conversation, in collaboration with Jeremy Piven and Tarvis Watson.
Ms. Piven has also taught acting for stage and film, from coaching the sons in Talladega Nights to her current work with the Actors Gang prison project, teaching commedia dell'Arte to inmates at the CRC prison, and at Homeboys industries to former LA Gang members.- Director
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Steve McQueen was born on 9 October 1969 in London, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for 12 Years a Slave (2013), Shame (2011) and Hunger (2008). He is married to Bianca Stigter. They have two children.- Director
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Daniel Francis Boyle is a British filmmaker, producer and writer from Radcliffe, Greater Manchester. He is known for directing 28 Days Later, 127 Hours, Trainspotting, T2 Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, Millions, Shallow Grave, The Beach, Yesterday, and Steve Jobs. He won many awards for Slumdog Millionaire. He was in a relationship with Gail Stevens and had three children.- Writer
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Director, writer, producer and composer Tom Tykwer was born in 1965 in Wuppertal, Germany. He showed an interest in film-making from childhood, making super 8 films from the age of 11. Among his first jobs was working at a local art-house cinema. Tykwer eventually relocated to Berlin, first working as a film projectionist and then becoming head of programming at the Moviemento Theater.
Tykwer's friend, the director Rosa von Praunheim, encouraged him to experiment with film-making and the result was the short Because (2001). Other short films followed, and in 1993 Tykwer made his first full length feature Deadly Maria (1993). Tykwer's international breakthrough came in 1998 with Run Lola Run (1998), which was a hit with both audiences and critics alike. The film garnered many awards and was the most successful German film of the year.
Subsequent projects include Heaven (2002), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), The International (2009) and the ambitious epic Cloud Atlas (2012).- Producer
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Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the direction of Mike D and Adam Horovitz and Adam Yauch before the sad demise of Grand Royal Records. Jonze was also responsible for directing the famous Beastie Boys: Sabotage (1994) short film as well as numerous other music videos for various artists.- Director
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Bruce McDonald was born on 28 May 1959 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for Pontypool (2008), Dance Me Outside (1994) and Highway 61 (1991).- Writer
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Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean filmmaker. The recipient of three Academy Awards, his filmography is characterized by emphasis on social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), before achieving both critical and commercial success with his subsequent films: the crime thriller Memories of Murder (2003), the monster film The Host (2006), the science fiction action film Snowpiercer (2013), and the black comedy thriller Parasite (2019), all of which are among the highest-grossing films in South Korea, with Parasite also being the highest-grossing South Korean film in history.
All of Bong's films have been South Korean productions, although both Snowpiercer and Okja (2017) are mostly in the English language. Two of his films have screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival-Okja in 2017 and Parasite in 2019; the latter earned the Palme d'Or, which was a first for a South Korean film. Parasite also became the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award nominations, with Bong winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, making Parasite the first film not in English to win Best Picture. In 2017, Bong was included on Metacritic's list of the 25 best film directors of the 21st century. In 2020, Bong was included in Time's annual list of 100 Most Influential People and Bloomberg 50.- Editor
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Named one of the top 25 young independent filmmakers in North America by New York's Filmmaker Magazine (2002-03), and one of the top 10 Canadian Industry Trailblazers by The Reel World Film Festival, Deco Dawson has been achieving international acclaim for his body of short film work for a number of years.
Having directed and produced seven short films, including _Film(dzama)_, the winner of the Toronto International Film Festival's 2001 Best Short Film Award, and The Ann Arbor Film Festival's 2002 Best Technical Innovation Award, Dawson has screened his films in festivals across the globe. Of late, he has received five retrospectives of his films in Canada, at the Cinematheque Ontario, the Metro Cinema, the Pacific Cinematheque and the Canadian Film Institute and the Calgary International Film Festival, Internationally at La Enana Marron in Madrid, Spain, La Club Pipa in Barcelona, Spain, Le Collectif Jeune Cinema in Paris, France and a complete 15 film retrospective in Seattle, Washington.
As well as forming a body of short work and limited edition DVD art films, Dawson has also associate co-directed and edited the dance feature film entitled Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002), with cult filmmaker Guy Maddin; the film won the Golden Prague Award at the 2002 Golden Prague International Television Festival and an International Emmy Award for Best Performing Arts. Together Dawson and Maddin have created a handful of short films with Maddin directing and Dawson both filming and editing, including the 2001 winner of the Best Experimental Film Of The Year Award, handed out by the Critics of Lincoln Centre to The Heart of the World.
Dawson has most recently completed and premiered two new short films The Fever of the Western Nile, a commission for a European installation tour and Defile in Veil at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. He is also in development on his first solo feature script entitled 'Lost Angels in Hollywood'.- Producer
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Bobby Farrelly was born on 17 June 1958 in Cumberland, Rhode Island, USA. He is a producer and director, known for There's Something About Mary (1998), Osmosis Jones (2001) and Me, Myself & Irene (2000). He has been married to Nancy Farrelly since 1990. They have two children.- Producer
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Peter Farrelly was born on 17 December 1956 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Green Book (2018), There's Something About Mary (1998) and Dumb and Dumber (1994). He has been married to Melinda Farrelly since 31 December 1996. They have two children.- Camera and Electrical Department
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Mandeep was born and raised in Chandigarh, India, where he started his film journey by creating comic videos for YouTube in 2007-2008. A VFX company saw his works online and offered him a job in Mumbai. From thereon he has wore different hats, from being a VFX supervisor, to an Assistant Director to a Writer, a Cinematographer, an Editor, a Director, he has done it all. He has spent the last 15 years understanding cinema from within. He brings all this knowledge and passion with him when he writes, shoots or directs. He is inspired by the works of David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Paul Haggis, Jason Smilovic, The Coen Brothers, James Cameron and Guy Ritchie. He was first enamored to films when he was 13 years old and saw Terminator 2 but it remained bubbling within him without him knowing. What really propelled him towards films was Fight Club that he saw when he was 18.- Director
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Gary Yates was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is known for Seven Times Lucky (2004), High Life (2009) and The Big Pickle (1997).- Director
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Anders weathered a rough childhood and young adult life which not only encouraged an escapist penchant for making up characters but also an insider's sympathy for the strong but put-upon women who people her films. Growing up in rural Kentucky, Anders would always remember hanging onto her father's leg at age five as he abandoned her family. Traveling frequently with her mother and sisters, Anders would later be raped at age 12, endure abuse from a stepfather who once threatened her with a gun, and suffer a mental breakdown at age 15. Venturing back to Kentucky from Los Angeles at 17, she would soon move to London to live with the man who would father her first child. Upon her return to the US, Anders finally began to pick up the pieces of her life. She enrolled in junior college and later the UCLA film school and managed when a second daughter came along. Enchanted with _Wim Wenders_' films, she so deluged the filmmaker with correspondence that he gave her a job as a production assistant on his film Paris, Texas (1984). After graduating from UCLA, Anders made her feature writing and directing debut, Border Radio (1987), a study of the LA punk scene, in collaboration with two former classmates. Her first solo effort, Gas Food Lodging (1992), telling of a single mother and her two teenage daughters, and her followup, My Crazy Life (1993), looking at girl gangs in the Echo Park neighborhood of LA where Anders settled, have shown her to be a deeply personal filmmaker who has used her own experience to make grittily realistic, well-observed, gently ambling studies of women coming of age amid tough, sterile social conditions.- Producer
- Director
- Actor
John Landis began his career in the mail room of 20th Century-Fox. A high-school dropout, 18-year-old Landis made his way to Yugoslavia to work as a production assistant on Kelly's Heroes (1970). Remaining in Europe, Landis found work as an actor, extra and stuntman in many of the Spanish/Italian "spaghetti" westerns. Returning to the US, he made his feature debut as a writer-director at age 21 with Schlock (1973), an affectionate tribute to monster movies. Clad in a Rick Baker-designed gorilla suit, Landis starred as "Schlockthropus", the missing link. After working as a writer, actor and production assistant, Landis made his second film, The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), in collaboration with the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams. Landis rose to international recognition as director of the wildly successful National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). With blockbusters such as The Blues Brothers (1980), Trading Places (1983), Spies Like Us (1985), Three Amigos! (1986) and Coming to America (1988), Landis has directed some of the most popular film comedies of all time. Other feature credits include Into the Night (1985), Innocent Blood (1992) and the comedy/horror genre classic An American Werewolf in London (1981), which he also wrote. In 1986, Landis and four others were acquitted of responsibility for the tragic accident that occurred in Landis' segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) in which actor Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed. The film also included segments directed by Joe Dante, George Miller and Steven Spielberg. In 1983 Landis wrote and directed the groundbreaking music video of Michael Jackson's Michael Jackson: Thriller (1983), created originally to play as a theatrical short. "Thriller" forever changed MTV and the concept of music videos, garnering multiple accolades including the MTV Video Music Awards for Best Overall Video, Viewer's Choice, and the Video Vanguard Award - The Greatest Video in the History of the World. In 1991 "Thriller" was inducted into the MVPA's Hall of Fame. In 1991, Landis collaborated again with Jackson (I) on Michael Jackson: Black or White (1991), which premiered simultaneously in 27 countries with an estimated audience of 500 million. Although it was not the first motion picture or music video to do so, "Black or White" popularized the use of "digital morphing", where one object appears to seamlessly metamorphoses into another; the project raised the standard for state-of-the-art special effects in music videos. Landis has also been active in television as the executive producer (and often director) of the Ace- and Emmy Award-winning HBO series Dream On (1990). Other TV shows produced by his company, St. Clare Entertainment (St. Clare is the patron saint of television), include Weird Science (1994), Sliders (1995), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show (1997), Campus Cops (1995) and The Lost World (1998). In 2004 the Independent Film Channel broadcast his feature-length documentary about a used-car salesman, Slasher (2004). Deer Woman, an original one-hour episode written by Landis and his son Max Landis, inaugurated the Masters of Horror (2005) series in the fall of 2005 on Showtime. "Masters of Horror" also features one-hour episodes by John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Tobe Hooper, Don Coscarelli, Mick Garris, Dario Argento and Larry Cohen.
A sought-after commercial director, Landis has worked for a variety of companies including Direct TV, Taco Bell, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kellogg's and Disney. He was made a Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1985, awarded the Federico Fellini Prize by Rimini Cinema Festival in Italy and was named a George Eastman Scholar by The Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Both the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Torino Film Festival have held career retrospectives of his films. In 2004 Landis received the Time Machine Career Achievement Award at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. Sent as a filmmaker/scholar by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, Landis has lectured at many film schools and universities including Yale, Harvard, NYU, UCLA, UCSB, USC, Texas A&M, The North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Miami and Indiana University. He has also acted as a teacher and advisor to aspiring filmmakers at the Sundance Institute in Utah. Additionally, he edited Best American Movie Writing 2001 (Thunder's Mouth Press, NY, 2001). Born in Chicago, Illinois, Landis moved to Los Angeles soon after his birth. He is married to Deborah Nadoolman, an Oscar-nominated costume designer, and President of the Costume Designers Guild, with whom he has two children.- Director
- Animation Department
- Writer
Ralph Bakshi worked his way up from Brooklyn and became an animation legend. He was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel, the son of Mina (Zlotin) and Eliezar Bakshi, and is of Krymchak Jewish descent. He was raised in Brownsville, after his family came to New York to escape World War II. Bakshi attended the Thomas Jefferson High School and was later transferred to the High School of Industrial Arts and graduated with an award in cartooning in 1957.
At the Terrytoons studio, he started as a cel polisher then graduated to cel painting. Practicing nights and weekends, he quickly became an inker and then an animator. There, he worked on such shows as Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Deputy Dawg, Foofle and Lariat Sam. At 28 he created and directed a series of superhero spoof cartoons called The Mighty Heroes.
In 1967, Bakshi moved to Paramount Studios. Working with producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi worked on episodes of the Spider-Man TV series and several short films. In the 1970s, Bakshi set out to produce films using his innovative vision for how animated films should be. Krantz suggested Robert Crumb's "Fritz the Cat" comic book as Bakshi's first feature. The two set out to meet with Crumb and get the film rights. In 1972, the film premiered and was extremely successful, as the first feature-length animated film to receive an X rating by the American rating system (when it was distributed worldwide, it generally received lower ratings the equivalent of an R rating, and was released as being unrated on DVD).
The success of "Fritz the Cat" allowed Bakshi to produce films featuring his own characters and ideas, and so "Heavy Traffic" and "Coonskin" were produced, both of which were extremely controversial, but were praised by critics. During the same period, he shot and completed another feature titled "Hey Good Lookin'" for the Warner Brothers studio, who didn't think that a combination of live-action and animation would sell, and forced Bakshi to go back and animate the live action sequences.
During this period, Bakshi also produced two very successful fantasy films, "Wizards" and part one of an animated film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." Although these films were financially successful, they were misunderstood by critics, and United Artists, the studio that produced "The Lord of the Rings" refused to fund the second part, or sequel to Bakshi's ambitious adaptation.
During the 1980s, animation went into a decline. "American Pop," done using the same style of realistic animation as "The Lord of the Rings" was not successful financially, and critics did not see the point of the film being animated. The finished version of "Hey Good Lookin'" was released during the same year as "American Pop," but was also unsuccessful financially. Bakshi's last film of the decade, "Fire & Ice," a collaboration with famed artist Frank Frazetta, was a flop.
Bakshi produced several television features with mixed results before returning to film with what would eventually become "Cool World" - the script was rewritten several times during production without Bakshi's knowledge until it came to the point where Bakshi did not recognize his own work. The film was critically scorned, and was a box office flop. Fans feel that the film is not a true Bakshi film.
Since then, the Internet and DVD releases of Bakshi's work have brought him a new generation of fans and increased interest, encouraging Bakshi to produce another film. "Last Days of Coney Island" is in production. Bakshi lives in New Mexico. A three-day retrospective was held at American Cinematheque at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California in April, 2005.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
A tragic end belies a life led with purpose. The son of a successful filmmaker, Juzo Itami made his name acting in television and films before making a late career shift into screenwriting and directing at age 50. Known to choose the subjects of his films through everyday observations, he often followed up significant events in his life with films depicting idiosyncrasies that he felt were unique to the evolving Japanese culture. He was the definition of an iconoclast who took the great Molière's words to heart, "castigat ridendo mores" (criticise customs through humour).
Attributed as a key figure in the re-emergence of the latest wave of Japanese films that marked their presence outside of Japan, Itami proved to be a force of energy and originality that revived the country's stake in international cinema during the 1980s. Critics and audiences alike were simpatico when it came to his clever and keenly entrenched satires of his country's societal misgivings and he quickly became the most famous modern director of his generation. Throughout his directorial oeuvre of 10 films (list at the end), which stretched from 1984 to his final film in 1997, they were popular both domestically and maintained a staunch international following.
Every so often, Itami was compared to his then recently deceased French counterpart, Jacques Tati, who utilised similar styles of critiquing their society's cultural transition while crafting films with trenchant distinctions in humour and sadness. They also had almost similar, brief numbers of films that they directed and wrote before their death and they also used similar elements in the majority of their films. Itami cast his wife, Nobuko Miyamoto in every one of his 10 films. She was synonymous with Itami's fans across the world. Her versatility with melodrama and her impeccable comic timing proved invaluable to her husband's unique blend of the two genres as she portrayed characters that have been labeled as an "Everywoman" role. These roles laid the groundwork for a much more diverse representation of genders in Japan's films as Itami's women were usually strong, smart and gifted with moral fortitude when faces with tremendous adversity.
A common misconception outside of Japan would be that Tampopo (1985) was Itami's career-making debut. And although Tampopo (1985) is his most successful and critically acclaimed to date, his first feature was actually a humourous look at the Japanese attitudes towards death in The Funeral (1984), which touched on the generational gap opposing the stringently revered traditional values of the elders and the often-callous modernism of their children. Tampopo (1985) followed it to immense and unexpected success outside of its native land. The gastronomic "noodle western" as Itami himself had coined it, was an episodic venture (which formed the structure of his other films) of a restaurateur determined to create the best possible noodle for the best possible noodle eatery. Consumed with quirky characters and their own respective obsessions, it was a surreal fusion of wink-wink ribald imagery that was obstinately Japanese and a cheeky lampoon on the Leone "spaghetti westerns" that showed early signs of his development to an auteur. The public was now aware of Itami's established comedic style and free-wielding use of the narrative and they wanted more.
After a string of successful hits such as A Taxing Woman (1987) (A Taxing Woman) and its sequel came one of Itami's most intriguing films to date in Minbo also commonly held as Minbo (1992) (The Anti-Extortion Woman). It was scathing attack on the pride of the Japanese Yakuza through the film's story of a spirited female protagonist skewering and training feeble men to fight back against the criminal elements through courage and determination instead of resorting to violence. The film's realistic content apparently hit a sore spot with real gang members who waited outside of Itami's home and slashed him across his face that left him in the hospital. During his recuperation at the hospital, he found material for his next feature in The Last Dance (1993) about a dying film director accepting with his illness amidst an uncaringly cold healthcare system with an ironic look at infidelity and suicide that was a precursor to the rest of Itami's life. Still haunted and suitably outraged by the attack following Minbo, Itami's final film in 1997 was the black comedy Woman in Witness Protection (1997). It was his ode to freedom of expression that revolved around an actress witnessing a cult murder and becomes a target, both in the media and for hired guns.
On December 20, 1997, the 64-year-old Itami was found seriously injured on the street below his office and later died in the hospital. A suicide note was left behind by Itami that expressed innocence to a tabloid's accusation of his infidelity with a younger woman. Itami's energy and aversion to jadedness in his long career in films would have no doubt been still at use to this day if he was alive.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Barry Jenkins was born on 19 November 1979 in Miami, Florida, USA. He is a producer and director, known for If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Moonlight (2016) and Aftersun (2022).- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Kelly Reichardt was born and raised in Miami-Dade Country, Florida, to a family of police officers. She had an interest in photography from a very young age. She started by using her father's camera, which he used for photographing crime scenes. She went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. In the summer of 2005, Reichardt directed Old Joy (2006), which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. It was the first American film to win the Tiger award at the Rotterdam Film Festival and opened at the Film Forum in New York City. Reichardt's first feature, River of Grass (1994), a sun-drenched noir that was shot in her home town of Dade County, was cited as one of the best films of 1995 by the Boston Globe, Village Voice, Film Comment, the New York Daily News, Paper Magazine, and the San Francisco Guardian.- Producer
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Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel married actress Frances McDormand in 1984 and had an adopted son.- Producer
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The younger brother of Joel, Ethan Coen is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning writer, producer and director coming from small independent films to big profile Hollywood films. He was born on September 21, 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In some films of the brothers- Ethan & Joel wrote, Joel directed and Ethan produced - with both editing under the name of Roderick Jaynes; but in 2004 they started to share the three main duties plus editing. Each film bring its own quality, creativity, art and with one project more daring the other.
His film debut was in 1984 dark humored thriller Blood Simple (1984) starring Frances McDormand (Joel's wife) and M. Emmet Walsh in a deep story revolving a couple of romantic lovers followed by an insisting private eye. The film received critical acclaim, some award nominations to Ethan (best writing at the Film Independent Spirit Awards) and became a cult following over the years. Their second work was the comedy Raising Arizona (1987) starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter as a unusual couple trying to create their family by kidnapping babies from a rich family.
Miller's Crossing (1990) was the third film of the brothers, a mob drama with heavy influences from several criminal dramas and with a stellar cast that included Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Albert Finney, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro and Jon Polito (the latter three would become regular actors in the Coen's films).
Their views on the Hollywood era of the 1930's was the central theme is the great Barton Fink (1991), created from a writers block both brothers suffered during the making of their previous film. John Turturro stars as a writer who suffers from a breakdown when he's commissioned to a big budget Hollywood project. The film was a breakthrough for the Coens marking their first win at the Cannes Film Festival (Joel got the Palme d'Or) and the first time a film of their received Oscar nominations. The underrated comedy The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) was what followed; but no one could predict their next big and boldest move that would definitely put Ethan and Joel on the spotlight once and for all.
The comedy of errors Fargo (1996) was a huge critical and commercial success. With its crazed story of a man who hires two loonies to kidnap his own wife and a pregnant policewoman tracking the leads to the crime, Ethan and Joel came at their greatest moment that couldn't be missed. The film received several awards during award season and the Coen's got their first Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category. What came next was the underrated yet hilariously good The Big Lebowski (1998) starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, John Turturro and Steve Buscemi. Those masterpieces made their career in the late 1990's cementing the duo as one of the greatest writers and directors of their generation, if not, from all time.
The Odyssey retold for the 1930's in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000); the intelligent noir The Man Who Wasn't There (2001); the comedy Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and a remake The Ladykillers (2004) marked their way into the early 2000's. Certaintly of period of minor hits and some downer moments.
The big return was with the highly acclaimed No Country for Old Men (2007), where the brothers swooped at the Oscars with three wins: Best Picture, Screenplay and Writing, an adaptation from the Cormac McCarthy's novel.
A Serious Man (2009), Burn After Reading (2008), True Grit (2010), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Hail, Caesar! (2016) and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) were the subsequent films, all well received by audiences or got awards recognition, mostly nominations.
A shift from tone and career move was writing with other writers and for another directors: for Angelina Jolie's Unbroken (2014), for Spielberg in Bridge of Spies (2015) and George Clooney in Suburbicon (2017).
As for personal life, Ethan has been married to Tricia Cooke since 1990. Tricia works as an assistant editor in several of the Coen brothers films.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
46 Features, 29 Series, over 180 TV credits, David Winning is a US/Canada Dual Citizen and veteran film & television Director and Producer. Experience in all genres: Sci-Fi, horror, drama, action, theatrical release, movies-of-the-week, episodic, romance, westerns, Christmas movies, comedy, family, kid's series, live audience multi-cam, situation comedies, web-based, etc.
At 22, he directed his debut feature Storm (1985) with just $50K. It was released theatrically by Cannon International in April 1988 and distributed by Warner Home Entertainment in 1989; selling 20K copies. His second feature Killer Image (1992) starring Michael Ironside and veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh released through Paramount Home Entertainment received its US Premiere as a Finalist at the 1992 Houston International Film Festival. Writing and producing two early independent features led to an award-winning three decades as guest Director for Paramount, MGM, Netflix, Hallmark Channel, Cannell Films, Nickelodeon, Disney, ABC, Tribune, Fox, BBC Kids and UP TV. His episodic work has garnered over 90 international awards and nominations including the Houston International Film Festival, the 1995 Gold Hugo & Two Silver Hugo's from the Chicago International Film Festival, and four national Gemini Television nominations for Best Director/Dramatic Series. In 2002 he received a National Award from the Director's Guild for Outstanding Achievement in Drama; nominated again in 2006. His third feature, the Lance Henriksen thriller Profile for Murder (1996) debuted on HBO, followed by the release of the Kim Cattrall/Eric McCormack thriller Exception to the Rule (1997) for Artisan and Lion's Gate Films which won Best Thriller at WorldFest Houston.
He began directing network television at the age of 27 for Paramount's series Friday the 13th: The Series (1987). 30 years of episodic production has included the Showtime/Disney western anthology Dead Man's Gun (1997), Matrix (1993) (USA Network) with Carrie-Anne Moss, and the pilot and first six episodes of UPN/FOX's Breaker High (1997) with Ryan Gosling. In the summer of 1996 he re-teamed with Michael Ironside and Frederic Forrest for the Universal military thriller One of Our Own (1997). His theatrical release, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) (20th Century Fox), was the 4th Highest selling film in the U.S. in August 1997 (Billboard). Winning spent that fall shooting in Scotland with Jason Connery on the Merlin (1998) project. Next he directed the Patrick Duffy/Pam Dawber thriller Don't Look Behind You (1999) (Fox Family). Further work followed: ABC's Dinotopia (2002), in Budapest, Pax's Angel series Twice in a Lifetime (1999), Jack London's Call of the Wild (2000), and Gene Roddenberry's twin sci-fi series Earth: Final Conflict (1997) and Andromeda (2000) starring Kevin Sorbo. His Stargate: Atlantis (2004) Season One episode "Childhood's End" won 3 Best Director awards in 2005; New York, Houston and Chicago. Winning directed Kevin Sorbo, Robert Englund, and Bruce Dern in a trilogy of monster movies for SYFY and Hallmark (RHI New York) and also episodes of the Lifetime vampire series Blood Ties (2007). In 2011 he supervised and directed the far north adventure series Yukonic! (2011) and helmed episodes of the comedy/horror series Todd and the Book of Pure Evil (2010) (Space) and Lost Girl (2010) & XIII: The Series (2011) (Stuart Townsend) (SYFY/Showcase). He has done multi-cam live audience series' Max & Shred (2014) (Nickelodeon) and Mr. Young (2011) (Disney Channel) and the heart-warming romantic comedy The Town That Came A-Courtin' (2014) (UP TV) starring Lauren Holly and Valerie Harper. In 2014 he directed the NY Times Top #5 Rated movie The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014) with Lacey Chabert, as well as the inspirational Paper Angels (2014) (UP TV) -- and the post-apocalyptic action thriller Mutant World (2014) (Sony/SYFY) with Kim Coates and Ashanti. In the 2016 season he directed six movies in seven months; thrillers, Christmas and family movies. Premiering that year Unleashing Mr. Darcy (2016) broke a Hallmark network record for social media with over 47 Million tweets. Recent work includes a dozen new Hallmark and UP TV features; including directing (and producing) The Rooftop Christmas Tree (2016) (Tim Reid, Michelle Morgan), Tulips in Spring (2016) (Fiona Gubelmann), Finding Santa (2017) (Jodie Sweetin), While You Were Dating (2017) (William Baldwin), A December Bride (2016) (Jessica Lowndes), Winter's Dream (2018) (Dean Cain), A Summer Romance (2019) (Erin Krakow, Ryan Paevey), Blake Shelton's Time for Me to Come Home for Christmas (2018) and two final films in the Father Christmas Series (Erin Krakow). David helmed six episodes of the (SYFY/Netflix) hit series Van Helsing (2016), a post-apocalyptic take on the vampire rising based on a graphic novel, directing the 3rd Season Finale and opening the explosive Fourth season for 2020.- Director
- Producer
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Jonathan Demme was born on 22 February 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Philadelphia (1993). He was married to Joanne Howard and Evelyn Purcell. He died on 26 April 2017 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Producer
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Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. Typically setting each of his movies during one 24-hour period, Linklater's work explored what he dubbed "the youth rebellion continuum," focusing in fine detail on generational rites and mores with rare compassion and understanding while definitively capturing the 20-something culture of his era through a series of nuanced, illuminating ensemble pieces which introduced any number of talented young actors into the Hollywood firmament. Born in Houston, Texas, Linklater suspended his educational career at Sam Houston State University in 1982, to work on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He subsequently relocated to the state's capital of Austin, where he founded a film society and began work on his debut film, 1987's It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988). Three years later he released the sprawling Slacker (1990), an insightful, virtually plotless look at 1990s youth culture that became a favorite on the festival circuit prior to earning vast acclaim at Sundance in 1991. Upon its commercial release, the movie, made for less than $23,000, became the subject of considerable mainstream media attention, with the term "slacker" becoming a much-overused catch-all tag employed to affix a name and identity to America's disaffected youth culture.- Director
- Producer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Mike Elliott is an award-winning television and film writer, producer, and director.
His series credits include First Wives Club (Black Entertainment Television/Netflix), Wolf Pack (Paramount+), The New Addams Family (Fox Family), The Matchmaker Mysteries (Hallmark), Bigger (Black Entertainment Television), and Hit the Floor (VH1).
Elliott's feature credits include Our Little Secret (Netflix), American Pie: Girls Rules (Universal/Netflix), Teen Wolf: The Movie (Paramount+), Woody Woodpecker (Universal/Netflix), The Munsters (Universal/Netflix), The Prince & Me (Paramount), The Devil's Rejects (Lionsgate), The Eye (Lionsgate), My Best Friend's Girl (Lionsgate), War (Lionsgate), Carnosaur (Concorde), and the Sundance Film Festival winner, Happy Endings (Lionsgate).
Elliott started his career with legendary independent producer Roger Corman. He left Corman in 1995 to found Capital Arts Entertainment which has been an industry leader for twenty-five years, with offices in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Vancouver. Elliott is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Directors Guild of Canada, and the Writers Guild of America. He lives with his family in Los Angeles, California.- Director
- Actor
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Miller is a member of the DGA, SAG and the WGA. He began his career as a struggling actor appearing in TV commercials, theater and a few stints in television shows and movies. After USC Film School he went to the AFI. His thesis film at the AFI launched his career as a director working in television when Ed Zwick hired him to direct thirty something when he was still in his twenties. His first break into features came when Todd Black hired him to direct Class Act starring Kid 'N Play. He often works with his wife and collaborator Jody Savin with whom he has written numerous screenplays, many un-produced and others produced. When they were in their 40's they took the money out of there house and produced Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School starring Marisa Tomei, John Goodman and Robert Carlyle. Marilyn Hotchkiss premiered at Sundance and thus started the couples foray into independent film. Their most successful independent film was Bottle Shock starring Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman and Chris Pine. The couple raised money and self released the film domestically when they were unhappy with the distribution deals being offered.
START OF HIS PROFESSIONAL CAREER AS A DIRECTOR
It was at the AFI student showcase screening of the short film MARILYN HOTCHKISS' BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL that Ed Zwick saw the film and invited Miller to shadow a director on the set of his hit television series THIRTYSOMETHING. When a slot became available, Miller stepped in and was hired to direct an episode of THIRTYSOMETHING. He was not even thirty at the time. Miller joined the DGA at age 27 to direct THIRTYSOMETHING. Based on the success of his having worked with kids on his short film, Miller went on to direct several children programs as well. He directed the pilot for SALUTE YOUR SHORTS in which he cast several children from his award winning short film. SALUTE YOUR SHORTS became a successful series for Nickelodeon and played for years. He directed five episodes of RUNNING THE HALLS on NBC; three episodes of CITY KIDS for ABC and Henson; and PARKER LEWIS CAN'T LOSE for Fox. At the same time as securing television directing jobs, Miller and his writing partner Jody Savin were developing and selling screenplays and television series ideas to networks and studios. PETE, a live action retelling of the Pinocchio tale, was sold to Disney Studios through Adelson/Baumgarten productions. Miller and Jody were signed to a three-picture writing deal at Disney Studios. Miller joined the WGA as well on the Disney job. Producer Alberto Grimaldi and Salvatore Alabiso optioned MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL with the idea to make the short film into a feature length film with Miller directing.
CLASS ACT
Todd Black saw the short film MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL, read some Miller and Savin's writing and was a fan of the THIRTYSOMETHING that Miller had directed. He took a chance on Miller and hired him to direct his first feature film, the Warner Brothers film CLASS ACT starring Kid 'n Play. CLASS ACT featured Miller's cousin, Rhea Perlman, Ray Burke who Miller had worked with as an actor on THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN, Pauly Shore and several others. Class Act tested 97% excellent in front of the test audiences. This "low budget" studio film budgeted at 7.5M went on to become quite successful for Warners and grossed 13M theatrically. Over the years, Miller has been approached about doing a sequel or remake.
HOUSEGUEST
Joe Roth and Roger Birnbaum saw the trailer for CLASS ACT and predicted its success. Based on the buzz, they hired Miller and Savin to rewrite and Miller to direct HOUSEGUEST starring Sinbad. Miller cast Phil Hartman in the starring role opposite Sinbad. The rest of the cast included Kim Greist whom Miller had met while acting in THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN, Jeffrey Jones, Paul Ben Victor, Stan Shaw and Pat Fraser who had been the lead of Miller's student film MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL. HOUSEGUEST was filmed on location in Pittsburgh. Savin served as a Co-Producer. Miller also hired his film school cinematographer Mike Ozier to be the second unit cinematographer. Joe Roth and Roger Birnbaum produced the film. Halfway through production, Joe Roth was tapped by Disney Studios to take over as the head of Production. HOUSEGUEST tested extremely well, 94% in the top two boxes and again this rather "low budgeted" studio film went onto to do quite well. Budgeted at 10M, HOUSEGUEST made 26M theatrically. Roger Birnbaum then hired Miller and Savin to write and develop their screenplay, THE LIFT.
THE SIXTH MAN
Off the success of HOUSEGUEST, another Disney on-the-lot producer David Hoberman hired Miller to direct the basketball sports comedy starring Marlon Wayans. Wayans and Miller forged a great relationship and made the basketball film in Vancouver BC. Savin and Miller rewrote the script, and Savin served as an Executive Producer on the film. The supporting cast included many well-known college coaches and basketball royalty: Nolan Richardson, John Thompson, Brad Nessler, Dick Vitale, Jerry Tarkanian, George Raveling, Billy Packer, Todd Bozeman, Jim Harrick, Lute Olson. The supporting cast was also a combination of actors and former players: Kadeem Hardison, Paul Ben Victor, David Paymer, Will Sasso, Michael Michelle, Lorenzo Orr, Travis Ford, Kevin Dunn and Chris Spencer. Miller discovered and cast Octavia Spencer who got her SAG card on that film. Miller hired Mike Ozier, his AFI film school buddy, as the cinematographer on the film. SIXTH MAN was a moderate success; it cost 11M and went on to make 15M theatrically.
TELEVISION FILMS
Miller filled his time between the studio films he and Savin were writing and developing with directing assignments in television both in movie-for-television and episodic. Miller directed episodes of NORTHERN EXPOSURE, JACK AND JILL, POPULAR, the pilot for DEAD LAST. Miller directed two MOWs for ABC, THE TALE OF TWO BUNNIES shot in Toronto and ABC's H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS in Vancouver, and one MOW for ABC Family TILL DAD DO US PART starring John Larroquette and Markie Post. He developed a movie for ABC about the creation GILLIGAN'S ISLAND with Gilligan creator Sherwood Schwartz and his son Lloyd Schwartz.
SCREENPLAYS SOLD
Miller and his writing partner sold THE BEST WOMAN to Universal and PARENT WARS to Universal with Robert Simonds attached to produce. They sold PIRATE TOM to Fox with Larry Brezner attached to produce. Miller and Savin developed and sold a sit-com pilot called PROMISE AND DASH to Paramount Studios and Paramount Television.
INDEPENDENT FILMS
MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCING & CHARM SCHOOL
Frustrated with the types of films he was being offered as a director, Miller and Savin wrote, produced and Randall directed a feature length version of the short film of the same name. Miller and Savin took a loan against their house and with two small children at home, they put their money into the film. The film cost 2M and was cobbled together with money from friends and family and a small group of investors. Miller made a deal with AFI to buy the rights back to his film to incorporate that original 16mm footage into the feature film as a flashback. The original film's negative was scanned and repaired using digital clean-up to be incorporated in the larger film. The current day part of the film was populated with an all-star cast who responded to the screenplay and the fact that these filmmakers had so much on the line. The cast included: Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei, Robert Carlyle, John Goodman, Danny DeVito, Donnie Wahlberg, a now grown-up Elden Henson (who also starred in the short film years earlier), Octavia Spencer, Academy Award winner Mary Steenburgen, Sean Astin, David Paymer, Miguel Sandoval, Camryn Manheim, Adam Arkin and Ernie Hudson. The film premiered in 2005 at the Sundance Film Festival to standing ovations. It was sold and released by Samuel Goldwyn and overseas by Shoreline Entertainment. The film played numerous film festivals both domestically and abroad, garnering several awards.
NOBEL SON
Off the success of MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL, Miller and Savin teamed with many of the same investors as well as new investors to make the 4M dollar budgeted film in Los Angeles. Miller and Savin wrote, produced and Miller directed Nobel Son, a dark comedic tale of the son of a Nobel Prize winning scientist. Maybe the best moment of Miller and Savin's careers as writers was the phone message on their machine left by Alan Rickman after he read the screenplay, "Thank you for being real writers, but unfortunately I don't see how I can fit the film into my schedule." He left his phone number. So Miller and Savin called Alan Rickman and proceeded to change the film's schedule to fit Alan's. It was the start of a great collaboration and friendship. In addition to Alan Rickman, the film starred Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Ernie Hudson, Danny DeVito, Sean Hatosy, Eliza Dushku, Ted Danson, Tracy Walters and Bryan Greenberg. NOBEL SON premiered at the Tribeca Film festival in 2007 and was released theatrically in 2008.
BOTTLE SHOCK
Drawing on his days at UC Davis studying enology, Miller next directed BOTTLE SHOCK about the birth of the Napa wine scene in 1976 following the Judgement of Paris in which the Napa wines defeated their French counterparts in a blind taste testing. Miller and Savin were approached by Marc and Brenda Lhormer of the then Sonoma Film Festival about the tale when the festival screened MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL. Marc and Brenda Lhormer along with Todd Harris produced the film with Miller and Savin. Miller and Savin rewrote the screenplay and approached Alan Rickman to play the lead role of wine connoisseur Steven Spurrier in the film and Bill Pullman to play the vintner Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena. The strong cast included Freddy Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford, Dennis Farina, Racheal Taylor, Eliza Dushku, and Miguel Sandoval. To play the young lead, they discovered another great talent, Chris Pine. After seeing Chris Pine in BOTTLE SHOCK, JJ Abrams cast Chris in STAR TREK as Captain Kirk. BOTTLE SHOCK was filmed entirely on location in Sonoma and Napa Counties, with an old vineyard doubling for the French countryside. BOTTLE SHOCK was a tremendous success at Sundance when it premiered in 2008. BOTTLE SHOCK went on to win awards at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Maui Film Festival amongst others. Unhappy with the offers being held out at Sundance, MIller and Savin choose to self-release the feature film. They raised additional capital, hired the marketing team from Roadside Attractions and sold the home video to Fox. They were involved in creating television ads and billboards and bought the internet banners. They sold the airline rights separately, and many of the foreign markets one by one. To this day the way Miller and Savin released BOTTLE SHOCK is often studied as a case-study in self-release.
SAVANNAH
Off the success of BOTTLE SHOCK, several other filmmakers approached Miller and Savin about producing and releasing their features. One person that approached Miller and Savin was Annette Haywood Carter who had served as the script supervisor on Miller's CLASS ACT years before. Miller and Savin travelled to Savannah, Georgia where they met and convinced John Cay to fund the entire film. Miller brought many members of the crew who had worked with him on the prior films including his DP Mike Ozier, Designer Craig Stearns, the camera team and the line producer to work on the movie SAVANNAH. Miller and Savin met and made a deal with Nick Gant and his Meddin Studios in Savannah to provide all the necessary physical production. Miller stood behind Annette and helped her put together a tremendous cast: Jim Caviezel, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jaimie Alexander, Bradley Whitford, Jack McBrayer, Sam Shepard, and Hal Holbrook. SAVANNAH premiered at the Sedona Film Festival and played in many regional festivals before its theatrical release in 2013.
CBGB
Miller and Savin successfully secured the rights from the family of the late Hilly Kristal who started the legendary rock 'n' roll club in NYC on the Bowery called CBGB: Country Blue Grass and Blues. The club was the home to Blondie, the Talking Heads, the Ramones and was the first place the Police played in America. It was a hotbed of music and art and culture in a time of unrest and malaise in the 70's in NYC. Miller and Savin partnered with Brad Rosenberger of Warner Chappell Music Group to produce the film. Rosenberger, Miller and Savin had been developing THE DRUMMER about Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. When THE DRUMMER fell apart the three decided to team up for CBGB. Alan Rickman agreed to play the title role of Hilly Kristal, the owner and founder of CBGB. They decided to build the club on the soundstages at Meddin Studios in Savannah. They recreated the downtown Bowery on a small street in downtown Savannah next to Lady and Sons owned by Paula Deen. The film starred an amazing supporting cast: Malin Akerman, Justin Bartha, Richard DeKlerk, Kyle Gallner, Johnny Galecki, Ashley Greene, Taylor Hawkins, Ryan Hurst, Stana Katic, Joel David Moore, Ahna O'Reilly, Freddy Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford, Mickey Sumner and Josh Zuckerman. CBGB opened the CBGB Music Festival and was released by Xlrator Media theatrically and Direct TV in 2013. The soundtrack was a collection of classic rock tracks that were all born out of CBGB including tracks from the Police, the Ramones, the Dead Boys, Blondie, The Talking Heads, Television and many others.
PERSONAL LIFE
Miller and Savin finally married in 1999 after Jody's mother was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer. She died the night of their wedding. Miller and Savin have two children. They live in Pasadena, not far from where Miller grew up. The children both attend the same school that Miller did as a child. Miller's mother and father have both passed.
EARLY LIFE
Miller grew up in Pasadena, California the son of two politically liberal doctors. His mother, Leona Miller, was an internist and professor at USC County Medical Center and President of the Diabetes Association. His father, Alexander Miller, was a Professor at UCLA in Micro-Biology after completing his graduate studies at Cal Tech in Pasadena. Miller's childhood home through the 1960's and 1970's was filled with people: exchange students (post docs or children of foreign colleagues from Nigeria, Mexico and South America); a grandparent, cousin or other distant family member often lived with the Miller family along with five undocumented Mexican immigrants and indigent patients of his mother who needed extra care. It was a rambling Pasadena commune. This is the life that Miller knew and became the basis for not only his sense of humor, but his sense of story and a yearning to tell these stories on film. Miller rode his bike three miles to school starting at the age of seven, and in the third grade, he was hit by a Burkhard Nursery truck which resulted in compound fractures to his leg and ankle. He spent six months in a cast and spent the year in a wheelchair. He recovered fully and played sports throughout high school.
Miller played football and soccer in high school garnering all-league and all-state honors in both. On his Polytechnic high school football team, Miller was a captain and played the defensive linebacker; on offense he was a tight end and was the placekicker as well. He often scored points on offense and defense as he took his tiny eight-man football team to the state championships only to lose in the finals. He was invited to play in several San Gabriel Valley and California State All-Star games after high school where he realized how much bigger and stronger college-bound D1 athletes were than he was. While at high school, Miller also acted in plays and took part in the high school musicals. After high school, Miller attended UC Davis where he studied Bio Chemistry with the idea that he would follow his parents into medicine. While at Davis, one of the classes that he excelled in was Enology (the study of wine and wine production); Millerwould later use some of what he learned when he wrote and directed Bottle Shock.
Miller lifted weights and strengthened himself enough to play a season of football at UC Davis where he caught passes from Ken O'Brien who later went on to play professionally for the New York Jets. Against larger college athletes, Randall suffered a back injury that sidelined him from football and later would cause him to have two back surgeries. He walked onto the UC Davis soccer team and became a starter. But his soccer career was cut short when he ruptured a tendon in his ankle. At UC Davis Miller auditioned and took parts in theater productions. It was there where he caught the acting bug.
Between his sophomore and junior year of university study he studied acting with Milton Katselas at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. While in Los Angeles he got a theatrical and commercial agent and began booking television national commercials for such products as Kleenex, Miller Beer, Budweiser, Chilis, Michelob and Coca Cola. Randall joined SAG at 19 years of age and has worked on and off ever since as an actor. On the television and movie side, he booked roles in Highway to Heaven, Cheers and Throw Momma From The Train. One semester into his junior year at UC Davis, Miller transferred to UCLA so that he could continue auditioning and taking his acting classes at Beverly Hills Playhouse. He started writing plays and one acts and it was one of his plays, FRIGIDAIRE, which he later performed at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, which caught the attention of Bob Zemeckis who was married at the time to Mary Ellen Trainor, a fellow student at the playhouse. As a result of FRIGIDAIRE being produced professionally, Miller joined the Dramatists Guild. Zemeckis suggested that Miller finish his studies at USC School of Cinema, and Zemeckis, offered to write a letter of recommendation.
Miller credits Zemeckis' letter with garnering him acceptance to the USC Cinema School where he studied film and directing. While at USC, FRIGIDAIRE, Miller's play that he had mounted at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, was made into an award-winning thesis film. Miller acted in that short film which he wrote and was directed by Terilyn Shropshire. With the aid of fellow students, Miller wrote and directed CHUTZPAH, a short film that garnered several awards, and it was with that short that he was accepted to the American Film Institute Director's program. It was at AFI that Miller wrote and directed several short films: MR. WONDERFUL, EL TANGERO and THE WURST, but it was his second-year graduate thesis film MARILYN HOTCHKISS' BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL that launched his professional career and landed him the prestigious CAA as his writing and directing agent. MARILYN HOTCHKISS' (the short film) garnered 18 international film awards, a Cine Golden Eagle and a FOCUS award for best film and best film editing.
MARILYN HOTCHKISS told a semi-autobiographical tale of a boy in Pasadena who was sent to Charm School. Miller attended Dorothy Gallotz Cotillion Dance Classes on only one occasion, but that one night shaped his memory indelibly. The film featured sixty kids ranging from 8 to 12 and was narrated by Academy Award winner William Hurt. During his time at USC and later at AFI, Miller continued to act in movies and television and book commercials, "Acting in commercials was how I paid for film school." It was at film school at AFI that he met and became romantically involved with Jody Savin. Savin was a second year Writing Fellow who had watched many Directors come through the program. When she saw Miller's first short film, the crowd-pleasing MR. WONDERFUL, a fluff piece about a man dating three women simultaneously, she marched up to him immediately after the screening and said "You have so much talent, but you are wasting it on drivel!" After the initial shock, Miller and Savin became writing partners as well as boyfriend and girlfriend and began to forge a career together as screenwriters and creative partners.- Director
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Roberto Sneider was born on 1 September 1962 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a director and producer, known for You're Killing Me Susana (2016), Tear This Heart Out (2008) and Shameless (2011).- Director
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Felix Gary Gray is an African-American music video director, film producer and film director from New York City known for directing films such as Friday, Men in Black: International, Be Cool, The Fate of the Furious, Set It Off, The Negotiator, Straight Outta Compton and The Italian Job. He directed 22 music videos.- Writer
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Takashi Ishii was born on 11 July 1946 in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. He was a writer and director, known for Original Sin (1992), Hello, My Dolly Girlfriend (2013) and Gonin Saga (2015). He died on 22 May 2022 in Tokyo, Japan.- Director
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Blaine Thurier is known for Low Self-Esteem Girl (2000), Male Fantasy (2004) and Kicking Blood (2021).- Director
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Justin Kelly is the writer/director behind Universal Pictures JT LeRoy (Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Diane Kruger), which closed the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, I Am Michael (James Franco, Zachary Quinto, Emma Roberts, and executive produced by Gus Van Sant), which premiered at Sundance and Berlinale, IFC's King Cobra (James Franco, Christian Slater, Garrett Clayton), which premiered at Tribeca and BFI London, and Sony Pictures Welcome The Stranger (Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Caleb Landry Jones). Prior to developing his own films, he spent years working under producers, directors, and editors, directed short films and music videos, and worked as a narrative feature film editor and screenwriter. Justin lives in Los Angeles.- Writer
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A director, producer, writer, marketer and film distributor, Ava DuVernay made her feature film debut with the documentary This is the Life (2008), a history on hip hop movement that flourished in Los Angeles in the 1990's. This was followed by series of television music documentaries which included My Mic Sounds Nice (2010) which aired on BET.
DuVernay's first narrative feature film, I Will Follow (2010), secured her the African-American Film Critics Association award for best screenplay. Her follow-up, Middle of Nowhere (2012) won the Best Director Prize at the 2012 Sundance film festival, making her the first African-American woman to receive the award.- Director
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Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American to produce a feature-length film (The Homesteader (1919)) and a sound feature-length film (The Exile (1931)), is not only a major figure in American film for these milestones, but because his oeuvre is a window into the American history and psyche regarding race and its deleterious effects on individuals and society. He also is a pioneer of independent cinema. Though the end products of his labors often were technically crude due to budgetary constraints, Micheaux the filmmaker is a symbol of the artist triumphing against great odds to bring his vision to the public while serving in the socially important role of critical spirit. "One of the greatest tasks of my life has been to teach that the colored man can be anything," Micheaux said. He used the new medium of the motion picture to communicate his ideas in order to rebut racism and to raise the consciousness of African-Americans in an age of segregation and overt, legal racism. As a filmmaker, Micheaux was "50 years ahead of his time", according to Kansas Humanities Council Board member Martin Keenan, the chairman of the Oscar Micheaux Film Festivals in Great Bend, Kansas, in 2001 and 2003. Oscar Micheaux was born in 1884, in Metropolis, Illinois, one of 13 children of former slaves. When he was 17 years old he left home for Chicago, where he got a job as a Pullman porter, one of the best jobs an African-American could get in the days of Jim Crow laws that separated the races and were an official bulwark of racism. Inspired by the self-help, assimilationist teachings of Booker T. Washington and the "Go West" pioneer philosophy of Horace Greeley, Micheaux acquired two 160-acre tracts of land in Gregory County, South Dakota, in 1905, despite no previous experience in farming. His experiences as a homesteader were the basis for his first novel, "The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer", which was published in 1913. He rewrote it into his most famous novel, "The Homesteader" (1917), which he self-published and distributed, selling it door-to-door to small businessmen and homesteaders in small towns, white people with whom he lived and did business with. "The Homesteader" not only elucidated Micheaux's understanding of societal cleavages but proselytized for assimilating black and white communities. He was firmly dedicated to the idea of art as a didactic medium. Micheaux lost his homestead in 1915 due to financial losses caused by a drought. He moved to Sioux City, Iowa, where he established the Western Book and Supply Co. He continued to write novels, selling them himself, door-to-door. Meanwhile, brothers George Johnson and Noble Johnson, African-American movie pioneers who ran the Lincoln Motion Picture Co. in Los Angeles, wanted to make "The Homesteader" into a film. They tried to buy the rights to the novel but would not meet Micheaux's demands that he direct it and that it be made with a large budget. After his demands were refused, Micheaux reorganized Western Book and Supply as the Micheaux Film and Book Co. in Chicago. He began to raise money for his own film version of "The Homesteader". Micheaux returned to the white businessmen and farmers around Sioux City, Iowa, where he still maintained an office, and sold them stock in his new company. In this way he was able to raise enough capital to begin filming his novel in Chicago, which was then a major film production center. The film came in at eight reels, making it the first feature-length film made by an African-American. "Race films"--as films made for black audiences were called until the advent of the modern civil rights movement in the 1950s--and even "mainstream" films had been mostly shorts up to that time. Even Charles Chaplin didn't make his first feature-length film until 1921, with The Kid (1921). The Homesteader (1919) premiered in Chicago on February 20, 1919. An ad for the movie placed in the "Chicago Defender", the premier newspaper for African-Americans, heralded the film as the "greatest of all Race productions" and claimed it was "destined to mark a new epoch in the achievements of the Darker Races . . . every Race man and woman should cast aside their skepticism regarding the Negro's ability as a motion picture star, and go and see, not only for the absorbing interest obtaining therein, but as an appreciation of those finer arts which no race can ignore and hope to obtain a higher plan of thought and action." His next film, Within Our Gates (1920), was his response to D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), a film that had glorified the Ku Klux Klan and justified the violent oppression of African-Americans to prevent miscegenation. Though Griffith's flawed masterpiece was the most popular movie until the release of another Civil War potboiler called Gone with the Wind (1939) in 1939, it was loathed by African-Americans due to its crude and hateful racial stereotypes. "Within These Gates" was made to rebut Griffith and show that the reality of racism in the US was that African-Americans were more likely to be lynched and exploited by whites than the reverse. The movie showed African-American and white communities that the racism of the dominant society could be challenged. Micheaux's place in history was assured as he injected an African-American perspective, via the powerful medium of the motion picture, into the American consciousness. Working out of Chicago, he subsequently made more than 30 films over the next three decades, including musicals, comedies, westerns, romances and gangster films. Some of the popular themes in his work were African-Americans passing for white, intermarriage and legal injustice. He used actors from New York's Lafayette Players and always cast his actors on the basis of type, with light-skinned African-American actors typically playing the leads and darker-skinned blacks the heavies. That trait was part of the consciousness of the African-American community (and mirrored the very racism that he inveigled against) that persists to this day, and Micheaux was severely chastised for it by later critics. However, no critic could deny the importance of Micheaux's movies, as they were a radical departure from Hollywood's racist portrayals of blacks as lazy dolts, Uncle Toms, Mammies and dangerous bucks. As the most successful and prolific of black filmmakers, Micheaux was vital to African-American and overall American consciousness by providing a diverse portfolio of non-stereotyped black characters, as well as images and stories of African-American life. He married Alice B. Russell in March 1926, and the two remained married until his death in March 1951. He was buried at Great Bend Cemetery, Great Bend, Kansas.- Writer
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One of the most compelling and versatile filmmakers working in Canada today, Madison Thomas was named one of Playback Magazine's "Five Filmmakers to Watch" in 2019. A storyteller of mixed ancestry (Ojibwe/Saulteux & Russian/Ukrainian settler), Thomas is based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba in Treaty 1 territory. She has a rapidly growing number of credits as a writer, director and editor across several genres, formats and platforms. Her nuanced and unique work has played festivals and won awards worldwide.
Thomas' recently wrote and directed on Season IV of the CBC/CW/Netflix hit Burden of Truth. She also wrote and directed an episode of the new APTN Music Doc series "Amplify." Thomas served as a writer and voice director of the new TVO pre-school animated series "Wolf Joe." In Spring of 2021 Thomas will go to camera with her new Telefilm supported feature, post apocalyptic drama "Finality of Dusk" with Eagle Vision In Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Thomas launched onto the national stage from Winnipeg's indie film scene by appearing as a finalist on CBC's Short Film Faceoff in 2014. Since then Thomas has made several short narratives and docs including "Seven Drinks", "Exposed Nerves", "Zaasaakwe (Shout with Joy)" and "Fourth Period Burnout."
Thomas was a key director, editor, and researcher for the award-winning APTN/CBC Docu- Drama series Taken which shared the stories of Canada's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls for four seasons. Thomas and the Taken research team were honoured with a CSA nomination for their work on the series.
Thomas was one of eight selected for the Canadian Academy program for Female Directors in 2019. She is also an alumni of prestigious Women in the Director's Chair program as well as Prague Film School in the Czech Republic. Thomas was the first Indigenous person from Canada to ever attend the school.
A frequent collaborator with Darcy Waite, the team won Imaginative/ APTN Web-Series Pitch Competition in 2017 and created their family drama series "Colour of Scar Tissue" now available on APTN. The team went on to produce Thomas' feature "Ruthless Souls" with the Telefilm Talent to Watch Program. The film premiered at the 2019 ImagineNative Film Festival and went on to screen as part of the Perspective Canada program at the 2019 Berlindale film festival, and the 2020 Gimli Film Festival where Thomas won the DGC Best Manitoba Director Award.
Thomas is also a youth mentor and film advocate committed to empowering diverse and underrepresented voices. She is currently the co-chair of On-Screen Manitoba. From 2017-2019 she sat on the Telefilm Indigenous Advisory board. She's taught filmmaking and life skills to youth both in Winnipeg and across Canada since 2013. In 2016 Thomas gave a Ted talk called "Arts in the Hood" on her journey as an artist and the importance of art for inner city and low income youth.- Director
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David M. Rosenthal was born on 23 March 1969 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a director and writer, known for A Single Shot (2013), How It Ends (2018) and No Limit (2022).- Director
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Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University. After graduating from Morehouse, Lee attended the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. He made a controversial short, The Answer (1980), a reworking of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), a ten-minute film. Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) which won a student Academy Award. In 1986, Spike Lee made the film, She's Gotta Have It (1986), a comedy about sexual relationships. The movie was made for $175,000, and earned $7 million at the box office, which launched his career and allowed him to found his own production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. His next movie was School Daze (1988), which was set at a historically black school, focused mostly on the conflict between the school and the Fraternities, of which he was a strong critic, portraying them as materialistic, irresponsible, and uncaring. With his School Daze (1988) profits, Lee went on to make his landmark film, Do the Right Thing (1989), a movie based specifically his own neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The movie portrayed the racial tensions that emerge in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood on one very hot day. The movie garnered Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay, for Danny Aiello for supporting actor, and sparked a debate on racial relations. Lee went on to produce and direct the jazz biopic Mo' Better Blues (1990), the first of many Spike Lee films to feature Denzel Washington, including the biography of Malcolm X (1992), in which Washington portrayed the civil rights leader. The movie was a success, and garnered an Oscar nomination for Washington. The pair would work together again on He Got Game (1998), an excursion into the collegiate world showing the darker side of college athletic recruiting, as well as the 2006 film Inside Man (2006). Spike Lee's role as a documentarian has expanded over the years, highlighted by his participation in Lumière and Company (1995), the Oscar-nominated 4 Little Girls (1997), to his Peabody Award-winning biographical adaptation of Black Panther leader in A Huey P. Newton Story (2001), through his 2005 Emmy Award-winning examination of post-Katrina New Orleans in When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) and its follow-up five years later If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010). Through his production company 40 Acres and A Mule Filmworks, Lee continues to create and direct both independent films and projects for major studios, as well as working on story development, creating an internship program for aspiring filmmakers, releasing music, and community outreach and support. He is married to Tonya Lewis Lee, and they have two sons, Satchel and Jackson.- Writer
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Collin Friesen was born in small town Saskatchewan and grew up in Winnipeg, Canada. The son of a high school teacher and church secretary, Collin got his BA from the University of Manitoba before getting a job as a reporter for a local TV station. After working for the CBC in Alberta for two years, he cashed in his life savings and went to film school in Los Angeles. After graduating from the AFI, he sold his first script, The Big White, which was turned into a feature starring Robin Williams and Holly Hunter. Collin has also worked on the Fox series The Lone Gunmen, and done other assignments for various studios. Collin lives in Silverlake with his finance and Greencard.- Writer
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Writer, director, and producer Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1970, to Anders Refn, a film director and editor, and Vibeke Winding (née Tuxen), a cinematographer. Just before he turned 11, in 1981, he moved to New York with his parents, where he lived out his teen years. New York quickly became his city and soon began to shape Nicolas' future.
At seventeen, Nicolas moved back to his native Copenhagen to complete his high-school Education. After graduation, he swiftly flew back to New York, where he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. However, this education was cut short when Nicolas threw a desk at a classroom wall and was expelled from the Academy. Consequently, he applied to the Danish Film School and was readily accepted. This education too was to be short-lived, though, as one month prior to the start of the semester, Nicolas dropped out.
A short film Nicolas had written, directed, and starred in was aired on an obscure cable TV channel and lead to the offer of a life-time. Nicolas was spotted and offered 3.2 million kroners to turn the short into a feature. At only twenty-four, Nicolas had written and directed the extremely violent and uncompromising Pusher (1996), which became a cult phenomenon and won Nicolas instant international critical acclaim. The success of his debut spurred him to push the boundaries of his creative filmmaking further, which resulted in the close-to-the-edge and intricately gritty Bleeder (1999). Highly stylized and focused on introverted reactions to outward situations, this film was a marking point for the shaping of Nicolas's future career. The movie was selected for the 1999 Venice International Film Festival as well as winning the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize in Sarajevo.
Nicolas's fourth feature, the much-anticipated Fear X (2003) was also his first foray into English-language movies. Starring the award-winning actor John Turturro, "Fear X" made its world premiere at the Sundance Film festival. However, Fear X divided critics and it flopped, which made Nicolas Winding Refn broke and in debt.
Having to provide for his family and paying his debt, he returned to Denmark to revisit "Pusher." Refn was reluctant to revisit his past success but decided that he could both make commercially viable and artistically pleasing films. In just two years he managed to write, direct and produce the two sequels. Pusher II (2004) and Pusher III (2005) sealed the box and success of the internationally renowned "Pusher" trilogy. In 2005, the Toronto Film Festival held a "Pusher" retrospective showing all three features cementing its worldwide phenomenon.
In 2006 Nicolas embarked on a second English-language (and first digital) feature called Valhalla Rising (2009), which was inspired by a story his mother read to him at the age of five about a father and son who embark on a trip to the moon. Not recalling the ending of this story has been a long time fascination of Nicolas's with the unknown. During the pre-production on "Valhalla Rising," his long time collaborator and friend, Rupert Preston, urged him into accepting an offer to write and direct Bronson (2008), an ultra-violent, surreal, and escapist film following the real-life landmarks and self-entrapment of Charles Bronson, Britain's most notorious criminal. Before its cinematic release, "Bronson" was making waves inside and outside the film industry. The 2009 Sundance Film Festival selected the blistering film for its World Cinema Dramatic Competition and it soon became the talk of the festival. With such a prestigious premiere, "Bronson" went on to be selected for other major international film festivals and reap strong box-office rewards. But, even with such a buzz surrounding the film, no one could predict how the British press would bite at "Bronson's" bit. The content was close to the knuckle, the subject matter controversial, but Nicolas's take on this was even more inspired leading him to be labeled by the British media as the next great European auteur.
With such critical acclaim, Nicolas's reputation as a producer, writer and director was solidly reaffirmed. Nicolas and his wife Liv Corfixen were the subjects of an acclaimed documentary, Gambler (2006), which premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2005. In addition, Nicolas already received two lifetime-achievement awards (one from the Taipei International Film festival in 2006 and the second from the Valencia International Film Festival in 2007), and it was the winner of the Emerging Master Award from the Philadelphia International Film Festival 2005.- Director
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Paul is a Bafta and Emmy nominated director known for Sherlock, Lucky Number Slevin, Inside Man and Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool. Born in Bellshill, Scotland he started his professional life as a photographer and then documentary filmmaker. His first film was Acid House in 1998 which is an adaptation of Irvine Welsh short stories collection.- Actor
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Dan Walechuk is known for Geeksters (2006), Automated Phone Sex (2003) and The Heart of the World (2000).- Director
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Julie Taymor is an Academy Award-nominated director, known for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007).
She was born on December 15, 1952, in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Her father, Melvin Lester Taymor, was a gynecologist. Her mother, Elizabeth Bernstein, was a teacher of political science. Young Taymor was fond of international folklore and mythology, and also developed a passion for theatre. She spent her formative years living in several countries. As a teenager, during the 1960s, she lived in Sri Lanka and India with the Experiment in International Living program, then studied acting in Paris, at the mime school of Jacques Lecoq. From 1969 to 1974, she studied theatre and mythology at Oberlin College, graduating in 1974 with a degree in folklore and mythology.
During the 1970s, Taymor lived in Japan, studying the art of puppetry and Japanese theatre. Then, she spent five years in Indonesia, working as director of international theatre with Asian, European, and American actors. Back in the USA, she worked on and off Broadway. There, she achieved her first success with staging a fairy tale, "The King Stag", and then toured 66 cities across the world, including Los Angeles, Venice, Tokyo, and Moscow.
In the 1990s, Taymor directed several classic operas. Her 1992 production of Igor Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" in Japan earned the Emmy Award. Then, she directed the 1993 production of "The Magic Flute" by 'Wolfgang Mozart', in Florence, with conductor Zubin Mehta, and the acclaimed 1994 production of "Salome" in St. Petersburg, Russia, with conductor Valery Gergiev.
In New York, she continued a stellar theatrical career, directing such productions as William Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" and "Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass" at the Lincoln Center. In 1997, Taymor directed a massive Walt Disney Company's production of "The Lion King" on Broadway, for which she also co-designed over a 100 costumes and masks of animals, and earned two Tony Awards.
Her film, Frida (2002), received six Oscar nominations, and two Oscars, for make-up and for the music score by Elliot Goldenthal. Taymor continued her success with the 2004 production of "The Magic Flute" at the Metropolitan Opera (which is now in repertoires at the Met), and the 2006 staging of "Grendel" at the Los Angeles Opera and, later, at the Linolcn Center Festival. Taymor's experience with cross-genre and cross-cultural productions came to culmination in her latest film, Across the Universe (2007). It is a musical set in the 1960s England, Vietnam, and America, where a love story and social protest are intertwined with over thirty songs by The Beatles.
Outside of her directing profession, Taymor amassed puppets, masks and folk art from around the world. As an artist, she has been involved in making puppets, masks, costumes and stage sets. Since 1980, Julie Taymor has been a long-time collaborator with the Oscar-winning composer, Elliot Goldenthal, and the couple lives in Manhattan.- Director
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Well known as an "actor's director", Don McCutcheon's talent at elevating performance is rooted in the theatre, while directing over 200 hours of television grants him the experience to creatively navigate the challenges of production. A team player, he's renowned for creating an atmosphere on set in which cast and crew members feel inspired to excel.
Having shot extensively throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe, his considerable body of work encompasses credits across multiple genres, including: Hallmark Channel's Crosswords Mysteries A Puzzle to Die For starring Lacey Chabert and Brennan Elliot, CW's Beauty and the Beast starring Kristin Kreuk, Corner Gas, Good Witch, and the world wide hit Murdoch Mysteries.
Acknowledged by his peers, for his distinct voice with nominations from the DGC Awards and the Canadian Comedy Awards, Don has also been awarded the distinguished Don Haldane Award from the Directors Guild of Canada.
Leveraging his extensive international contacts, Don is currently in development on the 6-part dramatic series, Bluebird, an adaptation of Governor General's Award-winning playwright Vern Thiessen's acclaimed play about a WW1 field nurse and the rarely told stories of the soldiers she cared for.
Don continues to amplify onscreen diversity through his pursuit of traditionally over-looked stories, deep character development, provocative visual storytelling.- Editor
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Ileana Pietrobruno is known for Cat Swallows Parakeet and Speaks! (1996), Girlfriend Experience (2008) and The Sisters of Gion (1987).- Actor
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David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father's path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent film-making and in Canadian television programs.
Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based Scanners (1981) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical The Brood (1979). Cronenberg become a sort of a mass media guru with Videodrome (1983), a shocking investigation of the hazards of reality-morphing television and a prophetic critique of contemporary aesthetics. The issues of tech-induced mutation of the human body and topics of the prominent dichotomy between body and mind were back again in The Dead Zone (1983) and The Fly (1986), both bright examples of a personal film-making identity, even if both films are based on mass-entertainment materials: the first being a rendition of a Stephen King best-seller, the latter a remake of a famous American horror movie.
With Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991), the Canadian director, no more a mere genre movie-maker but a fully realized auteur, got the acclaim of international critics. Such profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society are prominent in the provocative Crash (1996) and in the virtual reality essay of eXistenZ (1999), both of which well fared at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. In the last two film projects Spider (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), Cronenberg avoids expressing his teratologic and oneiric expressionism in favor of a more psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies.- Writer
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Don Mancini was born on 25 January 1963 in the USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Seed of Chucky (2004), Bride of Chucky (1998) and Child's Play (1988).- Director
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Takashi Shimizu was born on 27 July 1972 in Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Ju-on: The Grudge (2002), The Grudge (2004) and Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003).- Director
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Esterhazy began her film studies at the Winnipeg Film Group - the quirky cooperative which also produced filmmakers Guy Maddin and John Paizs. Esterhazy is a graduate of the Director's Lab at the Canadian Film Centre - the renowned film school founded by Norman Jewison. In 2017, Esterhazy was awarded the Amazon Filmmaker Award at Sundance Film Festival. She was awarded a Best Director award from both the Directors Guild of Canada and the Canadian Screen Awards for her television movie "I Was Lorena Bobbitt." She serves as Producing Director of the SyFy/Hulu series SurrealEstate.- Writer
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Raul Inglis was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He is known for Transparency (2010), Faithless (1998) and Vice (2008).- Theodore Dreiser was one of the great American writers, and a transitional figure between Victorian America and the "modern" age that was inaugurated after the cessation of hostilities after WWI and the publication of Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street" in 1920. A naturalist with a committed social conscience (Dreiser was a socialist in a time when socialists were an established third party and had many mayoral posts and seats in state legislatures before the post-WWI "Red Scare" wiped out socialism in the U.S.), Theodore Dreiser is a seminal figure in the evolution of American letters to a more mature literature.
Born on August 27, 1871 in Terre Haute, Indiana, he was the twelfth of thirteen children Born to John Paul & Sarah Dreiser, ten of whom survived infancy. Theordore's Dreiser's father, John, was a German immigrant and a strict Baptist. His mother Sarah came from a Mennonite community who later converted to Roman Catholicism. His older brother Paul Dresser became a famous songwriter.
Theodore Dreiser attended Indiana University from 1889 to 1890, but flunked out and became a journalist in Chicago and St. Louis. He married the former Sara White in 1898, but the marriage failed and they separated in 1909. Dreiser never divorced his wife.
His first novel "Sister Carrie" was published in 1900. It is considered a classic and a seminal piece of American literature. The publisher did not promote the novel, likely due to its controversial subject matter (adultery, extramarital sex), and the book sold poorly. He did not score a best-seller for a quarter-of-century, until "An American Tragedy" in 1925. (The novel was made into George Stevens 1951 masterpiece A Place in the Sun (1951).
Theodore Dreiser died on December 28, 1945, not long after he had joined the Communist Party, a move that Ernest Hemingway said was that of an old man trying to save his soul. - Director
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Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in Mittelbau-Dora, a sub camp of Buchenwald, and his mother died in Auschwitz, at which Milos became an orphan very early on. He studied screen-writing at the Prague Film Academy (F.A.M.U.). In his Czechoslovakian films, Black Peter (1964), Loves of a Blonde (1965), and The Firemen's Ball (1967), he created his own style of comedy. During the invasion of his country by the troops of the Warsaw pact in the summer of 1968, to stop the Prague spring, he left Europe for the United States. In spite of difficulties, he filmed Taking Off (1971) there and achieved his fame later with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) adapted from the novel of Ken Kesey, which won five Oscars, including one for best direction. Other important films of Milos Forman were the musical Hair (1979) and his biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amadeus (1984), which won eight Oscars.- Music Department
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John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky University and then USC film school in Los Angeles. He began making short films in 1962, and won an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Subject in 1970, for The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), which he made while at USC. Carpenter formed a band in the mid-1970s called The Coupe de Villes, which included future directors Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle. Since the 1970s, he has had numerous roles in the film industry including writer, actor, composer, producer, and director. After directing Dark Star (1974), he has helmed both classic horror films like Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and The Thing (1982), and noted sci-fi tales like Escape from New York (1981) and Starman (1984).- Writer
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Randall Wallace was born on 28 July 1949 in Jackson, Tennessee, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for We Were Soldiers (2002), Pearl Harbor (2001) and Braveheart (1995).- Producer
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Ryan Kyle Coogler is an African-American filmmaker and producer who is from Oakland, California. He is known for directing the Black Panther film series, Creed, a Rocky spin-off and Fruitvale Station. He frequently casts Michael B. Jordan in his works. He produced the Creed sequels, Judas and the Black Messiah and Space Jam: A New Legacy. He is married to Zinzi since 2016.- Director
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Charles Officer was born on 28 October 1975 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a director and actor, known for Akilla's Escape (2020), Unarmed Verses (2017) and Nurse.Fighter.Boy (2008). He died on 1 December 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Director
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Writer/Director Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University's graduate film program and a Sundance Screenwriting & Directing Lab Fellow.
In 2018, Dee became the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for her highly-acclaimed film Mudbound (2017). The film, starring Jason Mitchell, Carey Mulligan and Mary J. Blige, tells the story of two men returning home from World War II, struggling to deal with racism and post-war life and was nominated for four Oscars, two Golden Globes, and received over 100 nominations between 2017 and 2018.
Her 1980's political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted is an adaptation of the novel by Joan Didion and will star Anne Hathaway as hardened journalist Elena McMahon.
Dee's Emmy-Award winning HBO film Bessie (2015) starred Queen Latifah as the legendary American Blues singer and was nominated for a total of twelve Emmy Awards, including Dee's individual nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing For A Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special. Bessie was also nominated for four Critics' Choice Awards and Dee was the recipient of the 2016 Director's Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Miniseries as well as the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Television Movie.
Dee's debut feature film Pariah starring Adepero Oduye and Kim Wayans premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival where it was honored with the festival's U.S. Dramatic Competition "Excellence in Cinematography" Award and was later released by Focus Features. Pariah went on to win numerous awards including the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards (2011), the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Director (2011), Outstanding Film- Limited Release at the GLAAD Media Awards (2012) and it received seven NAACP Image Award nominations including Outstanding Motion Picture, Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing and won the award for Outstanding Independent Motion Picture. Pariah also earned Dee a spot on New York Times' 10 Directors to Watch list in 2013.
Previously, Dee was selected as a 2008 Tribeca Institute/Renew Media Arts Fellow and appeared on Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film that same year. She is a 2011 United States Artists Fellow and her notable residencies include Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony.
Dee Rees was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee and resides in New York.- Writer
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Susanna Fogel was born on 8 October 1980 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Booksmart (2019), The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) and The Flight Attendant (2020).- Producer
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Lena Waithe was born on 17 May 1984 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for Master of None (2015), Ready Player One (2018) and Queen & Slim (2019). She has been married to Alana Mayo since November 2019.- Director
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Kim Ji-woon was born in Seoul, South Korea. He began his career as an actor before becoming a stage director with productions such as "Hot Sea" in 1994 and "Movie, Movie" in 1995. He then began scripting for films, his first work, 97's "Wonderful Seasons" won Best Screenplay award at Korea's Premier Scenario contest, whilst his follow up The Quiet Family (1998) became not only his directorial debut, but also the source material for Takashi Miike's remake The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) in 2001.
With an official selection at the Berlin International Film Festival and Best Film award at the Fantasport Film Festival for "A Quiet Family", his next film, 2000's The Foul King (2000), was an instant domestic hit, maintaining the #1 spot for over 6 months, with over 2 million admissions, it was also a worldwide festival crowd-pleaser. The short Coming Out (2000) and his contribution to 3 Extremes II (2002) (alongside segments from Peter Ho-Sun Chan and Nonzee Nimibutr) followed and then he made the 2003 horror A Tale of Two Sisters (2003).
He is a fan of film-noir and claims that many of his films contain elements of noir, often mixed with black comedy. His movie A Bittersweet Life (2005) his full on film-noir gangster thriller masterwork.- Writer
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