MAKERS: A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act
Filmmakers whose work I'm experiencing during A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act #yfvba (May 4, 2013 - May 3, 2014). Watching an equal number of films by women directors and men directors over the course of a year.... focused on films from 2003 forward. Every day I watch at least one feature and one short. Occasionally the filmmakers whose work I see are not listed in IMDb, so the don't show up here. Visit http://olearysreellife.tumblr.com/ to follow along in more detail...
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Albert and Allen Hughes began making movies at age 12, but their formal film education began their freshman year of high school when Allen took a TV production class. They soon made a short film entitled How To Be A Burglar and people began to take notice. Their next work, Uncensored videos, was broadcast on cable, introducing them to a wider audience. After high school Albert began taking classes at LACC Film School: two shorts established the twins' reputation as innovative filmmakers and allowed them to direct Menace II Society (1993), which made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and grossed nearly 10 times as much as its $3 million budget. After following up with Dead Presidents (1995) they directed the feature-length documentary American Pimp (1999).02013.05.04: watched Broken City- Director
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Kazik Radwanski is known for Anne at 13,000 Ft. (2019), Princess Margaret Blvd. (2008) and Out in That Deep Blue Sea (2009).- Writer
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Akiva Schaffer was born on 1 December 1977 in Berkeley, California, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), Saturday Night Live (1975) and The Lego Movie (2014). He has been married to Liz Cackowski since 2010. They have two children.The Watch- Director
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Kelly Sears is known for The Lost Season (2024), Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise (2011) and Pattern for Survival (2015).Short: Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise- Writer
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Mateo Gil was born on 23 September 1972 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. He is a writer and director, known for Agora (2009), Open Your Eyes (1997) and The Sea Inside (2004).Blackthorn- Writer
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Jeff Nichols was born on 7 December 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Take Shelter (2011), Mud (2012) and Midnight Special (2016).Mud- Director
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Ariana Gerstein is known for Layette (2004).Short: Alice Sees the Light- Actress
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Helen Hunt began studying acting at the age of eight with her father, respected director and acting coach Gordon Hunt. A year later she made her professional debut and afterwards worked steadily in films, theatre and television.Then She Found Me- Director
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Eliza Hittman was born on 1 January 1979 in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), Beach Rats (2017) and It Felt Like Love (2013).Short: Forever's Gonna Start Tonight. It Felt Like Love.- Director
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Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context.
After studying law at St. Peter's College, Oxford, he branched out into the theater, performing with a touring repertory company. This led to television, where in alliance with producer Tony Garnett he produced a series of docudramas, most notably the devastating "Cathy Come Home" episode of The Wednesday Play (1964), whose impact was so massive that it led directly to a change in the homeless laws.
He made his feature debut Poor Cow (1967) the following year, and with Kes (1969), he produced what is now acclaimed as one of the finest films ever made in Britain. However, the following two decades saw his career in the doldrums with his films poorly distributed (despite the obvious quality of work such as The Gamekeeper (1968) and Looks and Smiles (1981)) and his TV work in some cases never broadcast (most notoriously, his documentaries on the 1984 miners' strike).
He made a spectacular comeback in the 1990s, with a series of award-winning films firmly establishing him in the pantheon of great European directors - his films have always been more popular in mainland Europe than in his native country or the US (where Riff-Raff (1991) was shown with subtitles because of the wide range of dialects). Hidden Agenda (1990) won the Special Jury Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival; Riff-Raff (1991) won the Felix award for Best European Film of 1992; Raining Stones (1993) won the Cannes Special Jury Prize for 1993, and Land and Freedom (1995) won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival - and was a substantial box-office hit in Spain where it sparked intense debate about its subject matter. This needless to say, was one of the reasons that Loach made the film!The Angels' Share, Looking for Eric- Producer
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Lorene Scafaria was born on 1 May 1978 in Holmdel, New Jersey, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for Hustlers (2019), Coherence (2013) and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012).Seeking a Friend for the End of the World- Producer
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An Apology to Elephants- Director
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Verena Paravel is known for The Fabric of the Human Body (2022), Leviathan (2012) and Caniba (2017).Foreign Parts- Cinematographer
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J.P. Sniadecki is known for El Mar La Mar (2017), Foreign Parts (2010) and The Iron Ministry (2014).Foreign Parts- Director
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Peter Weir was born on 21 August 1944 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a director and writer, known for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), The Way Back (2010) and Witness (1985). He has been married to Wendy Stites since 1966. They have two children.The Way Back- Director
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Mohammad Gorjestani is an Iranian-American Filmmaker based in San Francisco, CA. In 2013, he was named as one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film for his ITVS commissioned film, REFUGE. Starring Nikohl Boosheri, REFUGE screened at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival and was an official selection for the 2014 South by Southwest Film Festival.
He is also a recipient of the San Francisco Film Society's Kenneth Rainin Foundation (KRF) Filmmaking Grant for his feature film in development.
In 2015, he was selected as one of the residents at the San Francisco Film Society's FilmHouse.Short: Refuge (2X).- Producer
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After studying drama in the arts institute, Jean Pierre Dardenne and his brother Luc made some videos about the rough life in blue-collar small towns in the Wallonie. After their meeting with filmmaker Armad Gatti and cinematographer Ned Burgess, they decided to enter in the movie business.
In 1978 they shot their first documentary, Le chant du rossignol, about the resistance against the Nazis during the second world war in Belgium. In 1986 they shot their first fiction movie, Falsch, about a Jewish family massacred by the Nazis. After their second movie, Je pense a vous, they released La Promesse, a movie about inmigration in Belgium. The film was a success worldwide winning awards in many festivals.
In 1999 they had another hit with Rosetta, that won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival. The movie tells the story of a blue collar worker with an alcoholic mother who tries to have a better life in a small belgium city.
In 2002, they came back to Cannes with their last movie, Le Fils, that won the ecumenical jury prize and the award for best actor for Olivier Gourmet.The Kid with a Bike- Producer
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Luc Dardenne was born on 10 March 1954 in Awirs, Wallonia, Belgium. He is a producer and director, known for Two Days, One Night (2014), The Kid with a Bike (2011) and The Child (2005).The Kid with a Bike- Director
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Ursula Meier was born on 24 June 1971 in Besançon, Doubs, France. She is a director and writer, known for The Line (2022), Home (2008) and Sister (2012).Short: Sleepless. Feature: Home- Director
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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.Meek's Cutoff. Wendy and Lucy. Old Joy.- Director
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Christoph Schlingensief was born on 24 October 1960 in Oberhausen, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Menu total (1986), Egomania: Island Without Hope (1986) and 100 Jahre Adolf Hitler - Die letzte Stunde im Führerbunker (1989). He was married to Aino Laberenz. He died on 21 August 2010 in Berlin, Germany.Short: Mein 1. Film (1968)- Animation Department
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Luke Randall is an Australian writer, director and animator based in Los Angeles, California. His short films have won numerous film festival awards and struck a chord with audiences online.
In addition he was nominated for Australia's highest honor in filmmaking an AFI award and has created animation for many of Dreamworks Animation's feature films.Short: Reach- Producer
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Aideen O'Sullivan is known for Bye Bye Now (2009), Katie (2018) and When Ali Came to Ireland (2012).Short: Bye Bye Now- Producer
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Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of TV producer parents. At 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler's Nightbeast (1982). In his senior year of college, he and Jill Mazursky teamed up to write a feature film, which became Taking Care of Business (1990). He went on to write and produce Regarding Henry (1991) and Forever Young (1992). He also co-wrote Gone Fishin' (1997) with Mazursky. Along with other Sarah Lawrence alumni, he experimented with computer animation and was contracted to develop pre-production animation for Shrek (2001).
Abrams worked on the screenplay for Armageddon (1998) and co-created (as well as composing the opening theme of) Felicity (1998), which ran for four seasons. He founded the production company Bad Robot in 2001 with Bryan Burk. He created and executive-produced Alias (2001) and Lost (2004), composing the theme music for both, and co-writing episodes of "Lost". He also co-wrote and produced thriller Joy Ride (2001). He made his feature directing debut with Mission: Impossible III (2006), reinvigorating the series. He produced the hit mystery film Cloverfield (2008) and co-created Fringe (2008).
He directed the Star Trek (2009) reboot, proving successful with fans and newcomers to the franchise. He next directed Super 8 (2011), co-produced by Steven Spielberg and produced Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). He returned to direct the follow-up to his reboot, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Disney and Lucasfilm announced J.J. as their choice for director of the first episode in the new 'Star Wars' trilogy, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015). He initially resisted, as he didn't want to travel away from his family to London, but Kathleen Kennedy convinced him that his voice would be the best to reinvigorate this franchise, as he had done with two others before. He also produced Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) and Star Trek Beyond (2016), and executive-produced Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017). When it was announced that Colin Trevorrow would no longer direct Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019), it was announced that J.J. would return to complete the trilogy he started.Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek (2009). Mission Impossible III- Cinematographer
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Guy Thys is known for Tanghi argentini (2006), The 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films: Live Action (2008) and Spoed (2000).Short: Tanghi Argentini- Director
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The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the gravity and gift of foreignness. Often revolving around reactions to the intrusion of the other, be it a stranger or foreigner, Denis' films insist on the vital necessity of the unusual to coexist within the "normal" world. In films such as I Can't Sleep (1994) and Nénette and Boni (1996), Denis captures the mercurial and instant shifts in tone, from the pleasurably sensual to the menacing or the simply unaccountable, caused by the intrusion of the strange into the fabric of the everyday. In Denis' films one often feels that all is well even as worlds collide and collapse or, conversely, that a grave challenge underlies the seemingly calm moments. While Denis' childhood in French colonial Africa is reflected most directly in the African setting shared by her debut feature Chocolat (1988) and best-known film, Beau Travail (1999), this encounter with the intimacies and injustices of colonialism resounds throughout much of her work. Also shaping Denis' unique vision are the apprenticeships she served, just out of film school, under a variety of renowned directors, including Jacques Rivette, Wim Wenders, Dusan Makavejev and Jim Jarmusch - an eclectic company that is itself suggestive of the unique juxtaposition of careful craft and seeming casualness within Denis' work. Denis has often spoken of her shock as a young woman at discovering the novels of Faulkner that have exerted such a major influence over postwar French cinema. For Denis, Faulkner "was a plunge into the senses, into terror and the pain of his characters." These words describe Denis' films as well. But whatever terror and pain her characters may sometimes experience is outmeasured by the depths of Denis' deep affection for them and by her curiosity in their experiences of pleasure as well as fear. Even in the unsettling Trouble Every Day (2001), the not-infrequent catastrophes in Denis' films provoke a sense of wonder at, and even delight in, the sheer weight of existence.35 Shots of Rum- Producer
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Linda Goldstein Knowlton is known for We Are the Radical Monarchs (2019), Somewhere Between (2011) and Whale Rider (2002).Somewhere Between- Director
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Christina Choe is an American filmmaker whose 2011 short film, I am John Wayne, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance Film Festival and screened at dozens of festivals around the world. Choe's documentary series Welcome to the DPRK, a personal portrait of North Korea, was recently acquired and released by First Look Media. Her feature film debut, Nancy, a psychodrama starring Andrea Riseborough, J. Smith-Cameron, Ann Dowd, John Leguizamo, and Steve Buscemi, recently had its world premiere in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where Choe was awarded the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Here Choe discusses the various hurdles she faced in getting a feature film made, the people skills involved in working with actors, and the irrational amounts of perseverance generally necessary to make a movie.Short: The Queen- Actress
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Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her sensitive portraits of wounded and conflicted young women in independent films.
She was born into a show business family: her stepfather, Michael Polley, appeared with her in the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and on the television series Avonlea (1990); and her mother, Diane Polley, was an actress and casting director. It was her mother's connections that launched Sarah, at her own insistence, on an acting career at the age of four, following in the footsteps of her older half-brother Mark Polley. A second half-brother, John Buchan, is a casting director and producer.
Her career as a child actress shifted into high gear when she was cast as the Cockney waif Jody Turner in Lantern Hill (1989), for which she won a Gemini Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy, in 1992. Produced by Kevin Sullivan, the film was based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables (1985). When Sullivan created a television series based on Montgomery's work, he cast Polley in the lead role of Sara Stanley in Avonlea (1990). The series propelled Polley into the first rank of Canadian TV stars and made her independently wealthy by the age of fourteen.
Her personal life was deeply affected by the death of her mother Diane from cancer shortly after her 11th birthday, a development that ironically paralleled the fictional life of her character Sara. Highly intelligent and politically progressive at a young age, Polley eventually rebelled against what she felt was the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the US, eventually dropping out of the show. Though she does not blame her parents, she remains publicly disenchanted over the loss of her childhood and, in October 2003, said she is working on a script about a twelve-year-old girl on a TV show.
Polley, who picked up a second Gemini Award for her performance in the TV series Straight Up (1996), subsequently quit acting and high school to turn her attention to politics, positioning herself on the extreme left of Canada's left-of-center New Democratic Party. The publicity ensuing from her losing some teeth after being slugged by an Ontario policeman during a protest against the Conservative provincial government, plus the stinging cynicism from some other activists unimpressed by her celebrity, led her to lower her political profile temporarily and return to acting in Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter (1997). It was her appearance as Nicole, the teenage girl injured in a school bus accident who serves as the conscience of the small town rent by the tragedy, that first brought her to the attention of critics in the US. In Canada, the role was heralded by critics as her successful breakthrough to adult roles. It was her second film with Egoyan, who wrote the part with her in mind when he adapted the novel by Russell Banks, who, ironically, is American. Predictions of an Academy Award nomination and future stardom were part of the critical consensus, and she received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada's Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics. It was the buzz created at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere (1999) was showcased, when the entertainment media crowned her the it-girl of 1999.
Intensely private and extremely ambivalent about the personal cost of celebrity and the Hollywood ethos Fame is the Name of the Game, Polley could be seen as rebelling against the expectations of mainstream cinema when she embarked on a career path that took her out of the spotlight thrown by the harsh lights of the Hollywood hype/publicity machine after shooting the film Go (1999). She dropped out of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), the US$60 million mega-hyped vehicle that was supposed to make her a mainstream star in the US, choosing to return to Canada to make the CDN$1.5 million The Law of Enclosures (2000) for Genie Award-winner John Greyson, a director she admires greatly. The film grossed poorly in Canada and was not released in the US, but it did garner Polley her second Genie nomination for Best Actress. While her replacement in Almost Famous (2000) went on to win an Oscar nomination and a career above the title in glossy Hollywood films, she took a wide variety of parts, large and small, in independent films, including significant roles in the ensemble pieces The Claim (2000) and The Weight of Water (2000); bit parts in eXistenZ (1999) and Love Come Down (2000); and the lead in No Such Thing (2001). Her choice of projects showed her to be a questing spirit more focused on learning the art of her craft than on stardom.
She has said that her choice of film roles, eschewing mainstream Hollywood movies for chancier, non-commercial independent fare, was the result of an ethical decision on her part to make films with social importance. A less-observant viewer might think that the rebel Polley played in her political life that had previously manifested itself in her profession was now driving her to the verge of career suicide in terms of popularity, marketability, and choice of future roles. However, that interpretation does not recognize the extraordinary talent that will always keep her in demand by directors, if not casting agents, with an eye on the opening weekend box office. One must understand Polley's career progression in light of her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre's directors program and her production of short films, including Don't Think Twice (1999) and the highly praised I Shout Love (2001). Polley is a cinema artist. This woman wants to make, and will make films. Thus, we can understand her career choices as a desire to work with and understand the technique of some of the best directors in film, including David Cronenberg, Michael Winterbottom, and Hal Hartley.
Polley is as renowned for her intelligence as for her remarkable talent. The problem of the intelligent person in the acting field is that the actor, as artist, in not ultimately in control of their medium, and it is artistic control that is the hallmark of the great artist. The controlling intelligence on a movie set is the director, and her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre has given her a new perspective on acting. The actor, she says, should not try to give a complete performance for the camera (that is, control the representation on film) but must remember that the function of the actor is to give the director as much coverage as possible as a film, as well as a performance, is made in the editing room. According to Polley, this realization, that the film actor exists to serve the director, has given her new enthusiasm for acting. Thus, her career, and her career choices, can be seen as a quest for knowledge about the art of cinema, a journey whose fruition we will see in her future feature work as both actor and director.Take This Waltz. Stories We Tell.- Director
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Jamie Stuart is known for A Motion Selfie (2018) and Idiot with a Tripod (2010).Short: Idiot with a Tripod- Director
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Phie Ambo (born 1973) was trained at the National Film School of Denmark, graduating as a documentary film director in 2003. Famous for her feature length documentary films true to the tradition of poetic, personal and cinematic language, Ambo deals with essential topics such as family relations, love, creative processes and artificial life.
Phie Ambo has directed a number of award-winning films for the cinema, including major works such as Family (2001), Gambler (2005) and Mechanical Love (2007).
In recent years Ambo has been especially interested in pursuing work of a more thematic nature, and this in the form of a trilogy focusing on the relation between science and human existence. In Mechanical Love (2007) which traveled widely on the international festival circuit, Ambo explored the relationship between human beings and robots and the nature of emotion itself. Released in 2012, Free the Mind deals with the impact that thoughts have on both the mind and the body. The last film in the trilogy, Ripples at the Shore, is about consciousness and is scheduled for release in 2014.Gambler, Free the Mind- Director
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Samuel Tourneux is known for Even Pigeons Go to Heaven (2007), Around the World in 80 Days (2021) and The 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films: Animation (2008).Short: Even Pigeons Go to Heaven- Director
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Lynne Ramsay was born on 5 December 1969 in Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland, UK. She is a director and writer, known for You Were Never Really Here (2017), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and Ratcatcher (1999). She was previously married to Rory Stewart Kinnear.Short: Swimmer- Director
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Maria Demopoulos is known for The Source Family (2012) and Great Directors (2009).The Source Family- Director
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Jodi Wille is known for The Source Family (2012), Welcome Space Brothers (2023) and Goodbye Lover (1998). She was previously married to Adam Parfrey.The Source Family- Producer
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Alex Stapleton is known for Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011), The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004) and Shut Up and Dribble (2018).Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel- Producer
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Kat Candler was born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She is a producer and director, known for Hellion (2014), Queen Sugar (2016) and Sorry for Your Loss (2018).Short: Love Bug- Director
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Accomplished Film Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair was born in India and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard. She began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing award-winning documentaries, including So Far From India and India Cabaret. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988; it won the Camera D'Or (for best first feature) and the Prix du Publique (for most popular entry) at the Cannes Film Festival and 25 other international awards. Her next film, Mississippi Masala, an interracial love story set in the American South and Uganda, starring Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury, won three awards at the Venice Film Festival including Best Screenplay and The Audience Choice Award. Subsequent films include The Perez Family (with Marisa Tomei, Anjelica Huston, Alfred Molina and Chazz Palminteri), about an exiled Cuban family in Miami; and the sensuous Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, which she directed and co-wrote. Nair directed My Own Country based on Dr. Abraham Verghese's best-selling memoir about a young immigrant doctor dealing with the AIDS epidemic. Made in 1998, My Own Country starred Naveen Andrews, Glenne Headly, Marisa Tomei, Swoosie Kurtz, and Hal Holbrook, and was awarded the NAACP award for best fiction feature. Nair returned to the documentary form in August 1999 with The Laughing Club of India, which was awarded The Special Jury Prize in the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels 2000. In the summer of 2000, Nair shot Monsoon Wedding in 30 days, a story of a Punjabi wedding starring Naseeruddin Shah and an ensemble of Indian actors. Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Film Festival, Monsoon Wedding also won a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and opened worldwide to tremendous critical and commercial acclaim. Nair's next feature was an HBO original film, Hysterical Blindness. Set in working class New Jersey in 1987, the film stars Uma Thurman, Juliette Lewis, Gena Rowlands. Thurman and Lewis play single women looking for love in all the wrong places, while Rowlands, who plays Thurman's mother, adds to her daughter's hysteria when she finds Mr. Right in Ben Gazarra. The film received great critical acclaim and the highest ratings for HBO, garnering an audience of 15 million, a Golden Globe for Uma Thurman, and 3 Emmy Awards. Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Nair joined a group of 11 renowned filmmakers, each commissioned to direct a film that was 11 minutes, 9 seconds and one frame long. Nair's film is a retelling of real events in the life of the Hamdani family in Queens, whose eldest son was missing after September 11, and was then accused by the media of being a terrorist. 11.09.01 is the true story of a mother's search for her son who did not return home on that fateful day. In May 2003, Nair helmed the Focus Features production of the Thackeray classic, Vanity Fair, a provocative period tale set in post-colonial England, in which Reese Witherspoon plays the lead, Becky Sharp. The film is scheduled to release in Fall 2004. Nair's upcoming projects include Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul for HBO, and Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist, and there are also plans to take Monsoon Wedding to Broadway. Mirabai Films is establishing an annual filmmaker's laboratory, Maisha, which will be dedicated to the support of visionary screenwriters and directors in East Africa and India. The first lab, which is only for screenwriters, will be launched in August 2005 in Kampala, Uganda.The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Amelia.- Actress
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Born in Madrid, Iciar Bollain has worked as an actress in films such El Sur (1983), directed by Víctor Erice; Sublet (1991) directed by Chus Gutiérrez, Malaventura (1988) directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón; El Mejor de los Tiempos (1990) and Un Paraguas para Tres (1992) directed by Felipe Vega, Tierra y Libertad (1995) directed by Ken Loach, LEO (2000) directed by Jose Luis Borau, Nos Miran (2002) directed by Norberto Pérez, La Balsa de Piedra (2003) directed by Geogre Sluiezer and La Noche del Hermano (2005) directed by Santiago García de Leániz. As a director, Icíar has written and directed many renowned films. Flowers from Another World, her second film, was awarded at Cannes Film Festival in 1999 (Best Film in the International Critics' Week). Take my eyes (2003), her following film as writer and director, won 7 Goyas (Spanish Academy Awards), including Best Film, among many other international awards. She directed a script by Paul Laverty in 2009, Even the Rain. The film obtained national and international recognition: 13 nominations to the Goya Awards, Panorama Award at the Berlinale, Ariel Award to best Latin-American film and it was in the short list of the foreign films selected for the Academy Awards in 2010 representing Spain. In 2011 she directed and co-wrote Katmandú, un Espejo en el Cielo. The film was nominated to the Goya Awads in the categories of Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014 it was released En Tierra Extraña, a documentary that Iciar directed about the life of young Spanish immigrants in Edinburgh, Scotland, who had to leave Spain due to recession and unemployment Iciar Bollain is currently in pre-production of his next film, The Olive Tree, a new collaboration with the writer Paul Laverty and Morena Films. The film will start principal photography in May 2015.Even the Rain- Camera and Electrical Department
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Jon Shenk is known for Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999), Lost Boys of Sudan (2003) and The Island President (2011).- Producer
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Jay Roach was born on 14 June 1957 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Trumbo (2015), Bombshell (2019) and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). He has been married to Susanna Hoffs since 17 April 1993. They have two children.The Campaign- Producer
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Justin Lin is a Taiwanese-American film director whose films have grossed $2 billion worldwide. He is best known for his work on Better Luck Tomorrow, The Fast and the Furious 3-6 and Star Trek Beyond. He is also known for his work on television shows like Community and the second season of True Detective. Lin was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Cypress, California, in Orange County. He attended Cypress High School and University of California, San Diego for two years before transferring to UCLA, where he earned a B.A. in Film & Television and a MFA in Film Directing & Production from the UCLA film school.Fast and Furious 6- Director
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Andrea Dorfman was born on 29 October 1968 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is a director and writer, known for Parsley Days (2000), There's a Flower in My Pedal (2004) and Flawed (2009).Short: There's a Flower in My Pedal, Tilting Quilting- Director
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Italian American documentary filmmaker, photographer and flamenco guitar player. Born in Thailand and raised in Rome and Los Angeles. Son of Dado Ruspoli and Debra Berger. B.A. in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley. Founder of The Los Angeles Filmmakers' Cooperative (LAFCO). Formerly married to actress Olivia Wilde. Based in Venice, California.Short: Stone Fridge, Short: Burning Man 2008- Writer
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New Zealand-born screenwriter-director Andrew Niccol began his career in London, successfully directing TV commercials before moving to Los Angeles in order to make films "longer than 60 seconds." He interested high-powered producer Scott Rudin in his The Truman Show (1998) script, but Rudin was not willing to gamble on a rookie director, particularly when Jim Carrey came aboard, swelling the budget to about $60 million. Peter Weir helmed instead, bringing a complementary vision which lightened the material somewhat, and the clever satire, which followed a cheerful insurance man (Carrey) as he slowly realizes that all the people in his life are just actors in a TV show, opened to critical raves. Since the deal for "Truman" came together slowly, Niccol actually made his screenwriting and directing debut with Gattaca (1997) (1997), a superb, well-acted sci-fi movie that raised issues of genetic engineering in a totalitarian environment.Lord of War- Director
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Alix Lambert's feature length documentary The Mark of Cain was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, received an honorable mention from the French Association of Journalism, and aired on Nightline. She went on to produce additional segments of Nightline as well as 7 segments for the PBS series LIFE 360. She has directed and produced two other feature length documentaries; Bayou Blue (made in collaboration with David McMahon) and Mentor. She is currently directing the feature length documentary, Goodbye, Fat Larry. She has directed numerous shorts and music videos including You As You Were for the band Shearwater (Sub Pop) and Tiffany (POV). Lambert has written for a number of magazines including Stop Smiling, ArtForum, The LA Weekly, and Filmmaker Magazine, to name a few. She wrote Episode 6, season 3 of Deadwood: "A Rich Find" (for which she was nominated for a WGA award) and was a staff writer and associate producer on John From Cinicinnati. She was a writer on the video game Syndicate. As an artist Lambert has exhibited her work to international critical acclaim, showing in The Venice Biennale, The Museum of Modern Art, The Georges Pompidou Center, and the Kwangju Biennnale, to name a few. She is the author of four books: Mastering The Melon, The Silencing, Russian Prison Tattoos, and Crime. For theater, she has written and directed Crime, USA, which has been staged at Joe's Pub in NYC, and the Cairns Festival in Australia and Crime, USA, Hartford, which was staged at Real Art Ways. Lambert co-founded and is co-artistic director of The Brooklyn International Theater Company (with Nelson George and Danny Simmons). She has conceived of and directed two original series for MOCAtv; Crime: The Animated Series and Ambiance Man. Additionally she conceived of and directed the forthcoming Prison Zoo. She produced a segment for This American Life, and is in production on a segment for the podcast series: Theory of Everything. She has received grants from the NEA, NYFA and The Roberts Foundation. Lambert has received residencies and/or fellowships from: The MacDowell Colony, Headlands, The Studios of Key West, The McColl Center, The MIT Media Lab in Cambridge and was The Booth Tarkington Writer in Residence at Butler University for the 2014-15 school year. Hello Fat Larry, won the 2015 POV Hackathon Judges' Award.Short: Shearwater: You As You Were. Bayou Blue. Short: Crime: Joe Loyola: The Beirut Bandit- Director
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Ghana born John Akomfrah is known for his experimental documentaries and video installations on the subjects of race, migration, and slavery in the encounters between European colonisers and African subjects.In the 1980s working in London, he helped found the Black Audio Film Collective and later set up the Smoking Dogs production company. His cinematic influences include Carl Dreyer and Sergei Eisenstein.The Nine Muses- Producer
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David McMahon is known for Skanks (2014), Bayou Blue (2011) and Skanks in a One Horse Town Live! (2014).Bayou Blue- Writer
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Olivier Assayas is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is best know for his films Demonlover (2002), Something in the Air (2012), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and Personal Shopper (2016).
Assayas is the son of French director/screenwriter Raymond Assayas, alias Jacques Rémy.
His directorial debut was in the short film Copyright (1979).Something in the Air- Animation Department
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Pepita Ferrari was a director and writer, known for The Unsexing of Emma Edmonds (2004), Canticum Canticorum (2006) and The Petticoat Expeditions (1997). She died on 30 December 2018 in Lac Brome, Québec, Canada.Capturing Reality & Short: Source- Writer
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Jasmila Zbanic was born on 19 December 1974 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia. She is a writer and director, known for Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020), Grbavica (2006) and Na putu (2010). She is married to Damir Ibrahimovic. They have one child.Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams- Director
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Casey Donahue is known for Disconnected (2015), Our RoboCop Remake (2014) and Then the Letting Go (2017).Short: A Short Story About Hands- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
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Julie Aguttes is known for Trois soeurs (2014), Un long cri mêlé à celui du vent (2010) and Disengagement (2007).Short: A Long Cry Along with the Wind's- Director
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Caroline Strubbe is known for Lost Persons Area (2009), I'm the Same, I'm an Other (2013) and Une mouche dans la salade (1988).Lost Persons Area- Director
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Khavn was born on 23 December 1973 in the Philippines. He is a director and writer, known for Mondomanila, or: How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey (2012), Balangiga: Howling Wilderness (2017) and EDSA XXX: Nothing Ever Changes in the Ever-Changing Republic of Ek-Ek-Ek (2014).Short: Can and Slipper- Director
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Bruce Beresford was born in Australia and graduated from Sydney University in 1962. He served as Film Officer for the British Film Institute Production Board from 1966-1971 and as a Film Advisor to the Arts Council of Great Britain. Beresford has also directed several operas including Girl Of The Golden West (Puccini), staged for the Spoleto Festival in Charleston and Spoleto (Italy) and Elektra (Strauss), which was staged for the State Opera Company of South Australia and performed in Adelaide and Melbourne. It won the Award for Best Opera Production of 1991. Immediately prior to starting production on PARADISE ROAD, Beresford directed SWEENEY TODD for the Portland Opera in Oregon.Mao's Last Dancer. The Contract.- Director
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Tereza Reichová is known for Manual on How to Create a Terrorist (2010), Circle: Portrait of a Demonstration (2009) and Epidemie svobody (2017).Short: Experiences for Sale // ZÁŽITKY NA PRODEJ- Director
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Vincent Ward has produced, executive produced and/or written and directed feature films including What Dreams May Come (Which won an Oscar and was nominated for 2 Academy Awards), The River Queen (Won best film in Shanghai) and The Last Samurai (4 Academy Award nominations and winner of Best Foreign Film in Japan) developing the underlying material he chose the director, before acting as an executive producer on this film. Ward's films have earned critical acclaim and festival attention whilst achieving a wide, eclectic audience. Vigil (1984), The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988) and Map of the Human Heart (1993) were the first films by a New Zealander to be officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between them they garnered close to 30 national and international awards (including the Grand Prix at festivals in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United States). His latest feature film Rain of the Children (2008) was voted by the audience, from 250 feature films, to win the Grand Prix at Poland's largest film festival. The film was also nominated for best director in New Zealand and Australia. Ward was awarded an Order of New Zealand Merit in 2007 and is in the process of actively searching for material for new projects.Rain of the Children- Camera and Electrical Department
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Vanessa Gould was born on 30 January 1974 in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Between the Folds (2008), Obit. (2016) and Independent Lens (1999).Between the Folds- Composer
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Writer-director Shane Carruth, a former software engineer, burst onto the independent movie scene with his extremely low-budget science-fiction film Primer (2004) in 2004. Carruth also played one of the two leads in the film and composed its music. "Primer" won the Grand Jury Prize and the Alfred P. Sloan Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 1972, Carruth studied mathematics in college and became a flight simulation software developer before making his first movie. Carruth then spent the next eight years developing "A Topiary", another science-fiction film. The movie was never made and Carruth said that "I basically wasted my whole life on" the project.
Carruth finally made a second film, Upstream Color (2013), which was released in 2013 after debuting at the Sundance Film Festival. He is working on his third film, "The Modern Ocean".Upstream Color- Director
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Aurélie Bonamy is known for Logoden (2012) and La Séquence du Filmeur (2018).Short: Logoden- Writer
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Alice Winocour was born on 13 January 1976 in Paris, France. She is a writer and director, known for Mustang (2015), Proxima (2019) and Disorder (2015).Augustine- Animation Department
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Joanna Priestley has directed, animated and produced 32 films, including the abstract animated feature, North of Blue, and Clam Bake, an iOS app. She has been called "The queen of independent animation!" by Justin Johnson, British Film Institute. Her work maintains a high level of porosity between serious exploration of boundaries and intuitive whimsy and she is dedicated to experimentation in technique, theme and content. Priestley has had retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Center for Contemporary Art (Warsaw, Poland), British Film Institute (London), American Cinematheque (Los Angeles, CA), Hiroshima Animation Festival (Japan), Jenju International Film Festival (Korea), Stuttgart Animation Festival (Germany) and Fantoche International Animation Festival (Baden, Switzerland) and she has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, the MacDowell Colony, Fundación Valparaíso and Creative Capital. Priestley was founding president of ASIFA Northwest and has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1992, where she annually juries the Academy Awards, Student Academy Awards and the Nicholl Screenplay Fellowships.
Priestley's work has been shown on both PBS and the BBC and she has directed "Sesame Street" films and segments of music videos for Tears for Fears ("Sowing the Seeds of Love") and Joni Mitchell ("Good Friends"). Priestley is the founding president of ASIFA-Northwest, and she runs an apprenticeship program through her studio in Portland, Oregon. Her teaching credentials include instructor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Northwest Film Center/Portland Art Museum and Volda University College (Høgskulen i Volda, Norway). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, Creative Capital (New York, NY) and the Regional Arts and Culture Council (Portland, OR). Priestley studied painting and printmaking at Rhode Island School of Design and at UC Berkeley, where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honors. Priestley also attended California Institute of the Arts where she received an MFA Degree and the Louis B. Mayer Award. She also enjoys medicinal herbalism, gardening and Burning Man.Short: Kali Yuga- Writer
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Writer/director Lone Scherfig graduated from The National Film School of Denmark in 1984. Her first feature film, THE BIRTHDAY TRIP (1990), was selected for Panorama in Berlin, the New Directors section at MOMA in New York and won the Grand Jury Prix in Rouen. Her next film, ON OUR OWN (1998), received the Grand Prix in Montreal and the Cinekid Prize in Amsterdam. Scherfig then wrote and directed ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS (2000; the Danish 'Dogma' #5), which was a huge audience hit and won her the Silver Bear and the international film critics' award FIPRESCI at the 2001 Berlinale, plus numerous other awards around the world.
Scherfig's first English-language feature, WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF (2002), toured the festival circuit and brought home awards from e.g. France, the US and Japan. Her next production, AN EDUCATION (2009), won the Audience Award at Sundance and was nominated for three Oscars and eight BAFTAs. Scherfig has since directed three British films, i.e. ONE DAY (2011), THE RIOT CLUB (2014) and THEIR FINEST (2016) which premiered at TIFF in 2016 and screened in Sundance and London as the Mayor's gala. In 2019, Lone Scherfig's The Kindness of Strangers opened and was in competition at Berlin International Film Festival.
In between features Scherfig has directed a range of TV-series, including TAXA (1997), QUIET WATERS (1999), BETTER TIMES (2004) and, most recently, THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB (2015; conceptualised by Scherfig).One Day- Producer
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Dori is a five-time Tony-winning Broadway producer, Olivier winner and an Emmy-award-winning director, producer and writer of film and television. Dori is a Producer on Ryan Murphy's Netflix adaptation of Dori's Broadway Musical "The Prom". Dori's recent work as a documentary filmmaker include "The Show Must Go On", "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love", "Carol Channing: Larger Than Live", "ShowBusiness: The Road To Broadway", "Gotta Dance" and "The Last Blintz". Broadway Shows produced include: "Company", "Dana H", Is This A Room", "The Prom", "Legally Blonde", "Thoroughly Modern Millie", "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "Fool Moon". Dori is Co-Founder & CEO of the Broadway Podcast Network. Home to over 150 podcasts, audio dramas, soap operas and game shows. BPN is Broadway's new all-access digital destination for all things theatre. Dori is the recipient of Broadway's Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theatre Producing and the Jacob Burns Media Film Center's Visionary Award. Dori executive produced and/or supervised over 100 feature, special f/x and/or animated productions, including Isaac Mizrahi's "Unzipped", "Dirty Dancing" and Jim Henson's "MuppetVision 3-D" for Walt Disney Imagineering and she has worked as a Producer and/or an Executive for DreamWorks Animation, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, NBC, MTV,Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, Oxygen Media, Vestron Pictures, and Walt Disney Imagineering. Dori began her career as an M&A Investment Banker at Morgan Stanley.Carol Channing Larger Than Life. Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love.- Actress
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Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the First Partner of California, is a filmmaker, advocate, and thought leader. After graduating with honors from Stanford University and Stanford's Graduate School of Business, she wrote, directed, and produced the 2011 award-winning documentary Miss Representation (2011). Miss Representation made its national broadcast debut on OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network on October 20th, 2011. As a result of Miss Representation's impact, she launched The Representation Project, a nonprofit organization that uses film and media as a catalyst for cultural transformation. Siebel Newsom is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Girls Club Entertainment, LLC, a film production company established to develop independent films focused primarily on empowering women. Her second film as a director, The Mask You Live In (2015), premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and explores how America's narrow definition of masculinity is harming boys, men, and society at large. Her third film, The Great American Lie (2020), explores the underlying cultural causes of inequality in America. She also executive produced the Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated documentary The Invisible War (2012) and was an executive producer on the Emmy Award-winning documentary The Hunting Ground (2015). She has also served as a global advisory board member of the Dove Self Esteem Project, a co-chair of We Day California, a commissioner on the Girl Scouts' Healthy Media Commission, and currently serves on the advisory council for the Imagine Kids Bus Project. As an actress, Newsom appeared in numerous films and television shows including In the Valley of Elah (2007), Something's Gotta Give (2003), Rent (2005), Life (2007), Mad Men (2007), The Nanny Express (2008), Trauma (2009), and Numb3rs (2005). She lives in Sacramento, California with her husband, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and their four young children. Current as of June 2019Miss Representation- Director
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András Szirtes was born on 6 July 1951 in Budapest, Hungary. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Lenz (1987), Forradalom után (1990) and Napló No. 1-8 (1984). He died on 28 September 2023 in Hungary.Short: Birds || Madarak- Director
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Gyula Nemes was born in 1974 in Vác, Hungary. He is a director and writer, known for Zero (2015), Letünt világ (2008) and Negatív magyar filmtörténet (2010).Short: Fugue- Director
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Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), based on a Teru Miyamoto novel and drawn from his own experiences while filming August Without Him (1994), won jury prizes at Venice and Chicago. The main themes of his oeuvre include memory, loss, death and the intersection of documentary and fictive narratives.Nobody Knows. Still Walking.- Director
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Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.The Beaches of Agnes. Short: Le Lion Volatil.- Director
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Kirby Dick is a two time Emmy-award winning and two-time Academy award-nominated documentary film director. His most recent film, The Hunting Ground (2015), a monumental exposé about sexual assault on college campuses, premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, was released by Radius/The Weinstein Company and CNN, is the 2016 recipient of the Producer Guild of America's Stanley Kramer award, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. His previous film, The Invisible War (2012), a groundbreaking investigation into the epidemic of rape within the US military, won two Emmy Awards for Best Documentary and Outstanding Investigative Journalism, the 2012 Independent Spirit Award 2012 for Best Documentary, a Peabody Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He also directed Twist of Faith (2004), the story of a man confronting the trauma of his past sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, which was also nominated for an Academy Award. Other films include Outrage (2009), nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006), a breakthrough investigation of the MPAA's secretive film ratings system, and Derrida (2002), a complex portrait of the world-renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida. He is the 2012 recipient of the Nestor Almendros Prize for Courage and Filmmaking and the 2013 Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize.Outrage- Director
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Sergei Loznitsa, Ukrainian film maker, was born on September, 5th 1964 in Baranovichi, USSR. He grew up in Kiev, and in 1987 graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic with a degree in Applied Mathematics. In 1987-1991 Sergei worked as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, specializing in artificial intelligence research. He also worked as a translator from Japanese. In 1997 Loznitsa graduated from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, where he studied feature film making. Loznitsa has been making documentary films since 1996 and is the author of 21 documentaries, as well as 4 feature films. In 2013 Sergei Loznitsa launched a film production and distribution company ATOMS & VOID. Currently working in both documentary and feature genres.Short: Letter || Pismo- Director
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John Gianvito is known for Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007), The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein (2001) and Her Socialist Smile (2020).Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind- Writer
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Born in Brooklyn in 1969 Noah Baumbach is the son of two film critics, Georgia Brown and Jonathan Baumbach (also a writer). His studies at Vassar College were the subject of his first film (made as he was 26 years old), Kicking and Screaming (1995). His second major picture, made ten years later, The Squid and the Whale (2005) was no less autobiographical but went back further in his personal history, back to the time when his parents separated. Recounting this past trauma and its aftermath earned Noah a selection at the Sundance Film Festival, three Golden Globe nominations and a best screenplay Oscar nomination. From then on his career was launched and his output became more regular with Margot at the Wedding (2007) starring Nicole Kidman and his wife Jennifer Jason Leigh, Greenberg (2010), filmed in Los Angeles, with Ben Stiller and Greta Gerwig. Back in New york, where he lives, he was the director (and co-author with his main actress, Greta Gerwig) of the bittersweet art house success Frances Ha (2012). Besides directing films, he also co-writes some with Wes Anderson, a good friend of his, and is the author of humor columns in the New Yorker.Frances Ha- 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.Before Midnight- Director
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Agnès Merlet was born on 4 January 1959. She is a director and writer, known for The Son of the Shark (1993), Artemisia (1997) and Poussière d'étoiles (1986).Dorothy Mills- Cinematographer
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Born in Buenos Aires on November 4th 1966, Juan Diego Solanas is the son of one of Argentina's most important directors, Fernando E. Solanas. In 1977, he followed his father to France when the latter fled his country where dictatorship was rife. There, he studied art history and gave free rein to his passion: photography. He became assistant to Felix Monti, his father's cinematographer, before becoming his cinematographer himself for "La Nube" (1998). After directing a lot of commercials he made his first short, "L'homme sans tête", in 2001, and his first feature length movie "Nordeste", in 2005.The Man Without a Head- Director
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Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance, Kubrick's father sent him in 1940 to Pasadena, California, to stay with his uncle, Martin Perveler. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as a tool for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.
Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer.
In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer. Together with friend Alexander Singer, Kubrick planned a move into film, and in 1950 sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951). This was followed by several short commissioned documentaries (Flying Padre (1951), and (The Seafarers (1953), but by attracting investors and hustling chess games in Central Park, Kubrick was able to make Fear and Desire (1952) in California.
Filming this movie was not a happy experience; Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba Metz did not survive the shooting. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Kubrick received good notices for his obvious directorial talents. Kubrick's next two films Killer's Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956) brought him to the attention of Hollywood, and in 1957 he directed Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas later called upon Kubrick to take over the production of Spartacus (1960), by some accounts hoping that Kubrick would be daunted by the scale of the project and would thus be accommodating. This was not the case, however: Kubrick took charge of the project, imposing his ideas and standards on the film. Many crew members were upset by his style: cinematographer Russell Metty complained to producers that Kubrick was taking over his job. Kubrick's response was to tell him to sit there and do nothing. Metty complied, and ironically was awarded the Academy Award for his cinematography.
Kubrick's next project was to direct Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), but negotiations broke down and Brando himself ended up directing the film himself. Disenchanted with Hollywood and after another failed marriage, Kubrick moved permanently to England, from where he would make all of his subsequent films. Despite having obtained a pilot's license, Kubrick was rumored to be afraid of flying.
Kubrick's first UK film was Lolita (1962), which was carefully constructed and guided so as to not offend the censorship boards which at the time had the power to severely damage the commercial success of a film. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was a big risk for Kubrick; before this, "nuclear" was not considered a subject for comedy. Originally written as a drama, Kubrick decided that too many of the ideas he had written were just too funny to be taken seriously. The film's critical and commercial success allowed Kubrick the financial and artistic freedom to work on any project he desired. Around this time, Kubrick's focus diversified and he would always have several projects in various stages of development: "Blue Moon" (a story about Hollywood's first pornographic feature film), "Napoleon" (an epic historical biography, abandoned after studio losses on similar projects), "Wartime Lies" (based on the novel by Louis Begley), and "Rhapsody" (a psycho-sexual thriller).
The next film he completed was a collaboration with sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is hailed by many as the best ever made; an instant cult favorite, it has set the standard and tone for many science fiction films that followed. Kubrick followed this with A Clockwork Orange (1971), which rivaled Lolita (1962) for the controversy it generated - this time not only for its portrayal of sex, but also of violence. Barry Lyndon (1975) would prove a turning point in both his professional and private lives. His unrelenting demands of commitment and perfection of cast and crew had by now become legendary. Actors would be required to perform dozens of takes with no breaks. Filming a story in Ireland involving military, Kubrick received reports that the IRA had declared him a possible target. Production was promptly moved out of the country, and Kubrick's desire for privacy and security resulted in him being considered a recluse ever since.
Having turned down directing a sequel to The Exorcist (1973), Kubrick made his own horror film: The Shining (1980). Again, rumors circulated of demands made upon actors and crew. Stephen King (whose novel the film was based upon) reportedly didn't like Kubrick's adaptation (indeed, he would later write his own screenplay which was filmed as The Shining (1997).)
Kubrick's subsequent work has been well spaced: it was seven years before Full Metal Jacket (1987) was released. By this time, Kubrick was married with children and had extensively remodeled his house. Seen by one critic as the dark side to the humanist story of Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987) continued Kubrick's legacy of solid critical acclaim, and profit at the box office.
In the 1990s, Kubrick began an on-again/off-again collaboration with Brian Aldiss on a new science fiction film called "Artificial Intelligence (AI)", but progress was very slow, and was backgrounded until special effects technology was up to the standard the Kubrick wanted.
Kubrick returned to his in-development projects, but encountered a number of problems: "Napoleon" was completely dead, and "Wartime Lies" (now called "The Aryan Papers") was abandoned when Steven Spielberg announced he would direct Schindler's List (1993), which covered much of the same material.
While pre-production work on "AI" crawled along, Kubrick combined "Rhapsody" and "Blue Movie" and officially announced his next project as Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring the then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. After two years of production under unprecedented security and privacy, the film was released to a typically polarized critical and public reception; Kubrick claimed it was his best film to date.
Special effects technology had matured rapidly in the meantime, and Kubrick immediately began active work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), but tragically suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep on March 7th, 1999.
After Kubrick's death, Spielberg revealed that the two of them were friends that frequently communicated discreetly about the art of filmmaking; both had a large degree of mutual respect for each other's work. "AI" was frequently discussed; Kubrick even suggested that Spielberg should direct it as it was more his type of project. Based on this relationship, Spielberg took over as the film's director and completed the last Kubrick project.
How much of Kubrick's vision remains in the finished project -- and what he would think of the film as eventually released -- will be the final great unanswerable mysteries in the life of this talented and private filmmaker.Spartacus (1960)- Writer
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Angelina Maccarone was born on 21 August 1965 in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She is a writer and director, known for Unveiled (2005), Alles wird gut (1998) and Verfolgt (2006).Vivere. The Look.- Director
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Mark Cousins was born on 3 May 1965 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. He is a director and writer, known for The First Movie (2009), The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018) and What Is This Film Called Love? (2012).The Story of Film: An Odyssey Episode 11, Episode 12, 13- Director
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Cathy Lee Crane has been making narrative/documentary hybrid films on 16mm since 1994. She received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013 for her lyrical re-combinations of archival and staged material. Her first feature Pasolini's Last Words (2012) was supported through grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Film. The film enjoyed its world premiere at the Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinema as a "gem of world cinema" in the Panorama International section. The film was released on DVD by Salzgeber in late 2014. Her award-winning short films have been broadcast on European television and are distributed by Canyon Cinema and Lightcone. In addition to her short work in 16mm, she produced the experimental biography Unoccupied Zone: The Impossible Life of Simone Weil (2006) that was funded by an Individual Media Artist Grant from the San Francisco Film Commission in 2001 and is distributed in North America by Films Media Group. She has collaborated as projection designer and cinematographer for Joanna Haigood, Harun Farocki, and Strom/Carlson and was commissioned by Aurora Picture Show in Houston to premiere her own installation work for the gallery in 2015. Crane received the first North American survey of her work at LA Filmforum in March 2011 while an Artist-in-Residence in the Directing Program at California Institute of the Arts. She was also invited to screen her complete works at the National Gallery of Art in 2015 as part of the American Originals Now series. She is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema, Photography and Media Arts at Ithaca College.Short: For You: Experiment Underwater- Actor
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Graham Hawkes was born on 23 December 1947. He is an actor, known for For Your Eyes Only (1981), Naked Science (2004) and World's Top 5 (2012).Short: DeepFlight Submersible - Searching for Whale Song (I think this is the same Graham Hawkes who made this GoPro short... but I'm winging it a bit). Credited with Lee Behel, who does not appear to be listed in IMDb.- Director
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Sue Brooks was born on 1 May 1953 in Pyramid Hill, Victoria, Australia. She is a director and producer, known for Japanese Story (2003), Looking for Grace (2015) and An Ordinary Woman (1988).Japanese Story- Actress
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Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.
Jolie was born Angelina Jolie Voight in Los Angeles, California. In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her actor parents, Jon Voight, an Oscar-winner, and Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg. Her good looks may derive from her ancestry, which is German and Slovak on her father's side, and French-Canadian, Dutch, Polish, and remote Huron, on her mother's side. At age eleven, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she was seen in several stage productions. She undertook some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos.
In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997), and in George Wallace (1997) which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) again garnered a Golden Globe Award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.
Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.
With her newfound prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood. Jolie and Miller divorced, and in 2000, she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.
In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The eponymous character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. When the movie was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in the movie, and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.
One of the Lara Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.
Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox, and in 2005, adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the movie was not popular among critics or at the box office.
In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The movie became a major box office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.
Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple, who married in 2014 and divorced in 2019, continue to pursue movie and humanitarian projects, and now have a total of six children. She was appointed Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George at the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to United Kingdom foreign policy and the campaign to end warzone sexual violence.In the Land of Blood and Honey- 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.Short: The Door. PLUS Ava's coming to Indiana University Cinema in September so I'll get to see a lot more of her films with her present to talk with us about them. I'll share more about that exciting event then.
Short: Say Yes
Short: My Mic Sounds Nice: The Truth About Women in Hip Hop
This is the Life
Venus Vs.
Middle of Nowhere
I Will Follow- Director
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Born in China in 1947, Ann Hui moved to Hong Kong when she was still in her youth. After graduating in English and Comparative Literature from Hong Kong University, she spent two years at the London Film School. Returning to Hong Kong, she worked as an assistant to director King Hu before joining TVB to direct drama series and short documentaries. In 1978, she directed three episodes for the RTHK series Si ji san ha (1972). After that, she directed her debut feature The Secret (1979).A Simple Life. Short: My Way (Beautiful 2012).