Top Gay and Lesbian Directors Working Today
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Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American filmmaker, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician from Louisville, Kentucky who is known for directing films such as Good Will Hunting, the 1998 remake of Psycho, Gerry, Elephant, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Milk, Last Days, Finding Forrester, Promised Land, Drugstore Cowboy and Mala Noche.- Producer
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Lee Daniels gave his parents an early Christmas present when he entered the world on December 24, 1959; unfortunately, the Philadelphia native was to have a difficult relationship with his police officer father who later reacted violently to his son's sexuality. Despite the brutality of his childhood, Lee completed high school and attended Lindenwood University in St.Charles, Missouri for two years.
Daniels's career took an interesting and profitable turn. He moved to Los Angeles and started a nursing agency of his own. He later sold the agency for a substantial sum then began his career in entertainment, first as a casting director and later as a manager. By his mid-twenties, he was working with Prince on Purple Rain (1984) and Under the Cherry Moon (1986). Despite being involved in film production, Lee continued to manage talent and grew a roster of clients that included several Academy Award nominees and winners.
He created his own production company, Lee Daniels Entertainment, and its first film was the acclaimed Monster's Ball (2001), which starred Billy Bob Thornton, the late Heath Ledger and Halle Berry, who went on to win the Best Actress Oscar. Monster's Ball was a critical and financial success and as its producer, Daniels became a force to be reckoned with.
In 2004, Lee used skills honed as a filmmaker to produce a series of public service announcements aimed at inspiring young people of color to vote. He worked with former President, Bill Clinton and was able to enlist actor/rap artist LL Cool J and actor/singer Alicia Keys. Lee's next production, The Woodsman (2004), was another edgy tale about a pedophile trying to reform after being released from prison and starred Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and Yasiin Bey. While The Woodsman (2004) was not the critical success that Monster's Ball (2001) was, it attracted a great deal of critical attention and earned its star, Kevin Bacon, raves for his performance.
Daniels made his directorial debut with his next project, Shadowboxer (2005), a provocative drama with an intriguing cast that included Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding Jr., Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Stephen Dorff. Shadowboxer (2005) was also the first time Lee worked with Mo'Nique; unfortunately, despite an interesting cast, Shadowboxer (2005) received mixed reviews and failed at the box office. Lee's next production, Tennessee (2008) was not a critical or financial success but allowed Lee to help singer 'Mariah Carey' gain acting credentials after the failure of her first film, Glitter (2001).
Daniels hit the mother lode with his next effort, Precious (2009), which he directed and produced. The film won at the Sundance Film Festival and has garnered every imaginable accolade under the sun. The film stars newcomer Gabourey Sidibe in the title role as a Harlem teen who is the victim of unimaginable abuse from her father, mother and society. The film allowed Daniels to re-team with both Mariah Carey and Mo'Nique, who has been a revelation to both critics and audiences as Precious's abusive mother. Daniels has said that he felt compelled to bring this story of child abuse to the screen to help heal the scars from his relationship with his abusive father.- Writer
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The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study filmmaking because he didn't have the money to afford it. Besides, the filmmaking schools were closed in early 70s by Franco's government. Instead, he found a job in the Spanish phone company and saved his salary to buy a Super 8 camera. From 1972 to 1978, he devoted himself to make short films with the help of of his friends. The "premieres" of those early films were famous in the rapidly growing world of the Spanish counter-culture. In few years, Almodóvar became a star of "La Movida", the pop cultural movement of late 70s Madrid. His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980), was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release. In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company: El Deseo, S. A. The "Almodóvar phenomenon" has reached all over the world, making his films very popular in many countries.- Actor
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Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-'60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore church halls to underground audiences drawn by word of mouth and street leafleting campaigns. As his filmmaking grew more polished and his subject matter more shocking, his audiences grew bigger, and his write-ups in the Baltimore papers more outraged. By the early 1970s he was making features, which he managed to get shown in midnight screenings in art cinemas by sheer perseverance. Success came when Pink Flamingos (1972) - a deliberate exercise in ultra-bad taste - took off in 1973, helped no doubt by lead actor Divine's infamous dog-crap eating scene.
Waters continued to make low-budget shocking movies with his Dreamland repertory company until Hollywood crossover success came with Hairspray (1988), and although his movies nowadays might now appear cleaned up and professional, they retain Waters' playfulness, and reflect his lifelong obsessions.- Producer
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Adam Shankman was born on 27 November 1964 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Hairspray (2007), A Walk to Remember (2002) and Disenchanted (2022).- Director
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Tom Ford is an American fashion designer, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He gained fame as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. In 2006, Ford launched his own "Tom Ford" label.
Ford directed the films A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016), both films were Oscar-nominated.
His directorial debut A Single Man is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. The film starred Colin Firth who was nominated for an Academy Award.
In 2016 he directed Nocturnal Animals, an adaptation of the Austin Wright novel Tony and Susan. The film starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Armie Hammer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Laura Linney.- Actress
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Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).- Director
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Rob Marshall was born on 17 October 1960 in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Mary Poppins Returns (2018), Chicago (2002) and Into the Woods (2014).- Producer
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Alan Ball is an American writer, director, and producer who is known for writing the acclaimed film American Beauty and creating the HBO series True Blood starring Anna Paquin. He also wrote the films Towelhead and Uncle Frank. He also created Here and Now, Six Feet Under, and Banshee. He won awards for American Beauty and True Blood.- Director
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Bill Condon was born on 22 October 1955 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Dreamgirls (2006), Gods and Monsters (1998) and Kinsey (2004).- Director
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Todd Haynes was always interested in art, and made amateur movies and painted while he was still a child. He attended Brown university and majored in art and semiotics. After he graduated he moved to New York City and made the controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987). The movie uses dolls instead of actors to tell the the story of the late Karen Carpenter. The movie was a success at several film festivals, and because of a lawsuit by Richard Carpenter (over musical rights) is very hard to see but it is a true classic for bootleg video buyers. His first feature, Poison (1991) was even more controversial. The film was attacked by conservatives and Christians who said it was pornographic, but it won the Grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It is now considered a seminal work of the new queer cinema. His short film Dottie Gets Spanked (1993) was aired on PBS. His next feature film Safe (1995) told the story of a woman played by his good friend, Julianne Moore, suffering from a breakdown caused by a mysterious illness. Many thought the film was a metaphor of the Aids virus. The movie was considered to be an outstanding work and one of the best films of the year. In Velvet Goldmine (1998), starring Christian Bale and Ewan McGregor, he combines the visual style of 60s/70s art films and his love for glam rock music to tell the story of a fictional rock star's rise and fall. Far from Heaven (2002), set in the 1950s and starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, is about a Connecticut housewife who discovers that her husband is gay, and has an affair with her black gardener, played by Dennis Haysbert. The film was a critical and box office success, garnering four Academy Awards. It was hailed as a breakthrough for independent film, and brought Haynes mainstream recognition. With I'm Not There (2007), Haynes returned to the theme of musical legend bio, portraying Bob Dylan via seven fictive characters played by six different actors. The film brought him critical claim, with special attention to the casting of Cate Blanchett as arguably the most convincing of the Dylan characters, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. In 2011, Haynes directed Mildred Pierce, a five-hour miniseries for HBO starring Kate Winslet in the title role. His new feature film Carol (2015) with Cate Blanchett premiered at the Cannes International Festival 2015 to rave reviews and won Best Actress for Rooney Mara.- Director
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Kimberly Peirce was born on 8 September 1967 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Boys Don't Cry (1999), Stop-Loss (2008) and Carrie (2013).- Producer
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- Actor
Tate Taylor was born on 3 June 1969 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Get on Up (2014), The Help (2011) and The Girl on the Train (2016).- Director
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- Editor
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).- Writer
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Don Roos was born on 14 April 1955 in New York, USA. He is a writer and director, known for The Opposite of Sex (1998), Happy Endings (2005) and M.Y.O.B. (2000). He has been married to Dan Bucatinsky since 2008. They have two children.- Producer
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In 1989, Stephen Daldry worked as a freelance reader of unsolicited manuscripts for Literary Manager Nicholas Wright in the Scripts Department at the Royal National Theatre. In July of that year, he directed a Dadaist/expressionist production of "Judgement Day," a play by Odon von Horvath, at the Old Red Lion in London.- Director
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Joel Schumacher was an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and fashion designer from New York City. He rose to fame in the 1980s for directing the coming-of-age drama "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985), and the vampire-themed horror film "The Lost Boys" (1987). In the 1990s, he worked on two controversial superhero films "Batman Forever" (1995) and "Batman & Robin" (1997). His final high-profile film was "The Phantom of the Opera" (2004). It was an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical, rather than the original novel. Towards the end of his career, Schumacher primarily worked on low-profile films with small budgets.- Director
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Nicholas Hytner was born on 7 May 1956 in Manchester, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for The Madness of King George (1994), The Crucible (1996) and The History Boys (2006).- Actor
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Writer, actor, comedian, doer of good works, excellent good friend to the famous and not, Fry lives in his London SW1 flat and his Norfolk house when not traveling. Famous for his public declaration of celibacy in the "Tatler" back in the 1980s, Emma Thompson has characterised her friend as "90 percent gay, 10 percent other."
Stephen Fry was born in Hampstead, London, to Marianne Eve (Newman) and Alan Fry, a physicist and inventor. His maternal grandparents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants, while his father's family was of English background. He grew up in Norfolk and attended Uppingham School and Stout's Hill. After his notorious three months in Pucklechurch prison for credit card fraud, he attended Queens College, Cambridge in 1979, finishing with a 2:1 in English in 1981/2. While at Cambridge, he was a member of the Cherubs drinking club, and Footlights with Thompson, Tony Slattery, Martin Bergman, and Hugh Laurie (to whom he was introduced by E.T.). His prolific writing partnership with Laurie began in 1981 with resulting Footlights revues for (among others) Mayweek, Edinburgh Festival, and a three month tour of Australia. In 1984, Fry was engaged to do the rewrite of the Noel Gay musical "Me and My Girl," which made him a millionaire before the age of 30. It also earned him a nomination for a Tony award in 1987. (Sidenote: It was upon SF's suggestion that Emma Thompson landed a leading role in the London cast of this show.) Throughout the 1980s, Fry did a huge amount of television and radio work, as well as writing for newspapers (e.g. a weekly column in the "Daily Telegraph") and magazines (e.g. articles for "Arena"). He is probably best known for his television roles in Blackadder II (1986) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990).
His support of the Terence Higgins Trust through events such as the first "Hysteria" benefit, as well as numerous other charity efforts, are probably those works of which he is most proud. Fry's acting career has not been limited to films and television. He had successful runs in Alan Bennett's "Forty Years On," Simon Gray's "The Common Pursuit" with John Sessions, Rik Mayall, John Gordon Sinclair, and others. Michael Frayn's "Look Look" and Gray's "Cell Mates" were less successful for both Fry and their playwrights, the latter not helped by his walking out of the play after only a couple of weeks. Fry has published four novels as well as a collection of his radio and journalistic miscellanea. He has recorded audiotapes of his novels (an unabridged version of "The Liar" was released in 1995), as well as many other works for both adults and children.- Director
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Maine-native Carter Smith began his career in the world of fashion photography. His breakthrough story included a series of gritty, documentary-style portraits of teen life in the Midwest, which appeared in the British magazine ID. His fashion work and celebrity portraits have since been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, GQ, and W, all photographed in the cinematic style that has become Carter's signature. He has directed commercials for clients such as Lancome, Tommy Hilfiger and Tiffany's. He collaborated with author Dennis Cooper on an feature film script titled 'Warm'.- 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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Michael Patrick King was born on 14 September 1954 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Sex and the City 2 (2010), Sex and the City (1998) and Sex and the City (2008).- 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.- Director
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Robert Luketic was born on 1 November 1973 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a director and writer, known for The Ugly Truth (2009), Killers (2010) and 21 (2008).- Director
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Michael Sucsy is a Golden Globe, Emmy, and PGA Award-winning film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for creating "Grey Gardens" (HBO) in which he directed Jessica Lange to a Best Actress Emmy Award and Drew Barrymore to a Best Actress Golden Globe and SAG Award.
Sucsy was raised in New York and New England and graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service where he studied International Relations. He gained extensive production experience prior to attending grad school working on numerous films, television shows and commercials. After earning a Masters of Fine Arts in film from the Art Center College of Design, Sucsy began directing commercials and was nominated for the Young Director of the Year Award given in conjunction with the 2002 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
For his directing debut Sucsy won a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for best picture and was nominated for the WGA Award and the DGA Award. In total, Sucsy's Grey Gardens won 2 Golden Globes and 6 Emmys having garnered a record 17 Emmy nominations. The film also won top awards from the Producers Guild of America, American Cinema Editors, Art Directors Guild, Cinema Audio Society, Costume Designers Guild, and Casting Society of America.
Sucsy followed up the success of his first film with "The Vow" (Sony), starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, which had a $42MM opening weekend and went onto gross $200MM worldwide.
Sucsy resides in Los Angeles with his husband, Demitri Sgourakis.- Director
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Todd Holland's life was changed forever when, at the age of five, he saw an episode of Jonny Quest that scared the bejesus out of him - and from that moment he wanted life to always be that exciting. Story-telling became his gateway drug of choice. Since that fateful viewing, Todd has directed more than 200 episodes of television and three feature films including the gamer, cult-classic, The Wizard. His work has earned him three EMMY Awards, eight EMMY nominations, five Cable-Ace Awards, a DGA award, six DGA nominations and a WGA nomination. As a director and producer, he was a key creative force behind The Larry Sanders Show, Malcolm In The Middle and he co-created the short-lived but enduring-fan favorite, Wonderfalls. His episodic work spans the gamut of genres - from Twin Peaks, My So-Called Life, Stitchers and Shameless on the drama side to Tales From The Crypt, Friends, Black-ish and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in comedy. He just signed his third overall deal with ABC Studios under his Dark Toy Entertainment shingle. While at ABC/Disney, Todd was proud Director/EP of ABC's The Real O'Neals -- a show that will forever hold a special place in his heart. Todd earned his big break after Steven Spielberg saw his UCLA short film, Chicken Thing, and hired him to write and direct for Amazing Stories. (Fun Fact: Chicken Thing was a fictionalized re-telling of that fateful night watching Jonny Quest at 5yo - but adding a giant Chicken Monster, because... why not?) Todd joined the DGA in 1986. He is co-Chair of the Diversity Task Force of the DGA, working to increase the number of women and men of color directing episodic TV. He is happily married to Scotch Ellis Loring and is the loving father of amazing Triplets.- Producer
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Bryan Singer is an American film director and producer who got his start writing and co-directing the short film Lions Den with his classmates while he attended USC. He was hired by 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men, which helped kick-start the superhero renaissance. He later directed three sequels. He went to direct Superman Returns, a revival of the Superman film series starring Brandon Routh. He also directed Valkyrie, Bohemian Rhapsody and Jack the Giant Slayer.- Director
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Stephan Elliott was born on 27 August 1964 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a director and writer, known for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Easy Virtue (2008) and Eye of the Beholder (1999).- Writer
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John August's screenwriting credits include Go (1999), Big Fish (2003), Titan A.E. (2000), Charlie's Angels (2000), and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003).
Born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, John earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in Iowa and an MFA in film from the Peter Stark program at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles. John has a weekly screenwriting column on Internet Movie Database, in the "Ask a Filmmaker" section of indie.imdb.com.- Director
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Marco Kreuzpaintner is a director, writer and executive producer best known for his Netflix hit "Bodies", the Bafta winning series "The Lazarus Project" and queer classic feature film "Summer Storm".
Kreuzpaintner started his career as writer/director of international acclaimed feature films such as "Summer Storm", "Trade", "Krabat" and "The Collini Case". After Kreuzpaintner created the thriller series Beat for Amazon Studios, he directed and executive produced Bafta winning series "The Lazarus Project" and the Netflix show "Bodies". In 2023 he partnered up with Roland Emmerich and directed five out of ten episodes of "Those about to die". The Peacock series about blood sports in ancient Rome starring Anthony Hopkins will air in summer 2024. Marco Kreuzpaintner lives in London, United Kingdom.- Actor
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Simon Callow was born on 13 June 1949 in London, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and A Room with a View (1985). He has been married to Sebastian Fox since June 2016.- Producer
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Flavio Alves is a Brazilian film writer, director, and producer. He was granted political asylum in the United States in 1998 with the help of the Immigrants and Refugee Rights Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law. Shortly thereafter, he attended Columbia University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science. After graduating, Alves worked as an assistant to then-New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and to then-New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D-NY).
In 2007, Flavio returned to school to study film production at New York University, where he received the Technisphere Award for Outstanding Achievement. Since then he has directed several films, including The Secret Friend (2010) and Tom in America (2014). His debut film, The Garden Left Behind (2019), premiered at SXSW, where it won the Audience Award. The Garden Left Behind is an IFP Narrative Lab project and has recently received the support from GLAAD, NALIP, Trans Filmmakers Project, and PFLAG. Flavio is the recipient of grants from numerous organizations, including the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and Jerome Foundation.
In 2016, Alves pioneered the use of eBay as a crowdfunding platform by selling thousands of donated items online to help to finance his film. In 2018, Flavio was selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center to the Artist Academy fellowship, which is a program designed to support the next generation of filmmakers from a variety of backgrounds as they develop their careers. He is also a fellow with the Ryan Murphy's Half Initiative directing program. Flavio Alves is the founder of Queens Pictures LLC, a New York-based film production company..- 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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- Executive
Tanya Wexler was born on August 6, 1970 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is an award-winning film and TV director, known for her feature films Hysteria (2011), Ball in the House (2001) and Finding North (1998). At current, Wexler lives in New York City with her four children and their dog, Snoopy.- Producer
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Angela Robinson was born on 14 February 1971 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for D.E.B.S. (2004), Professor Marston & the Wonder Women (2017) and D.E.B.S. (2003). She is married to Alexandra Kondracke. They have one child.- Writer
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Born in Martinez, California, 20 miles outside San Francisco, Victor Salva had written and directed over 20 short and feature-length films before graduating from high school. In the mid-'80s his 37-minute short Something in the Basement (1986) took first place in the fiction category at the Sony/AFI Home Video Competition. A horror allegory about a young boy awaiting his brother's return from a bloody war, this highly acclaimed short went on to win several national awards (including a Bronze Plaque at the Chicago International Film festival) and brought Salva to the attention of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola then produced Salva's first theatrical feature, Clownhouse (1989), which Salva again wrote and directed. Using the talented cast of his award-winning short, Salva called the film "a campfire story." However, his early career was derailed by the revelations of sexual misconduct with one of the film's underage stars. He was tried, convicted and spent a year in state prison. He described it as "a dark time in my confused young life, but also a time when I took responsibility for my own arrested development and the ramifications of growing up in a deeply dysfunctional family."
His next film brought him to Los Angeles. Based on characters he met in prison, The Nature of the Beast (1995), which Salva wrote and directed, starred Lance Henriksen and Eric Roberts and quickly became New Line Cinema's biggest direct-to-video title of that year. Salva next made his first big-studio picture, Powder (1995), a strange tale about an albino boy with special powers that ironically make him an outcast. "Powder" received much critical acclaim and made several top-ten lists for the year.
He next made Rites of Passage (1999), a coming-of-age thriller starring Jason Behr (Roswell (1999)), Dean Stockwell and James Remar which dealt with a homophobic father who unwittingly pushes his gay son into the arms of a psychotic killer. In 2001 Salva wrote and directed Jeepers Creepers (2001), which was one of the year's breakout hits and set a world record for largest Labor Day box-office in history, up until that time. Salva followed this up with his sixth feature film, Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), breaking his old record and setting another Labor Day milestone, as of 2003. His next film, Peaceful Warrior (2006), an adaptation of Dan Millman's best-seller "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior", was very significant to him because of the year he spent in prison. The film starred Nick Nolte and Amy Smart.- Writer
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Peter Paige is an accomplished actor, director, and playwright who has worked on countless theatrical productions in New York and at regional theaters around the country, not to mention numerous television and film projects. Paige lived in seven different states before graduating from high school. Started acting at age six and continued to pursue acting, writing, and directing throughout his middle and high school career. Paige attended Boston University's prestigious School of Theatre Arts on full scholarship, spending twelve to fifteen hours a day in the university's classical theatre conservatory. After graduating summa cum laude from BU, Paige moved to New York. He toured the country performing Moliere's "Tartuffe" (in two languages!), and began leaving New York to perform at theatres around the country. Paige eventually relocated to Portland, Oregon where he worked for two years on the city's Equity stages, was discovered by a manager, and brought to Los Angeles. Paige's first audition in LA landed him a hilarious guest spot on "Suddenly Susan," as Neil Pomeratz, the nervous undertaker. Peter went on to portray Emmett Honeycutt on Showtime's "Queer As Folk." He has also appeared on "Caroline in the City," "MTV'S Undressed," "Time of Your Life," "Movie Stars," and "Will and Grace," among others. Hobbies/interests/likes include politics, sushi, watching tennis, and contemporary art.- Director
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Agustí Villaronga was born on 4 March 1953 in Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain. He was a director and writer, known for Moon Child (1989), Black Bread (2010) and The Belly of the Sea (2021). He died on 22 January 2023 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.- Director
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Jeremy Podeswa is an award winning feature film and television director who has been nominated four times for the Best Director Emmy, for HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" and "Game of Thrones" (twice), and for the Tom Hanks/ Steven Spielberg produced "The Pacific". He has also been nominated four times for the Directors Guild of America Award.
He has also recently directed episodes of "3 Body Problem" (Netflix), from the creators of GoT, and "The New Look" (Apple) starring Juliette Binoche. And he was Executive Producer and Director on the HBOMax limited series "Station Eleven" earning a Directors Guild of America nomination. The show was nominated for 7 Emmy Awards.
He has directed for many of the most ground breaking cable television series and mini-series, including for HULU "The Handmaid's Tale"; for HBO, "Game of Thrones", "True Detective", "The Newsroom", "Here and Now", "Boardwalk Empire", "True Blood", "Rome", "Six Feet Under", "Carnivale" and "The Pacific"; for Apple "The Mosquito Coast" and "The New Look"; for Showtime, "The Loudest Voice", "On Becoming a God in Central Florida", "Homeland", "Ray Donovan", "The Borgias", "The Tudors", "Dexter", "Weeds", "Queer as Folk", "The L Word"; for AMC "The Walking Dead"; for F/X "American Horror Story: Asylum and Coven"; and for TNT the mini-series "Into the West" (produced by Steven Spielberg and nominated for 16 Emmy Awards).
Other credits include the television movie "After the Harvest", starring Sam Shepard, winner of the Directors Guild of Canada Award for Best Direction.
He has also written and directed three award winning feature films: Fugitive Pieces (Samuel Goldwyn Films, Opening Night, Toronto International Film Festival) starring Stephen Dillane and Rosamund Pike; The Five Senses (Fine Line Distribution, Directors' Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival) starring Mary Louise Parker; and Eclipse (Berlin and Sundance Festivals).- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Mike White was born Michael Christopher White on June 28, 1970 in Pasadena, California. He is a writer, director and producer, mostly acknowledged for his award-winning HBO series The White Lotus (2021). He wrote and produced the HBO series Enlightened (2011), and wrote and co-produced Year of the Dog (2007) in which he made his directorial debut. Earlier works include Chuck & Buck (2000), Orange County (2002), The Good Girl (2002) and School of Rock (2003). He also wrote two episodes of the NBC series Freaks and Geeks (1999).- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Neil Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 1973. His parents, Sheila Gail (Scott) and Ronald Gene Harris, were lawyers and ran a restaurant. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a small town 120 miles south of Albuquerque, where he first took up acting in the fourth grade. While tagging along with his older brother of 3 years, Harris won the part of Toto in a school production of The Wizard of Oz (1939).
His parents moved the family to Albuquerque in 1988, the same year that Harris made his film debut in two movies: Purple People Eater (1988) and Clara's Heart (1988), which starred Whoopi Goldberg. A year later, when Neil was 16, he landed the lead role in Steven Bochco's television series about a teen prodigy doctor at a local hospital, Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989), which launched Harris into teen-heartthrob status. The series lasted1989-1993 and earned him a People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Series (1990) and a Golden Globe Nomination (1990). Harris attended the same high school as Freddie Prinze Jr., La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. Neil acted on stage in a few plays while there, one of which was his senior play, Fiddler on the Roof (1971), in which he portrayed Lazar Wolf the butcher (1991).
When "Doogie Howser, M.D." stopped production in 1993, Harris took up stage acting, which he had always wanted to do. After a string of made-for-television movies, Harris acted in his first big screen roles in nine years, Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien and then The Proposition (1998). In July 1997, Harris accepted the role of Mark Cohen for the Los Angeles production of the beloved musical, Rent (2005). His performance in "Rent" garnered him a Drama-League Award in 1997. He continued in the musical, to rave reviews, until January 1998. He later reprised the role for six nights in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December 1998.
In 1999, Harris returned to television in the short-lived sitcom Stark Raving Mad (1999), with Tony Shalhoub. He was also in the big-screen projects The Next Best Thing (2000) and Undercover Brother (2002), and he can be heard as the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the newest animated Spider-Man (2003) series. Harris has continued his stage work, making his Broadway debut in 2001 in "Proof." He has also appeared on stage in "Romeo and Juliet," "Cabaret," Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001), and, most recently, "Assassins." In 2005, Harris returned to the small screen in a guest-starring role on Numb3rs (2005) and a starring role in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005). Neil played the title role in the web-exclusive musical comedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008), widely downloaded via iTunes to become the #1 TV series for five straight weeks, despite not actually being on television.- Director
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- Producer
Ira Sachs was born on 21 November 1965 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Keep the Lights On (2012), Passages (2023) and Little Men (2016).- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Amanda Bearse was born on 9 August 1958 in Winter Park, Florida, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Fright Night (1985), Married... with Children (1987) and Bros (2022). She has been married to Carrie Schenken since 2010. They have two children.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Born in Liverpool, England, UK, Clive Barker is an English writer, director, and visual artist, best known for his works in the genres of horror and dark fantasy. His mother Joan Ruby (née Revill) was a painter and school welfare officer and his father Leonard Barker was a personnel director for an industrial relations firm. He studied English and philosophy at the University of Liverpool. His first artistic endeavors took place while at school, where he was a part of students' theatre. In the early days of his artistic career, he supported himself by working as a male prostitute. In 1978 he co-founded a theatre group called The Dog Company, among whose members was Doug Bradley who later went on to star in Barker's Hellraiser movie series. In 1985 he published his debut novel, The Damnation Game, and the same year he wrote his first feature movie scripts: Underworld (1985) and Rawhead Rex (1986). The end effect of these two movies disappointed Barker so much that he decided to adapt his prose into a movie he would direct himself, leading to the creation of Hellraiser (1987). The movie achieved cult status and turned into a multimedia franchise, although Barker lost control over it at one point, only to regain it in 2020. In addition to his work in literature and movies, he is also a visual artist, often illustrating his own books and was involved in a number of television, comic book, and visual arts projects.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
A preeminent force in television entertainment, Paris Barclay has directed nearly 200 episodes of television and was active as a Director/Producer for series including: Station 19, Pitch, Sons of Anarchy, In Treatment, Cold Case, City of Angels and NYPD Blue. He also has directed episodes of a wide variety of series including Scandal, The Good Wife, Empire, House, NCIS: Los Angeles, CSI, Lost, The Shield, The West Wing and ER; as well as three films: the feature Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood; and the movies for television The Cherokee Kid and The Big Time.
He earned two Emmy Awards and the DGA award for Outstanding Direction of a Drama Series for NYPD Blue, received seven additional Emmy nominations for both producing and directing, and garnered ten other DGA Award nominations for shows as diverse as Glee, In Treatment, The West Wing, House, and most recently Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. With that last nomination, he become one of only a handful of directors who have received Emmy nominations in every narrative category - drama, comedy and limited series. He was inducted into the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame in 2014, and was made an Honorary Life Member of the Directors Guild in 2021.
A DGA member since 1992, Barclay was the first African-American and openly gay President in the Guild's history. In addition to his two terms as President of the Guild, his service includes numerous terms on the National Board, the Western Directors Council and chairmanship and participation in several committees, including co-chairing the Television Creative Rights Committee, the Return to Work Negotiations Committee, and the African-American Steering Committee. He was honored with the Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award in 2007, which is given for providing extraordinary service to the DGA, and in 2021 was given the Honorary Life Member Award, the Guild's highest honor for both service and career achievement. He currently serves as the Guild's Secretary/Treasurer.
A WGA member before he was a DGA member, Barclay co-created and wrote for the CBS series City of Angels with Nicholas Wootton and Steven Bochco, which ran for two years on the network. He co-wrote with James DeMonaco the Showtime pilot Hate, and has written other pilots for CBS and NBC. He wrote with Dustin Lance Black (on his first WGA-credited project) Pedro, a film about the life of AIDS activist Pedro Zamora for MTV, which received a Writers Guild nomination. As a playwright and composer, he has had musical dramas produced by Soho Rep, The Village Theatre, the Signature Theater, and the North Shore Music Theatre among others - including One Red Flower - adapted from soldiers letters written during the Vietnam War. Prior to his career in television and film, Barclay was a sought-after music video director. He created groundbreaking videos for Bob Dylan, the New Kids on the Block, Janet Jackson & Luther Vandross, Harry Connick, Jr. among others. His eight videos for LL Cool J, including the MTV, Billboard, and Grammy-winning "Mama Said Knock You Out," are still widely viewed and imitated today.
In 2022, Paris had six episodes he directed premiere in collaboration with Ryan Murphy: two episodes each of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, The Watcher, and American Horror Story:NYC. In 2023, he filmed two episode of the upcoming Aaron Hernandez biopic series for FX, American Sports Story: Gladiator. He recently wrapped post production on a feature documentary he co-wrote and directed about the famed musician Billy Preston, with interviews from Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Olivia Harrison, Sandra Crouch, and Merry Clayton among others. He is currently in production on two episodes of the second season of the Netflix series of Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story.- Director
- Writer
Steve Balderson was born in Manhattan, Kansas, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Firecracker (2005), Alchemy of the Spirit (2022) and El Ganzo (2015).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Tom Kalin is known for Swoon (1992), Savage Grace (2007) and They Are Lost to Vision Altogether (1989).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Roland Emmerich is a German film director and producer of blockbuster films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Godzilla (1998), Independence Day (1996) and The Patriot (2000). Before fame, he originally wanted to be a production designer, but decided to be a director, after watching the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Emmerich began his career in his native Germany. In his youth, he pursued painting and sculpting. While enrolled in the director's program at film school in Munich, his student film The Noah's Ark Principle (1984) went on to open the 1984 Berlin Film Festival. The feature became a huge success and was sold to more than 20 countries. In an amazing trivia, he directed his first feature, The Noah's Ark Principle (1984), in 1984. He is openly gay and a campaigner for the LGBT community.
A director/writer/producer with a flair for special effects-driven action, German Roland Emmerich made himself at home in blockbuster-hungry 1990s Hollywood. Born and educated in West Germany, Emmerich studied production design as well as direction at the Munich Film and Television School. After his student film, The Noah's Ark Principle, debuted at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, Emmerich formed his production company Centropolis and directed supernatural fantasies Making Contact (1986) and Ghost Chase (1987), and the straight-to-video action film Moon 44 (1990). On the latter, he met actor Dean Devlin who subsequently switched jobs to become Emmerich's writing and producing partner once Emmerich set up shop in Hollywood.
After making his solo Hollywood debut directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cyborg action fest Universal Soldier (1992), Emmerich and Devlin revealed a talent for conjuring A-level action spectacles out of B-movie scenarios with their first film together, Stargate (1994). A space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptiana and high-tech wizardry, Stargate became an unexpected hit. Emmerich hit his blockbuster stride with his next film, Independence Day (1996). With its eye-popping destruction of major cities and climactic annihilation of a spacecraft via portable computer, Independence Day blew away its summer movie competition on the strength of its visual flash. Geared to repeat with the endlessly- and creatively-hyped version of Godzilla (1998), Emmerich instead faced the conundrum of directing a $100 million grossing film that did not live up to box office expectations. Emmerich and Devlin next turned their epic visions to the decidedly lower-tech (but still CGI-enhanced) action of the American Revolution in the Mel Gibson summer vehicle The Patriot (2000).- Director
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Jim Fall has had a diversified directing career spanning theater, TV, and motion pictures. Jim's feature film career started with the acclaimed independent feature "Trick" which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival in Dramatic Competition. It was quickly acquired by Fine Line Features and released in the summer of 1999 becoming Fine Line's highest-grossing film of that year. Jim's studio directing debut, "The Lizzie McGuire Movie" - a big-screen adaptation of the hit Disney Channel series starring Teen Queen Hilary Duff - was a big box office success for Disney, opening at number two below "X-men 2" its opening week.
His TV credits include episodes of "So NoTORIous", VH1's scripted comedy starring Tori Spelling and Zachary Quinto, and "Grosse Pointe", the Darren Star-produced comedy series that has become a cult favorite. Jim also directed the A&E feature "Wedding Wars", starring John Stamos and James Brolin, produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. He recently directed and co-wrote "Holiday Engagement" (Hallmark's highest rated Sunday night movie), starring Shelley Long, Bonnie Somerville, and Jordan Bridges, and last year's "Holly's Holiday" (Lifetime) starring Claire Coffee and Ryan McPartlin. His newest feature is "Kristin's Christmas Past" (Lifetime) starring Shiri Appleby, Elizabeth Mitchell.
In theater, he recently directed the world premiere of Mark Saltzman's musical about Lorenz Hart "Falling For Make Believe" at the Colony Theater. Also David Dean Bottrell's sold-out runs of "David Dean Bottrell Makes Love: A One Man Show" and "David Dean Bottrell is Working", John Cantwell's "Connie Loves Juice", Richard Tanner's "Small Parts", and at the Bootleg Theater, the world premiere of Gary Lennon's "The Interlopers". At the Beverly Hills Playhouse, Jim staged Clinton Leupp's "Miss Coco Peru's Universe" and "Miss Coco Peru's Glorious Wounds...She's Damaged" at the Renberg Theater (GLAAD Award Nomination). His New York credits include Tom O'Leary's "Breath", "Blood Orgy Of The Carnival Queens" (co-written with Robin Carrigan), James C. Kantor's "Christmas On Hell Island", and "Chorus Girls On Mars".
Jim attended Temple University, followed by NYU's film school and also received a film scholarship from The Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts.- Actor
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John Cameron Mitchell was born on 21 April 1963 in El Paso, Texas, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Shortbus (2006) and How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017).- Writer
- Director
- Composer
Is the son of a Spanish mother and a Chilean father. His family moved back to Spain when he was 1 year old, and he grew up and studied in Madrid. He wrote, produced and directed his first short film La cabeza at the age of 19, and he was 23 when he directed his feature debut Thesis (1996). His film Open Your Eyes (1997) was a huge success in Spain and was distributed worldwide. It was remade in Hollywood by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky (2001), starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz (also the star of the original version) and Cameron Diaz. The Others (2001) is Amenábar's first English language film.- Actor
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Paul Bartel was born in Brooklyn in 1938. He decided he wanted to direct animated movies when he was 11 and by 13 had spent a summer working at New York's UPA animation studio. He majored in theater arts at UCLA, and received a Fulbright scholarship to study film direction in Rome, producing a short that was presented at the 1962 Venice Fiom Festival. He later was hired by Roger Corman's brother, Gene, to direct a low-budget horror featured called Private Parts (1972). Roger Corman hired him as a second unit director on Big Bad Mama (1974), which led to his directing Death Race 2000 (1975). He could not persuade Corman to finance his pet project, Eating Raoul (1982). The $500,000 black comedy was made after his parents sold their New Jersey home and gave him the money. Shot in 22 days, mostly weekends, over the course of a year, Eating Raoul (1982) starred Bartel and Mary Woronov as gourmet cannibals who lure sex swingers to their apartment, smack them with a skillet, rob them and use the proceeds to buy a restaurant.- Producer
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Rob Epstein was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA as Robert P. Epstein. He is a producer and director, known for The Celluloid Closet (1995), Paragraph 175 (2000) and The Times of Harvey Milk (1984).
Rob has produced films that have screened worldwide, in cinemas, on television, home video and digital platforms, at museums, and at leading film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York. Rob has received two Academy Awards®, five Emmy Awards, three Peabodys and both a Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowship.
Rob moved by bus from New York City to San Francisco at age 19. His first job in the city was as an usher at the Castro Theater back when there was still a smoking section. While taking a filmmaking class at San Francisco State University, he became a production assistant on a documentary in early development where he met his mentor, Peter Adair. He quickly rose to co-director, with the other members of the Mariposa Film Group. The film became the landmark documentary Word Is Out, released in theaters in 1978, airing nationally on prime-time public television, and recently restored and re-released by Milestone.
Rob's next project was the Oscar-winning feature documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, which he conceived, directed, co-produced and co-edited. The film touched audiences immediately, becoming an international festival sensation starting at Berlinale, and winning the Academy Award® for Best Feature Documentary as well as the New York Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film of 1985. In 2013, the Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry, and the film is now part of the prestigious Criterion Collection. Harvey Milk was recently named one of "25 most influential documentaries of all time" by the Cinema Eye honors and in 2017 received the Legacy Award.
Since 1987, Rob and his producing partner Jeffrey Friedman have worked under the Telling Pictures banner, traversing the worlds of non-fiction and scripted narrative. Rob won his second Oscar for the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, made with Jeffrey Friedman. Rob's other films with Jeffrey include the box office hit The Celluloid Closet (Emmy Award for directing), the HBO documentary Paragraph 175 (Sundance Film Festival Jury Award for Directing), Where Are We?, And the Oscar Goes to for Turner Classic Movies and most recently Killing the Colorado, a feature documentary about the drought in the Western U.S. premiering on Discovery Channel in August 2016.
In moving from documentary to dramatic narrative, Rob and Jeffrey collaborated on the narrative feature HOWL, starring James Franco, followed by Lovelace, starring Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard and Sharon Stone, and released by The Weinstein Company's Radius-TWC. Both films premiered at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. HOWL was developed at the Sundance Institute Writer's Lab, where Rob and Jeffrey were Sundance Screenwriting Fellows in 2009, and was released theatrically by Oscilloscope Laboratories. It received the Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review.
In addition to his Oscars for The Times of Harvey Milk and Common Threads, Rob has received several Peabody and Emmy Awards, as well as Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships. In 2008, Rob was recognized with the Pioneer Award from the International Documentary Association (IDA) for distinguished lifetime achievement. He has also received achievement awards from Frameline (1990), Outfest (2000) and the Provincetown International Film Festival. In 2016, Epstein was awarded the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Screenwriting Grant by the San Francisco Film Society for his original screenplay Dogpatch (working title).
Career retrospectives honoring Rob's work have been presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London (ICA), the Taipei International Film Festival in Taiwan, the Cinémathéque Québécoise in Montreal, and the Pink Apple Film Festival in Zurich.
In addition to his filmmaking career, Rob is a professor at California College of the Arts, where he serves as Co-chair of the Film program. He has been a visiting professor at the Graduate Film Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He serves on the Sundance Institute's Board of Trustees and is a member of the Directors Guild of America as well as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Documentary Branch where he served as an elected member of the Board of Governors for three terms.- Director
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George Kuchar was born on 31 August 1942 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and actor, known for The Devil's Cleavage (1975), Bongwater (1998) and Sparkle's Tavern (1976). He died on 6 September 2011 in San Francisco, California, USA.- Director
- Actor
- Cinematographer
Mike Kuchar was born on 31 August 1942 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a director and actor, known for Death Quest of the Ju-Ju Cults (1976), The Craven Sluck (1967) and Lure of the Woods (2005).- Director
- Additional Crew
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.
In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. His parents were assistant district attorney Viktor Cukor and Helén Ilona Gross. His middle name "Dewey" honored Admiral George Dewey who was considered a war hero for his victory in the Battle of Manila Bay, in 1898.
As a child, Cukor received dancing lessons, and soon fell in love with the theater, appearing in several amateur plays. In 1906, he performed in a recital with David O. Selznick (1902-1965), who would later become a close friend.
As a teenager, Cukor often visited the New York Hippodrome, a well-known Manhattan theater. He often cut classes while attending high school, in order to attend afternoon matinees. He later took a job as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, and at times performed there in black-face.
Cukor graduated from the DeWitt Clinton High School in 1917. His father wanted him to follow a legal career, and had his son enrolled City College of New York. Cukor lost interest in his studies and dropped out of college in 1918. He then took a job as an assistant stage manager and bit player for a touring production of the British musical "The Better 'Ole". The musical was an adaptation of the then-popular British comic strip "Old Bill" by Bruce Bairnsfather (1887-1959).
In 1920, Cukor became the stage manager of the Knickerbocker Players, a theatrical troupe. In 1921, Cukor became the general manager of the Lyceum Players, a summer stock company. In 1925, Cukor was one of the co-founders the C.F. and Z. Production Company. With this theatrical company, Cukor started working as a theatrical director. He made his Broadway debut as a director with the play "Antonia" by Melchior Lengyel (1880-1974).
The C.F. and Z. Production Company was eventually renamed the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, and started recruiting up-and-coming theatrical talents. Cukor's theatrical troupe included at various times Louis Calhern, Ilka Chase, Bette Davis, Douglass Montgomery, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Elizabeth Patterson, and Phyllis Povah.
Cukor attained great critical acclaim in 1926 for directing "The Great Gatsby", an adaptation of a then-popular novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). He directed six more Broadway productions until 1929. At the time, Hollywood film studios were recruiting New York theater talent for sound films, and Cukor was hired by Paramount Pictures. He started as an apprentice director before the studio lent him to Universal Pictures. His first notable film work was serving as a dialogue director for "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930).
After returning to Paramount Pictures, he worked as aco-director. His first solo directorial effort was "Tarnished Lady" (1931), and at that time he earned a weekly salary of $1500. Cukor co-directed the film "One Hour with You" (1932) with Ernst Lubitsch, but Lubitsch demanded sole directorial credit. Cukor filed a legal suit but eventually had to settle for a credit as the film's assistant director. He left Paramount in protest, and took a new job with RKO Studios.
During the 1930s, Cukor was entrusted with directing films for RKO's leading actresses. He worked often with Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), although not always with box-office success. He did direct such box office hits as "Little Women" (1933) and "Holiday" (1938), but also notable flops such as "Sylvia Scarlett" (1935).
In 1936, Cukor was assigned to work on the film adaptation of the blockbuster novel "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell. He spent the next two years preoccupied with the film's pre-production, and with supervising screen tests for actresses seeking to play leading character Scarlett O'Hara. Cukor reportedly favored casting either Katharine Hepburn or Paulette Goddard for the role. Producer David O. Selznick refused to cast either one, since Hepburn was coming off a string of flops and was viewed as "box office poison," while Goddard was rumored to have had a scandalous affair with Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) and her reputation suffered for it.
Cukor did not get to direct "Gone with the Wind", as Selznick decided to assign the directing duties to Victor Fleming (1889-1949). Cukor's involvement with the film was limited to coaching actresses Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) and Olivia de Havilland (1916-). Similarly, the very same year, Cukor also failed to receive a directing credit for "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), though he was responsible for several casting and costuming decisions for this iconic classic.
In this same period, Cukor did direct an all-female cast in "The Women" (1939), as well as Greta Garbo's final motion picture performance in "Two-Faced Woman" (1941). Then his film career was interrupted by World War II, as he joined the Signal Corps in 1942. Given his experience as a film director, Cukor was soon assigned to producing training and instructional films for army personnel. He wanted to gain an officer's commission, but was denied promotion above the rank of private. Cukor suspected that rumors of his homosexuality were the reason he never received the promotion.
During the 1940s, Cukor had a number of box-office hits, such "A Woman's Face" (1941) and "Gaslight" (1944). He forged a working alliance with screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, and the trio collaborated on seven films between 1947-1954.
Until the early 1950s, most of his Cukor's films were in black-and-white, and his first film in Technicolor was "A Star Is Born" (1954), with Judy Garland as the leading actress. Casting the male lead for the film proved difficult, as several major stars were either not interested in the role or were considered unsuitable by the studio. Cukor had to settle for James Mason as the male lead, but the film was highly successful and received 6 Academy Award nominations. But Cukor was not nominated for directing.
He had a handful of critical successes over the following years, such as Les Girls (1957) and "Wild Is the Wind" (1957), and also helmed the unfinished "Something's Got to Give" (1962), which had a troubled production and went at least $2 million over budget before it was terminated.
Cukor had a comeback with the critically and commercially successful "My Fair Lady," one of the highlights of his career., for which he won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, along with the Directors Guild of America Award. However, his career very quickly slowed down, and the aging Cukor was infrequently involved with new projects.
Cukor's most notable film in the 1970s was the fantasy The Blue Bird (1976) , which was the first joint Soviet-American production. It was a box-office flop, though it received a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and was groundbreaking for its time. Cukor's swan song was "Rich and Famous" (1981), depicting the relationship of two women over a period of several decades., played by co-stars Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen, Cukor's final pair of leading ladies.
He retired as a director at the age of 82, and died a year later of a heart attack in 1983. At the time of his death, his net worth was estimated to be $2,377,720. He was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA. Cukor was buried next to his long-time platonic friend Frances Howard (1903-1976), the wife of legendary studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn.- Director
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Born in New York City in 1938, Paul Morrissey studied literature at Fordham University. In the early 1960s, following a stint in the Army and jobs in insurance and as a social worker, he began directing short independent films.
In 1965, he was introduced to Andy Warhol, who asked him to contribute ideas and bring new direction to the film experiments he had been recently begun presenting -- others had been suggesting, and in a very limited sense, directing these early experiments, but they remained in a static, relatively primitive state. From then on, Morrissey not only directed all of the films but signed a management contract with Warhol putting him in charge of all operations at the Warhol studio with the exception of the sales of artwork. It was Morrissey's idea that Warhol's celebrity name be used to promote a rock n' roll group; to that end, he discovered 'the Velvet Underground', added Nico to the band and signed them all to a management contract. While administering the very successful early years of the group, he continued to add story ideas, casting, cinematography and direction to all of the film experiments that Warhol presented from My Hustler (1965) and Chelsea Girls (1966) through Imitation of Christ (1967) and Bike Boy (1967); Morrissey acted as the films' distributor as well.
After Lonesome Cowboys (1968), which was written, produced and directed by Morrissey from start to finish, he assumed total control of all subsequent films presented by Andy Warhol -- from the art house/cult classics Flesh (1968), Trash (1970) and Heat (1972) to his more mainstream successes with the Carlo Ponti/Jean-Pierre Rassam productions Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974).
Morrissey parted company with Warhol in 1975 when the artist chose to concentrate on his painting and business activities. Morrissey went on to pursue financing for his later films, one of the very few American film directors to remain independent of any Hollywood film companies, independent or otherwise.
He was always responsible for his films in their entirety, working consistently with mostly young unknown actors, writing and directing with no outside interference of any kind. Once financing from "independent" sources no longer allowed him the freedom from interference that he previously enjoyed, he stopped making films.- Actor
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Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger, who was born in London, on February 16, 1926, was the eldest child in a solidly middle-class Jewish family. Berbard Schlesinger, his father, was a pediatrician, and his mother, Winifred, was a musician. He served in the Army in the Far East during World War II. While attending Balliol College at Oxford, Schlesinger was involved with the Undergraduate Dramatic Society and developed an interest in photography. While at Oxford, he made his first short film, "Black Legend," in 1948. He took his degree in 1950 after reading English literature and then went into television. From 1958 through 1961, he made documentaries for the British Broadcasting Corp.
His 1960 documentary, Terminus (1961), which was sponsored by British-Transport, won him a British Academy Award and the Gold Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He made the transition to feature films in 1962, with the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving (1962), which got him noticed on both sides of the Atlantic. His next film, the Northern comedy Billy Liar (1963), was a success and began his association with actress Julie Christie, who had a memorable turn in the film. Christie won the Best Actress Academy Award and international superstardom and Schlesinger his first Oscar nomination as Best Director with his next film, the watershed Darling (1965), which dissected Swinging London. Subsequently, Schlesinger and Christie collaborated on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, in 1967. The movie was not a success with critics or at the box office at the time, though its stature has grown over time. His next film, Midnight Cowboy (1969), earned him a place in cinema history, as it was not only a huge box office hit but also widely acclaimed as a contemporary classic. It won the Oscar for Best Picture and garnered Schlesinger an Oscar for Best Director.
Schlesinger earned his third, and last, Oscar nomination for the highly acclaimed Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). He continued to operate at a high state of aesthetic and critical achievement with The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976) and Yanks (1979), but his 1981 comedy, Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), was one of the notable flops of its time, bringing in only $2 million on a $24-million budget when breakeven was calculated as three times negative cost. Although Schlesinger continued to work steadily as a director in movies and TV, he never again tasted the sweet fruits of success that he had for more than a decade, beginning in the mid-'60s.
Schlesinger's artistic fulfillment increasingly came from directing for the stage and, specifically, opera. He directed William Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1964, and after his movie career faded, he directed plays, musicals, and opera productions. After Laurence Olivier was eased out of the National Theatre in 1973, Schlesinger was named an associate director of the NT under Olivier's successor, Sir Peter Hall of the RSC.
Schlesinger suffered a stroke in December 2000. His life partner, Michael Childers, took him off life support, and he died the following day, July 24, 2003, in Palm Springs, Claifornia. He was 77 years old.- Writer
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Gregg Araki was born on 17 December 1959 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Mysterious Skin (2004), White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) and Kaboom (2010).- Producer
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Bryan Singer is an American film director and producer who got his start writing and co-directing the short film Lions Den with his classmates while he attended USC. He was hired by 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men, which helped kick-start the superhero renaissance. He later directed three sequels. He went to direct Superman Returns, a revival of the Superman film series starring Brandon Routh. He also directed Valkyrie, Bohemian Rhapsody and Jack the Giant Slayer.- Actor
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Anthony Perkins was born April 4, 1932 in New York City, to Janet Esselstyn (Rane) and Osgood Perkins, an actor of both stage and film. His father died when he was five. Anthony's paternal great-grandfather was engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony. Perkins attended the Brooks School, the Browne & Nichols School, Columbia University and Rollins College. He made his screen debut in The Actress (1953), and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar Friendly Persuasion (1956). Four years later, he appeared in what would be his most noted role, Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), memorializing him into film history forever.- Director
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Thom Fitzgerald: Since his 1997 feature debut, Thom has won over two dozen international awards including the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Award (Genie), The FIPRESCI European International Critics' Prize, The Emerging Master Award at the Seattle International Film Festival, and the Reader Jury of the "Siegessäule" Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. He won both the Best Canadian Film Award and the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Thom is a three time premiere guest of The Sundance Film Festival, and has been lauded abroad with the City of Grandola Prize at the Troia Film Festival in Portugal, and the Best Screenplay Prize at the Mar del Plat Film Festival in Argentina. He was awarded both the Best Screenplay Award and the Most Popular Film Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Thom was cited as "One of the top 100 filmmakers in the world" by Screen International and "One of the Top Ten of the Next Generation" by the Hollywood Reporter. Thom was nominated for The Directors Guild of Canada Award and won the Best Director Award at the Atlantic Film Festival for "3 Needles". In 2012 Thom was awarded the prestigious Portia White Prize which is the highest honor awarded to an artist by the government of Nova Scotia recognizing artistic excellence. For his theatre work he won the Merritt Award for Best New Play (CLOUDBURST) and was nominated for Outstanding Set Design. CLOUDBURST was also nominated as Outstanding Production of 2010.- Actor
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Casper is an accomplished actor, writer, film director and producer.
In 2020, he was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the Sprit Awards for producing "Wild Nights with Emily", Madeleine Olnek's comedic biopic about Emily Dickinson starring Molly Shannon. Also in 2020, Casper premiered his 10th feature film as a producer, when the Swedish relationship drama "Are We Lost Forever", directed by David Färdmar, had its world premiere at the Gothenburg International Film Festival.
Prior to this Casper produced and directed eight multi-award winning features in the US (five of which he also wrote): "Slutty Summer" (2004), "A Four Letter Word" (2007), "Between Love & Goodbye" (2008), "The Big Gay Musical" (2009), "Violet Tendencies" (2010), "Going Down in LA-LA Land" (2011), "Kiss Me Kill Me" (2015) and "Flatbush Luck" (2016). in Sweden he wrote and directed the drama "Ett Sista Farväl" ("A Last Farewell") in 2013. The short film went on to play over 130 film festivals worldwide and picking up 18 awards.
As an actor, Casper most recently appeared on Swedish TV in the film "Beck - ett nytt liv", and series "Dolt under ytan" and "Harmonica". In the US he has guest-starred on TV shows like "Hawaii Five-0," "Deadbeat" and"Swedish Dicks." Co-starring credits include "The Blacklist" and "Lethal Weapon." His many film roles include the Academy Award winning "Little Children". On stage, Casper has played as Hamlet in "Hamlet" in New York City and Romeo in "Romeo & Juliet" in Paris.
Casper is a dual citizen of the United States and Sweden, splitting his time between Stockholm, New York and Los Angeles. He studied acting and directing at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in New York.
Casper has been selected as one of the 100 most influential and newsworthy people by Out Magazine.- Actor
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Todd Graff was born on 22 October 1959 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for The Abyss (1989), The Vanishing (1993) and Camp (2003). He has been married to Jhon Lafaurie since 2014.- Director
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Randal Kleiser has been an internationally known film director since the release of his first feature, Grease (1978). Other features include The Blue Lagoon (1980) with Brooke Shields, Summer Lovers (1982) starring Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah, Grandview, U.S.A. (1984) with Jamie Lee Curtis, Flight of the Navigator (1986), featuring the first use of digital morphing in a motion picture; Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992) and White Fang (1991). In London he directed the critically acclaimed comedy Getting It Right (1989) starring Lynn Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, Jane Horrocks and Sir John Gielgud. In 1996 he wrote and directed It's My Party (1996) starring Eric Roberts, Gregory Harrison, Lee Grant, Bruce Davison and Marlee Matlin.
As a writer-producer, he was responsible for the surfing classic North Shore (1987) for Universal Pictures. He also directed the thriller Shadow of Doubt (1998) with Melanie Griffith and Tom Berenger. Working in 70mm 3-D, he directed Honey, I Shrunk the Audience (1994), which drew record crowds at the Disney Theme Parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo and Paris. His television movies include The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976) with John Travolta; the Emmy Award-winning The Gathering (1977) and Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976).
As a freshman at USC, he appeared in George Lucas' first student film, Freiheit (1966). Kleiser's award-winning Master's thesis film, Peege (1973), launched his professional career. He has taught a graduate production workshop at USC and Master Directing Classes for European students at film festivals in Deauville and Sarlat, and Malaga. Kleiser serves as a judge on the Student Awards for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and as chairman of the Academic Subcommittee for the Directors Guild of America, he inaugurated a videoconferencing program to connect film classes with working directors. Working with the Graphics Lab at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, Kleiser has co-invented a digital Cinerama-like process called Vistarama HD and developed "Silver Metal Lover" for Dimension Pictures. In 2005 he directed Amanda Bynes for Lovewrecked (2005), shot in the Caribbean. Two years later Kleiser came up with an original musical movie shot on virtual sets, Red Riding Hood (2006), starring Joey Fatone and Lainie Kazan.
Kleiser has spent several years working with George Lucas to create The Nina Foch Course for Filmmakers and Actors (2010), an instructional video for aspiring actors, writers and filmmakers. Kleiser was heavily influenced by Nina Foch's teachings during his time at USC and maintained a relationship with Foch as his mentor throughout his career.
Randal Kleiser wrote and directed the 360 degree Virtual Reality series Defrost: The Virtual Series (2019), featuring Carl Weathers, Bruce Davison and Harry Hamlin which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
Kleiser serves on the Sci Tech Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At the Directors Guild of America, Kleiser chairs the annual Digital Day presentation and serves on the National Board.
Official Site: http://www.randalkleiser.com/- Writer
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Dean DeBlois is a Canadian writer, director, and producer known best for having co-written and co-directed Disney's Lilo & Stitch (2002) and Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon (2010), both Oscar nominated. While working as an assistant animator and layout artist for Hinton Animation Studios in Ottawa, Ontario, DeBlois simultaneously attended Sheridan College's three year Classical Animation program. Upon graduation in 1990, DeBlois was immediately hired by Don Bluth Studios in Dublin, Ireland. There, he cut his teeth as a layout artist, character designer, and storyboard assistant to Don Bluth on such films as Thumbelina (1994) and A Troll in Central Park (1994)." In 1994, DeBlois left Ireland to work for Walt Disney Feature Animation as a storyboard artist, where he soon replaced his frequent collaborator, Chris Sanders, as Head of Story on Mulan (1998)." Shortly thereafter, they re-re-teamed to create the lush and whimsical Lilo & Stitch (2002), heralded by critics as Disney's last great hand-drawn film. Following its release in 2002, DeBlois sold several original live action feature projects to write, direct, and produce, including "The Banshee and Finn Magee," "The Lighthouse," and "Sightings," set-up at Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, and Universal Studios respectively. At present, all three remain in development. 2007 unveiled DeBlois' first foray into documentary filmmaking, with the acclaimed feature length music film, Sigur Rós: Heima (2007), chronicling the homecoming concert odyssey of Iceland's famed post-rock phenomenon, Sigur Rós. In October of 2008, DeBlois returned to feature animation to co-write and co-direct Dreamworks then-troubled How to Train Your Dragon (2010), once again re-teaming with Chris Sanders. The two re-envisioned the story from scratch, leading the production to its March 26, 2010 release, at break-neck speed. The resulting film earned Dreamworks Animation its highest critical acclaim to date and became the studio's top grossing film outside of the "Shrek" franchise. During this same time, DeBlois also directed another feature-length music film for Sigur Rós front-man Jónsi, entitled Go Quiet (2010), as well as a feature length concert film entitled "Jónsi: Live at The Wiltern." At present, DeBlois is writing, directing, and executive producing the highly anticipated sequel to How to Train Your Dragon (2010), "which he describes as "the epic second act of a much larger story".- Writer
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Terence Davies was born on 10 November 1945 in Liverpool, England, UK. He was a writer and director, known for Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The House of Mirth (2000) and Benediction (2021). He died on 7 October 2023 in Mistley, Essex, England, UK.- Director
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The main part of his few movies were filmed in the quarter of a century in which he worked closely together with the Indian producer Ismail Merchant and the German writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. His first films are all set in India and are very much influenced by the style of Satyajit Ray and Jean Renoir. After this period, he filmed three stories in New York and then dedicated his work to the great works of the English literature which made him internationally famous. Examples of this period are The Europeans (1979) and The Bostonians (1984) by Henry James, Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980) by Jane Austen, Quartet (1981) by Jean Rhys or A Room with a View (1985) and Maurice (1987) by E.M. Forster.- Actor
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Xavier Dolan was born on 20 March 1989 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is an actor and producer, known for I Killed My Mother (2009), Tom at the Farm (2013) and Heartbeats (2010).- Director
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Lindsay was born in Bangalore, India but educated in England at Cheltenham College and Wadham College, Oxford where he was a classical scholar. He then spent 3 years war time service in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. His career in the theatre started at the Royal Court in the late 1950's where he was responsible for the premiere productions of The Long and the Short and the Tall, Sergeant Musgrave's Dance, Billy Liar and The Bed Before Yesterday. His collaboration with David Storey began with the film This Sporting Life followed by the plays In Celebration, Home, The Changing Room, Early Days and his last, in 1992, Stages He also contributed to the Times, Observer and New Statesman newspapers.- Director
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Q. Allan Brocka's work as a director and screenwriter spans a range of genres in television, animation, live action, documentary, commercial, and feature film. He is best known as the creator, director and showrunner of Rick & Steve the Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, a prime time animated series starring that ran two seasons on MTV's Logo Network. He has also directed 5 independent feature films, screened at Sundance, Tribeca, and more than 100 film festivals.
Allan was born in Guam and raised all over the world. He earned his master's degree in film at California Institute of the Arts. Since graduating, he has volunteered with the Outfest Los Angeles LGBT film festival as filmmaker, fundraiser, mentor, and even served on its Board of Directors.- Producer
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Writer/Director/Producer/Actor/Stand-Up Comedian "Del Shores is a master of the Texas comedy." Los Angeles Times
Del Shores has written, directed and produced successfully across studio and independent film, network and cable television and regional and national touring theatre.
Shores' career took off with the play Daddy's Dyin' (Who's Got The Will?) in 1987, which ran two years, winning many Los Angeles theatre awards, including LA Weekly's Best Production and Best Writing. The play has subsequently been produced in over 2,500 theatres worldwide. A movie version of Daddy's Dyin' was released in 1990 by MGM starring Beau Bridges, Tess Harper, Judge Reinhold, Keith Carradine and Beverly D'Angelo. Shores wrote the screenplay and executive produced the film.
Sordid Lives, his fourth play, opened in Los Angeles in 1996 and ran 13 sold-out months. The play went on to win 14 Drama-Logue Theatre Awards, including three for Shores for wring, directing and producing. There have since been over 300 additional stage productions of the play.
In 1999, Shores wrote and directed the film version of Sordid Lives starring Beau Bridges, Delta Burke, Olivia Newton-John, Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan and Beth Grant along with most of the cast from the play. Opening in only eight theatres across the country, the little film that could took in nearly two million dollars in its limited release. The movie became a cult phenomenon and became the longest running film in the history of Palm Springs with a record ninety-six weeks.
The movie won many festival awards including Best Film at the New York Independent Film & Video Festival, Atlanta Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival, Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival, South Beach Film Festival, Memphis International Film Festival and the San Diego International Film Festival and won a total of thirteen "Audience Awards." In 2002 Twentieth Century Fox released the DVD/Video, which has now sold over 300,000 units.
His play Southern Baptist Sissies followed, and it enjoyed a ten-month sold-out run in Los Angeles in 2000. Revived in 2002, Sissies had another six month sold-out run. Shores received the LA Weekly, Robby and Maddy for Best Direction and the Backstage West Garland, Robby and Maddy for Best Writing. The play was also awarded the prestigious GLAAD Award for Outstanding Production of the Year.
In 2003, The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife became Shores' most critically acclaimed play. After a six-month sold-out run in Los Angeles, Shores won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle's Ted Schmitt Award for Best World Premiere of an Outstanding New Play. The Circle also awarded the play Best Production and Best Lead Performance to Beth Grant. Trials also won five Back Stage West Garland Awards, two NAACP Awards, an LA Stage Alliance Ovation and three LA Weekly Awards.
In 2006, Shores revived three of his plays (Sordid Lives, Southern Baptist Sissies, The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife) in Los Angeles before taking to the road for a successful six city national tour, starring Delta Burke and Leslie Jordan, which played in 1000-1700 seat houses.
Sordid Lives: The Series, a television series prequel to the film, premiered on Viacom's LOGO network in 2008 starring Olivia Newton-John, Rue McClanahan, Leslie Jordan, Beth Grant, Caroline Rhea and many of the original stage and film cast. Shores created, wrote, directed and executive produced all twelve episodes. The series became LOGO's biggest hit to date, and was distributed internationally through IMG worldwide in syndication in seventeen countries.
In addition to Sordid Lives: The Series, in television Shores has written and produced for many shows including Dharma and Greg and the last three seasons of the ground-breaking Showtime series Queer as Folk. He also wrote, directed and produced the Showtime movie The Wilde Girls, starring Olivia Newton-John and Swoosie Kurtz.
In 2009, Shores hit the road and played 34 cities to sold-out houses with his one-man show Del Shores: My Sordid Life. The DVD was filmed and released in 2012 by Breaking Glass Pictures. He also performed stand-up with various Sordid Lives stars including Rue McClanahan, Caroline Rhea and Leslie Jordan in A Sordid Affair, playing large theatres in Dallas, Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale and Raleigh as well as four nights at Comix in New York City.
The world premiere of Shores' newest play, Yellow, opened June 11, 2010 to rave reviews and ran six sold-out months. Yellow followed in the unmatched footsteps of Shores' six previous world premiere productions that have run collectively for over eight years and won over one hundred Los Angeles theatre awards. The production swept various Los Angeles theatre awards including Best World Premiere, Best Production, Best Direction for Del Shores himself (Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Backstage Garland, LA Weekly, Broadway World.) The play became Shores' seventh Samuel French published play and just played to sold-out houses for Uptown Players in Dallas at the historic Kalita Humpheys. He also directed the Dallas production.
Shores wrote, directed and produced the film version of his play The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife with the entire original stage cast: Beth Grant (Sordid Lives, Little Miss Sunshine, No Country For Old Men) Octavia Spencer (Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG Award Winner "Minnie" in The Help), Dale Dickey (Spirit Award Winner, Best Supporting Actress Winter's Bone), David Steen (Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained) and top 10 Billboard dance artist Debby Holiday. The film adaption is entitled Blues For Willadean and was released in select theatres in late 2012. It is now available on iTunes and other pay per view services.
In the summer of 2011, Shores took to the road again, selling out his new stand-up show Del Shores: Sordid Confessions in 40 cities. Shores returned to his home state of Texas in January of 2012 to film the show at the famous Rose Room in Dallas. Breaking Glass Pictures released the DVD to rave reviews. His stand-up career continued to explode and he launched his third national tour in 2012 with Del Shores: Naked.Sordid.Reality which he performed over fifty times then was filmed The Rose Room. His fourth stand-up tour Del Sores: SINgularly Sordid addresses his abrupt single life in his fifties, along with more stories, political rants and his signatory P.S. F.U. letters.
Shores film of his play Southern Baptist Sissies stormed the film festival circuit in 2013 and won ten major awards, including many for Shores. The film stars Emerson Collins, Willam Belli, Matthew Scott Montgomery, Luke Stratte-McClure, Newell Alexander, Rosemary Alexander, Bobbie Eakes, Ann Walker, Dale Dickey and Leslie Jordan.
Shores returned to acting in 2013, co-starring in the independent feature Cry.
Shores final chapter of his Sordid Lives franchise - A Very Sordid Wedding gained rave reviews, has a 83% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and a 96% Audience Score. The film sold out in most cities where it opened, and is now available on DVD/BluRay/VOD/iTunes and most other platforms. It was Gravitas Ventures #1 selling title of 2017 and was Amazon's #1 LGBT title for fifteen weeks. The film stars many of the Sordid veterans including Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan, Caroline Rhea, Dale Dickey and Ann Walker with cameos by Whoopi Goldberg, Alec Mapa and Carole Cook. The story advances the characters seventeen years, posing the question: What happens when marriage equality comes marching into Winters, Texas." The film had its world premiere in Palm Springs March 10, 2017 and won nine film festival awards.
In 2018, Shores returned to the stage, performing his new one-man play Six Characters In Search Of A Play and toured the country to rave reviews.
Del is represented by Cindy Mintz at The Kaplan-Stahler Agency as a writer-director, by Linda McAlister Talent as an actor and is managed by Michael Warwick for personal appearances. His publisher for all of his plays is Samuel French, Inc. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: DelShores and visit his fan page at facebook: delshoresfanclub.- Additional Crew
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Franco Zeffirelli is an Italian director and producer of operas, films and television. He was also a senator from 1994 until 2001 for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party. Some of his operatic designs and productions have become worldwide classics.
He was known for several of the movies he directed, especially the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet (1968), for which he received an Academy Award nomination. His 1967 version of The Taming of The Shrew (1967) with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton remains the best-known film adaptation of that play as well. His mini-series Jesus of Nazareth (1977) won both national and international acclaim.
In 1999, Zeffirelli received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In November 2004, he was awarded an honorary knighthood by the United Kingdom. He was awarded the Premio Colosseo in 2009 by the city of Rome.- Producer
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Richard Day is known for Arrested Development (2003), Girls Will Be Girls (2003) and The Larry Sanders Show (1992).- Art Department
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Chris Butler was born in 1974 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. He is a writer, known for ParaNorman (2012), Missing Link (2019) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016).- Producer
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Jeffrey Schwarz is an Emmy Award-winning producer, director and editor based in Los Angeles. His latest feature documentary is "Commitment to Life," which chronicles the city of Los Angeles' response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. It premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and is currently streaming on NBCUniversal's Peacock. Previous work includes "Boulevard! A Hollywood Story," "The Fabulous Allan Carr," "Tab Hunter Confidential," "I Am Divine," "Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon," "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story," and the Emmy Award-winning HBO Documentary Films' "Vito."- Editor
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Darren Stein was born on 24 December 1971 in California, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Jawbreaker (1999), G.B.F. (2013) and Sparkler (1997).- Director
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Rodney Evans is a writer/director/producer of fiction and documentary films. Credits include Brother To Brother (Winner-Sundance Film Festival-Special Jury Prize-Dramatic Competition), Billy and Aaron (Tribeca Film Festival) and Vision Portraits (SXSW-Documentary Competition). He is the recipient of IFP's Gordon Parks Award for Screenwriting for his fiction feature debut Brother To Brother. The film was nominated for 4 Film Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Debut Performance-Anthony Mackie and Best Supporting Actor-Roger Robinson. It had its European premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. His second fiction feature, The Happy Sad, had its theatrical premiere at the IFC Center in NYC and the Sundance Sunset Cinema in LA in 2013. His latest feature length film, Vision Portraits, had its world premiere in the Documentary Competition at SXSW in 2019 to universal critical acclaim. It won the prize for Best Documentary at Frameline-The San Francisco Int'l. LGBT+ Film Festival, aired nationally on America Reframed and screened virtually for a week at the Whitney Museum in July 2020 in honor of the 30th Anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Evans was recently honored with the Frameline Award for Career Achievement and a 2020 Sundance Momentum Fellowship. He is a Ford/Mellon Disability Futures Fellow for 2021. Evans holds a BFA in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Film/Video Production.- Director
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Antonio Hens was born in 1969 in Córdoba, Córdoba, Andalucía, Spain. He is a director and producer, known for Doors Cut Down (2000), Oh! Mammy Blue (2018) and Clandestinos (2007).- Director
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2020 Spirit Award nominee, Anna Margarita Albelo is an out, Cuban-American writer, director and producer working in film, television, and digital content. Based in Los Angeles, Anna is developing a feature film with Issa Rae and Deniese Davis' Color Creative. Her 2014 award winning feature, "Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf?" was released theatrically in France and her 2008 short film, "The Turkey" screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2008. She also served as a juror for the Cannes Film festival Queer Palm Award in 2014 and as an ambassador for the Queer Palm in 2019. As a producer, Anna produced "Wild Nights with Emily" by Madeleine Olnek starring Molly Shannon in 2018 (Nominated for the John Cassavetes Award, Spirit Award 2020), as well as, an 8-part series for Anthony Bourdain/The Perfect Dish Asia/CNN, Summer, 2017. Anna spent the first 15 years of her career in Paris, France and was a regular collaborator for French network, Canal Plus, writing and directing several broadcast documentaries and shorts on LGBT culture, also appearing as a recurring correspondent for the series, "L'Oeil de Links." Her body of work, screened in over 150 international festivals, blends narrative, documentary, and comedic elements into a unique story-telling style that has become her trademark. LA Weekly calls her work, "Riveting" and IndieWire spotlighted her as a "Filmmaker to watch!"- Producer
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Born and raised in Hong Kong, Quentin Lee first moved to Montreal, Canada, for high school and then went to UC Berkeley for his B.A. in English, Yale University for his M.A. in English and the UCLA School of Theater, Film & TV for his M.F.A. in Film Directing in the 90s. A double immigrant and an out LGBTQ BIPOC creator, he received his green card as an Alien of Extraordinary Ability and became a US citizen to vote for President Obama on his second term. He made his first feature SHOPPING FOR FANGS which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 1997 and became part of the Asian American New Wave 97'. A member of Producers Guild of America and Canadian Media Producers Association, Quentin has directed and produced over 10 feature films and 3 television series. Most of his films were released theatrically and his works were sold to Netflix and Hulu and are also available on AppleTV, Amazon, Tubi and other global streaming platforms.- Producer
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Ash Christian was an Emmy Award-winning producer, director, and actor, with more than 15 feature films and television series to his credit.
Most recently, he produced the SXSW hit film 1985 (2018), which was released. Ash recently produced the thriller Burn (2019), released by eOne in 2019. He also executive produced After Everything (2018) (written and directed by Hannah Marks and Joey Power), which premiered at SXSW. Other productions include Southern Pride (2018), Little Sister (2016), Miles (2016), Hello Again (2017), Coin Heist (2017), Stranger in the House (2015), Petunia (2012), Mangus! (2011), Addiction: A 60's Love Story (2015), Nate & Margaret (2012), and Fat Girls (2006). In 2019, Coyote Lake (2019), was released. Other films released in 2019 included Kindred Spirits (2019) (directed by Lucky McKee) and Milkwater (2020). In 2018, he produced Social Animals (2018), which will be released in theaters from Paramount Pictures. He also produced Hurricane Bianca: From Russia with Hate (2018) (the sequel to Hurricane Bianca (2016)), released theatrically in 2018.
Through his company, Cranium Entertainment, he is developing several feature film projects. Titles include "Untitled Timothy McVeigh Project" (directed by Mike Ott), "As Sick As They Made Us" (directed by Mayim Bialik), "Platonic" (directed by Cameron Fay and written by Sono Patel), and "Nightfall" (written and directed by Addison McQuigg).
Ash Christian died on August 13, 2020, aged 35, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.- Writer
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Stephan Lacant was born on 9 September 1972 in Essen, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Free Fall (2013), Strange Daughter (2017) and Little India (1996).- Producer
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Lee Galea is a Maltese Australian film director and writer, born on August 22nd, 1979 in Melbourne, Australia.
He is best known for his feature film "Monster Pies" which premiered in 2013 at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and after 23 years of MQFF "Monster Pies" was the first ever Australian film to win Best Feature. It went on to screen at Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival, Philadelphia QFest and The Galway Film Fleadh. "Monster Pies" is distributed in the US and Europe by TLA releasing.
In 2017, Lee released his "Wizard of Oz" adaptation "The Neon Spectrum" starring Joshua Orpin from "DC Titans", in his feature debut. It was released by Umbrella Entertainment and has been broadcast through the Nine Network in Australia.
Lee produced a soundtrack of mostly original songs for his 2019 musical drama "Filterphonic", which opened the "Lorne Film" festival in the same year. In 2020, "Melbourne Indie Film festival" awarded the film Best Drama. Bounty Films acquired the film for worldwide distribution along with Lee's fifth feature film drama "Sexagenarian".
In 2022, Lee released his first TV series, queer comedy "Single, Out" which is in post-production with its second season. "Single, Out" premiered on the American Emmy Award-Winning TV Network Here TV in August 2023.