My personal favorites list of the 10 best Directors/Producers of Film and TV Series today (In no certain order)
This is my personal favorites list of the 10 best Directors/Producers of Film and TV Series today.
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- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Armand Mastroianni has been directing feature films, mini series, movies of the week, TV pilots and episodic series since 1979, beginning with his first feature film He Knows You're Alone (1980), which was released by MGM in 1980 and featured the screen debut of Tom Hanks. That led to a string of features including The Clairvoyant (1982) (developed with William Friedkin), The Supernaturals (1986), Distortions (1987), Cameron's Closet (1988) and Double Revenge (1988). In between shooting feature films Armand began to produce and direct episodic television shows like Dark Shadows (1991), Against the Law (1990), Friday's Curse (1987), War of the Worlds (1988), Mann & Machine (1992), Wes Craven's Nightmare Cafe (1992), Freshman Dorm (1992), Reasonable Doubts (1991), Touched by an Angel (1994) and The Dead Zone (2002). Working almost non-stop, he directed several highly received mini-series including Danielle Steel's book The Ring (1996) (based on her book) and Robin Cook's Invasion (1997). His made-for-TV movies include Perfect Crimes (1991), The Linda McCartney Story(2000), Dare to Love (1995), Robin Cook's Virus (1995), Final Run (1999), A Mother's Revenge (1993), One of Her Own (1994), Les Audacieux (1993), When No One Would Listen (1992), Nowhere to Land (2000), Fatal Error (1999), First Target (2000), First Shot(2002), and for the TBS Superstation, First Daughter (1999), which was the highest rated movie for cable to date. In 2004 he directed Gone But Not Forgotten (2005), a four-hour mini-series starring Brooke Shields, Scott Glenn and Lou Diamond Phillips based on the best-selling suspense novel by Phillip M. Margolin, for Hallmark Entertainment. This was followed by The Celestine Prophecy (2006), based upon the book written by James Redfield. Theatrically released in spring of 2006, "The Celestine Prophecy" is a story of intrigue, suspense and revelation that became a publishing phenomenon and was on the hardcover New York Times Bestseller List for 165 weeks. After completing post-production on "Celestine Prophecy", Armand began a series of two-hour suspense films for Hallmark Entertainment starring Lea Thompson, Joe Penny, Joseph Bologna and Donna Mills, and the romantic comedy Falling in Love with the Girl Next Door (2006) with Patty Duke, Patrick Duffy, Shelley Long and Bruce Boxleitner. In January 2006 he directed Though None Go with Me (2006), a film based on the best-selling novel by Jerry B. Jenkins, writer of the "Left Behind" series. A four-hour miniseries followed called Pandemic (2007) for RHI Entertainment, about the effects of a virus that cripples Los Angeles and stars Tiffani Thiessen, Faye Dunaway, Eric Roberts and Vincent Spano. In 2007 he directed another four-hour mini series for RHI Entertainment called Final Approach (2007), which dealt with terrorists taking over a jumbo jet leaving from Newark to Los Angeles, and Sharpshooter (2007), a thriller about a CIA assassin who discovers on his final assignment that he is the target. He then directed Black Widow (2008) and Grave Misconduct (2008), suspense thrillers for the Lifetime Channel. For the Hallmark Channel in 2008 he directed a western called A Gunfighter's Pledge (2008) with Luke Perry and C. Thomas Howell and followed this with Our First Christmas (2008). In October 2008 Mastroianni formed a production company, Silver Screen Pictures, with Kyle A. Clark and Lina Wong co-producers of many of his films, to develop and produce feature films, television movies and series. Their first film under Silver Screen Pictures was_Safe Harbor (2008) (TV)_ with Treat Williams and Nancy Travis. This was followed in January 2009 by Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith (2009) starring Cybill Shepherd and in April with Citizen Jane (2009), based on a true story, starring Ally Sheedy, Meat Loaf and Sean Patrick Flannery. Both films directed by Armand were for the Hallmark Channel. Silver Screen Pictures produced "The League" a comedy pilot for Fox TV's FX in April 2009 and followed it in October and December with Secrets in the Walls (2010) and Amish Grace (2010), both for Lifetime TV. In 2010 Silver Screen produced Lies in Plain Sight (2010) and The Craigslist Killer (2011) for Lifetime and Smooch (2011) for Hallmark. William and Kate: Inside the Royal Wedding (2011), Carnal Innocence (2011), The Bling Ring (2013), Drew Peterson: Untouchable (2012) and We Have Your Husband (2011) were produced in 2011 for Lifetime. In addition to Lifetime Silver Screen continues producing content for FX, TNT, BET, and other outlets. During that time Mastroianni completed two short films: The Quandary (2011) and The Finalist (II) (2011). In August of 2012, Mastroianni produced and directed Dark Desire (2012) with Kelly Lynch and Michael Nouri for his new company Shore Road Entertainment. Currently involved in several productions Armand Mastroianni divides his time producing and developing material for various outlets.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.
In January of 1992, first-time writer-director Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. The film garnered critical acclaim and the director became a legend immediately. Two years later, he followed up Dogs success with Pulp Fiction (1994) which premiered at the Cannes film festival, winning the coveted Palme D'Or Award. At the 1995 Academy Awards, it was nominated for the best picture, best director and best original screenplay. Tarantino and writing partner Roger Avary came away with the award only for best original screenplay. In 1995, Tarantino directed one fourth of the anthology Four Rooms (1995) with friends and fellow auteurs Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Allison Anders. The film opened December 25 in the United States to very weak reviews. Tarantino's next film was From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), a vampire/crime story which he wrote and co-starred with George Clooney. The film did fairly well theatrically.
Since then, Tarantino has helmed several critically and financially successful films, including Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015).- Producer
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Updated: August 1st, 2022
Ed Polgardy, president of Black Hat Magic Productions, is an acclaimed comic book creator-writer-editor, an Emmy-Award-winning television producer-director, and a successful feature film writer-producer-director.
PUBLISHING
Polgardy co-created the internationally acclaimed hit comic book series "From The Darkness" and "From The Darkness: Blood Vows", and wrote the graphic novel adaptation of Quentin Tarantino's "From Dusk 'Til Dawn".
As Senior Editor at Jim Shooter's Defiant Comics, he developed, wrote, and edited several hit titles, including "The Good Guys" and "Dark Dominion" (penciled by "Spider-Man" co-creator Steve Ditko).
Polgardy also held the Editor-in-Chief position at BIG Entertainment where he worked with celebrity concept creators John Jakes, Mickey Spillane, Tom Clancy, and Neil Gaiman. The resulting intellectual properties were licensed to Miramax, Alliance Entertainment, and ABC TV.
TELEVISION
Polgardy's TV work includes producing and directing: "Today's Environment", starring Ed Begley, Jr., "Millennium", hosted by Peter Weller, "The Best of Wine and Food", featuring George Hamilton, ".COM" and ".COM Kids", starring Mark Hamill, "Elegance with Ivana", featuring Ivana Trump, "Women in Charge", with Nancy Glass, "First Priority", hosted by Hunter Tylo, "Healthy Solutions", starring Mariette Hartley, and "Monsterama", featuring Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson.
Polgardy also helped create Price/Parker, a television production company where he developed, produced, and directed "Identity", a female-empowerment show that aired on The Learning Channel.
Moving into fictional programming, Polgardy produced "Oh Jerome, No" (starring Mamoudou Athie,Natasha Lyonne, and Georgina Campbell) through his Black Hat Magic Productions company, a short-form television series-eight 12-minute episodes-that aired on "Cake" on Disney's FXX Network and garnered a Best Actor Emmy Award nomination for star Mamoudou Athie.
FEATURE FILMS
Polgardy produced the motion pictures "Masked Mutilator" (featuring Brick Bronsky, Glenn Hetrick, and James DeBello), which he also co-wrote, "The Halfway House" (starring cult-film icon Mary Woronov), "The Ghostmaker" (starring Aaron Dean Eisenberg), "Window Of Opportunity" (with producing partner John Densmore, legendary rock-'n'-roll drummer from The Doors), "Dark Desire" (featuring Kelly Lynch and Michael Nouri), "Megachurch Murder" (starring Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Corbin Bleu and Romeo Miller), "The Wretched" (featuring John-Paul Howard, Piper Curda, Kevin Bigley, and Azie Tesfai), which was the number one movie in America for six weeks straight in the summer of 2020 and went straight into the top five on its first day of release on Netflix in the summer of 2022, and "Feed Me" (starring Christopher Mulvin, Neal Ward, Hannah Al Rashid, and Samantha Loxley).
He line produced "Boiler Maker" (starring John Savage), and co-produced "Laid to Rest" (featuring Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker).
As a second unit director, Polgardy worked on "Death's Door", "Laid to Rest", "Dark House", "The Ghostmaker" and "The Wretched".
AT PRESENT
Ed Polgardy creates and develops intellectual properties for film and TV at Black Hat Magic Productions, Inc., a development, production, and licensing company that he founded in 2010. He's currently working on a feature-length crime thriller called "Kill Everything" that he created, co-wrote and is scheduled to direct.- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later provided the inspiration for several of his films. Scorsese earned a B.S. degree in film communications in 1964, followed by an M.A. in the same field in 1966 at New York University's School of Film. During this time, he made numerous prize-winning short films including The Big Shave (1967), and directed his first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967).
He served as assistant director and an editor of the documentary Woodstock (1970) and won critical and popular acclaim for Mean Streets (1973), which first paired him with actor and frequent collaborator Robert De Niro. In 1976, Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), also starring De Niro, was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he followed that film with New York, New York (1977) and The Last Waltz (1978). Scorsese directed De Niro to an Oscar-winning performance as boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980), which received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and is hailed as one of the masterpieces of modern cinema. Scorsese went on to direct The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995) and Kundun (1997), among other films. Commissioned by the British Film Institute to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of cinema, Scorsese completed the four-hour documentary, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), co-directed by Michael Henry Wilson.
His long-cherished project, Gangs of New York (2002), earned numerous critical honors, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Director; the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004) won five Academy Awards, in addition to the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for Best Picture. Scorsese won his first Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), which was also honored with the Director's Guild of America, Golden Globe, New York Film Critics, National Board of Review and Critic's Choice awards for Best Director, in addition to four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Scorsese's documentary of the Rolling Stones in concert, Shine a Light (2008), followed, with the successful thriller Shutter Island (2010) two years later. Scorsese received his seventh Academy Award nomination for Best Director, as well as a Golden Globe Award, for Hugo (2011), which went on to win five Academy Awards.
Scorsese also serves as executive producer on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010) for which he directed the pilot episode. Scorsese's additional awards and honors include the Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival (1995), the AFI Life Achievement Award (1997), the Honoree at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 25th Gala Tribute (1998), the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award (2003), The Kennedy Center Honors (2007) and the HFPA Cecil B. DeMille Award (2010). Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio have worked together on five separate occasions: Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).- Producer
- Director
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Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated with a degree in drama from Hofstra University, and did graduate work at UCLA in filmmaking. He was training as assistant with filmmaker Roger Corman, working in such capacities as sound-man, dialogue director, associate producer and, eventually, director of Dementia 13 (1963), Coppola's first feature film. During the next four years, Coppola was involved in a variety of script collaborations, including writing an adaptation of "This Property is Condemned" by Tennessee Williams (with Fred Coe and Edith Sommer), and screenplays for Is Paris Burning? (1966) and Patton (1970), the film for which Coppola won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award. In 1966, Coppola's 2nd film brought him critical acclaim and a Master of Fine Arts degree. In 1969, Coppola and George Lucas established American Zoetrope, an independent film production company based in San Francisco. The company's first project was THX 1138 (1971), produced by Coppola and directed by Lucas. Coppola also produced the second film that Lucas directed, American Graffiti (1973), in 1973. This movie got five Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. In 1971, Coppola's film The Godfather (1972) became one of the highest-grossing movies in history and brought him an Oscar for writing the screenplay with Mario Puzo The film was a Best Picture Academy Award-winner, and also brought Coppola a Best Director Oscar nomination. Following his work on the screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), Coppola's next film was The Conversation (1974), which was honored with the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and brought Coppola Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscar nominations. Also released that year, The Godfather Part II (1974), rivaled the success of The Godfather (1972), and won six Academy Awards, bringing Coppola Oscars as a producer, director and writer. Coppola then began work on his most ambitious film, Apocalypse Now (1979), a Vietnam War epic that was inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1993). Released in 1979, the acclaimed film won a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and two Academy Awards. Also that year, Coppola executive produced the hit The Black Stallion (1979). With George Lucas, Coppola executive produced Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980), directed by Akira Kurosawa, and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), directed by Paul Schrader and based on the life and writings of Yukio Mishima. Coppola also executive produced such films as The Escape Artist (1982), Hammett (1982) The Black Stallion Returns (1983), Barfly (1987), Wind (1992), The Secret Garden (1993), etc.
He helped to make a star of his nephew, Nicolas Cage. Personal tragedy hit in 1986 when his son Gio died in a boating accident. Francis Ford Coppola is one of America's most erratic, energetic and controversial filmmakers.- Producer
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One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, producer or writer since launching the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975), and he has done more to define popular film-making since the mid-1970s than anyone else.
Steven Allan Spielberg was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Leah Frances (Posner), a concert pianist and restaurateur, and Arnold Spielberg, an electrical engineer who worked in computer development. His parents were both born to Russian Jewish immigrant families. Steven spent his younger years in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona, and later Saratoga, California. He went to California State University Long Beach, but dropped out to pursue his entertainment career. Among his early directing efforts were Battle Squad (1961), which combined World War II footage with footage of an airplane on the ground that he makes you believe is moving. He also directed Escape to Nowhere (1961), which featured children as World War Two soldiers, including his sister Anne Spielberg, and The Last Gun (1959), a western. All of these were short films. The next couple of years, Spielberg directed a couple of movies that would portend his future career in movies. In 1964, he directed Firelight (1964), a movie about aliens invading a small town. In 1967, he directed Slipstream (1967), which was unfinished. However, in 1968, he directed Amblin' (1968), which featured the desert prominently, and not the first of his movies in which the desert would feature. Amblin' also became the name of his production company, which turned out such classics as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg had a unique and classic early directing project, Duel (1971), with Dennis Weaver. In the early 1970s, Spielberg was working on TV, directing among others such series as Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Murder by the Book (1971). All of his work in television and short films, as well as his directing projects, were just a hint of the wellspring of talent that would dazzle audiences all over the world.
Spielberg's first major directorial effort was The Sugarland Express (1974), with Goldie Hawn, a film that marked him as a rising star. It was his next effort, however, that made him an international superstar among directors: Jaws (1975). This classic shark attack tale started the tradition of the summer blockbuster or, at least, he was credited with starting the tradition. His next film was the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a unique and original UFO story that remains a classic. In 1978, Spielberg produced his first film, the forgettable I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), and followed that effort with Used Cars (1980), a critically acclaimed, but mostly forgotten, Kurt Russell/Jack Warden comedy about devious used-car dealers. Spielberg hit gold yet one more time with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with Harrison Ford taking the part of Indiana Jones. Spielberg produced and directed two films in 1982. The first was Poltergeist (1982), but the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg also helped pioneer the practice of product placement. The concept, while not uncommon, was still relatively low-key when Spielberg raised the practice to almost an art form with his famous (or infamous) placement of Reese's Pieces in "E.T." Spielberg was also one of the pioneers of the big-grossing special-effects movies, like "E.T." and "Close Encounters", where a very strong emphasis on special effects was placed for the first time on such a huge scale. In 1984, Spielberg followed up "Raiders" with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which was a commercial success but did not receive the critical acclaim of its predecessor. As a producer, Spielberg took on many projects in the 1980s, such as The Goonies (1985), and was the brains behind the little monsters in Gremlins (1984). He also produced the cartoon An American Tail (1986), a quaint little animated classic. His biggest effort as producer in 1985, however, was the blockbuster Back to the Future (1985), which made Michael J. Fox an instant superstar. As director, Spielberg took on the book The Color Purple (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, with great success. In the latter half of the 1980s, he also directed Empire of the Sun (1987), a mixed success for the occasionally erratic Spielberg. Success would not escape him for long, though.
The late 1980s found Spielberg's projects at the center of pop-culture yet again. In 1988, he produced the landmark animation/live-action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The next year proved to be another big one for Spielberg, as he produced and directed Always (1989) as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Back to the Future Part II (1989). All three of the films were box-office and critical successes. Also, in 1989, he produced the little known comedy-drama Dad (1989), with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, which got mostly mixed results. Spielberg has also had an affinity for animation and has been a strong voice in animation in the 1990s. Aside from producing the landmark "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", he produced the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993), Pinky and the Brain (1995), Freakazoid! (1995), Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (1998), Family Dog (1993) and Toonsylvania (1998). Spielberg also produced other cartoons such as The Land Before Time (1988), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Casper (1995) (the live action version) as well as the live-action version of The Flintstones (1994), where he was credited as "Steven Spielrock". Spielberg also produced many Roger Rabbit short cartoons, and many Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons specials. Spielberg was very active in the early 1990s, as he directed Hook (1991) and produced such films as the cute fantasy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He also produced the unusual comedy thriller Arachnophobia (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). While these movies were big successes in their own right, they did not quite bring in the kind of box office or critical acclaim as previous efforts. In 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park (1993), which for a short time held the record as the highest grossing movie of all time, but did not have the universal appeal of his previous efforts. Big box-office spectacles were not his only concern, though. He produced and directed Schindler's List (1993), a stirring film about the Holocaust. He won best director at the Oscars, and also got Best Picture. In the mid-90s, he helped found the production company DreamWorks, which was responsible for many box-office successes.
As a producer, he was very active in the late 90s, responsible for such films as The Mask of Zorro (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Deep Impact (1998). However, it was on the directing front that Spielberg was in top form. He directed and produced the epic Amistad (1997), a spectacular film that was shorted at the Oscars and in release due to the fact that its release date was moved around so much in late 1997. The next year, however, produced what many believe was one of the best films of his career: Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film about World War Two that is spectacular in almost every respect. It was stiffed at the Oscars, losing best picture to Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Spielberg produced a series of films, including Evolution (2001), The Haunting (1999) and Shrek (2001). he also produced two sequels to Jurassic Park (1993), which were financially but not particularly critical successes. In 2001, he produced a mini-series about World War Two that definitely *was* a financial and critical success: Band of Brothers (2001), a tale of an infantry company from its parachuting into France during the invasion to the Battle of the Bulge. Also in that year, Spielberg was back in the director's chair for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a movie with a message and a huge budget. It did reasonably at the box office and garnered varied reviews from critics.
Spielberg has been extremely active in films there are many other things he has done as well. He produced the short-lived TV series SeaQuest 2032 (1993), an anthology series entitled Amazing Stories (1985), created the video-game series "Medal of Honor" set during World War Two, and was a starting producer of ER (1994). Spielberg, if you haven't noticed, has a great interest in World War Two. He and Tom Hanks collaborated on Shooting War: World War II Combat Cameramen (2000), a documentary about World War II combat photographers, and he produced a documentary about the Holocaust called Eyes of the Holocaust (2000). With all of this to Spielberg's credit, it's no wonder that he's looked at as one of the greatest ever figures in entertainment.- Director
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Dimi's passion for images started when he received a stills camera for his 11th birthday from his grandfather, who thought photography, mathematics, physics, and chemistry to students in a secondary school in Bulgaria between 1960's and mid-1990's.During the photography workshops, Dimi observed the students and learned from his grandfather to develop and process the film and photo paper into photos in the dark room.
Dimi saw how while dipping into the photo solution the surface of the white paper quickly fills up with gray and black colors and in seconds to become black and white photo just like a motion picture story told in the moment on a piece of paper. Dimi became fascinated with the process and taking photos so he developed a love for photography, which later changed to watching a lot of movies and then studying how to make films in New Zealand.
Dimi is an aspiring multi award winning Filmmaker with a diverse body of work. Since 2009 he has produced a number of award winning music videos with over 1.2million views on You Tube, short films, and corporate videos for Coca Cola Amatil NZ. All of Dimi's short films have acquired non-exclusive worldwide distribution deals from numerous VOD distributors.
In 2012 Dimi was the first New Zealand Director to have two short films in competition at Cyprus International Film Festival, where his short "Playmates" won Best Cinematography. The second short film "BlindSide" that he produced and directed was accepted in Cannes Short Film Corner the same year and subsequently took him to Cannes to experience its full glory and meet some valuable business contacts.
In 2015 Dimi's music Video "Start A Revolution" for the NZ Band "Devilskin" won him the Rising Star Award at Canada International Film Festival. During March-April 2016 Dimi was a member of an international screening committee for the "Diversity In Cannes Short Film Showcase". Also between April - May 2017 Dimi judged Documentaries from all over the world for "Melbourne Documentary Film Festival".- Writer
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Certainly idiosyncratic as a writer, Cameron Crowe has created a series of scripts that, while liked by the critics, were considered offbeat and difficult to market.
Cameron Bruce Crowe was born in Palm Springs, California, to Alice Marie Crowe (née George), a teacher and activist, and James A. Crowe, a real estate/telephone business owner. Cameron began his writing career as a 15-year-old high-school student, with articles on music submitted to Rolling Stone magazine, and only a few years later had his first script, for Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). This movie was important for more than his career - his future wife Nancy Wilson had a small role in the film. Music remained important to him, with the rock band Pearl Jam playing a bit role in Singles (1992) well before they were "discovered". His next movie, Jerry Maguire (1996), took over five years to develop - a chance photograph of a football player and his agent was the initial inspiration. It took some 20 drafts and near terminal discouragement that he would ever get it right before the film finally made it to the screen. And this time his wife composed the music.- Writer
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James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his screenwriting ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and had his first experience as a director with a two week stint on Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) before being fired.
He then wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. It was a low budget independent film, but Cameron's superb, dynamic direction made it a surprise mainstream success and it is now regarded as one of the most iconic pictures of the 1980s. After this came a string of successful, bigger budget science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In 1990, Cameron formed his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. In 1997, he wrote and directed Titanic (1997), a romance epic about two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board the famous ship. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until 12 years later, Avatar (2009), which invented and pioneered 3D film technology, and it went on to beat "Titanic", and became the first film to cost two billion dollars until 2019 when Marvel took the record.
James Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and they have three children.- Director
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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.