George Kaczender(1933-2016)

George Kaczender left Hungary in 1956 as a political refugee after studying film and working as an Assistant Director at the Pannonina Film Studios in Budapest. Before coming to Los Angeles in the early 1980s he worked at the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal from 1956-69, where he wrote and directed award-winning documentaries and short dramatic features. In 1968 he wrote and directed the award-winning feature Don't Let the Angels Fall (1969), starring Arthur Hill, that became the first Canadian feature film invited to the main competition at the 1969 Cannes International Film Festival. In 1970 he left the Film Board to work in London with distinguished producer Oscar Lewenstein. The same year he became one of the founding partners of International Cinemedia Center in Montreal.

In the 1970s he directed numerous award-winning educational films for Learning Corporation of America and five theatrical feature films before leaving Canada for Hollywood. Among them were In Praise of Older Women (1978), based on the best-selling novel by Stephen Vizinczey, and Chanel Solitaire (1981), a biography of Coco Chanel shot on location in France.

He has worked with stars such as Robert Mitchum, Richard Harris, Jeanne Moreau, Tom Berenger, Karen Black Brad Pitt and George Clooney. He has also directed numerous movies for network and cable television. His first novel, "An Unreasonable Notion of Desire", was published in 2000 by Xlibris, a subsidiary of Random House.

Between 2002-04 he was Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, teaching film directing.