Billy Wilder was an Austrian-American film director, producer and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director eight times, winning twice, and for a screenplay Academy Award 13 times, winning three times.
Krzysztof Kieślowski was a Polish film director and screenwriter. He is known internationally for Dekalog (1989), The Double Life of Veronique (1991), and the Three Colours trilogy (1993 –1994). Kieślowski received numerous awards during his career, including the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize (1988), FIPRESCI Prize, and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (1991); the Venice Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize (1989), Golden Lion (1993), and OCIC Award (1993); and the Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear (1994). In 1995, he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Writing.
Ball of Fire is a 1941 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. This Samuel Goldwyn Productions film concerns a group of professors laboring to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge.
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. After training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, he started his acting career in 1962. He has been referred to as the "master of the brooding silence" by The Guardian. His performance in the title role of Billy Budd, his film debut, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer. Associated with the Swinging London scene of the 1960s – during which time he was in high-profile relationships with actress Julie Christie and supermodel Jean Shrimpton – Stamp was among the subjects photographed by David Bailey for a set titled Box of Pin-Ups.
Andrew Niccol is a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. He wrote and directed Gattaca (1997), Simone (2002), Lord of War (2005), In Time (2011), The Host (2013), and Good Kill (2014). He wrote and co-produced The Truman Show, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won him the BAFTA Award in the same category. His films tend to explore social, cultural and political issues, as well as artificial realities, simulations and the male gaze.
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He wrote or co-wrote screenplays for four Martin Scorsese films: Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999).
James Francis Ivory is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. For many years, he worked extensively with Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic as well as professional partner, and with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. All three were principals in Merchant Ivory Productions, whose films have won seven Academy Awards; Ivory himself has been nominated for four Oscars, winning one.
Smoke Signals is a Canadian-American independent film released in 1998, directed and co-produced by Chris Eyre and with a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on the short story "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" from his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). The film won several awards and accolades, and was well received at numerous film festivals.
David Thomson is a British film critic and historian based in the United States, and the author of more than 20 books. His reference works in particular — Have You Seen...?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films (2008) and The New Biographical Dictionary of Film — have been praised as works of high literary merit and eccentricity. Benjamin Schwarz, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, called him "probably the greatest living film critic and historian" who "writes the most fun and enthralling prose about the movies since Pauline Kael". John Banville called him "the greatest living writer on the movies".
Terence George is an Irish screenwriter and director. Much of his film work involves "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
Jonathan Raymond is an American writer living in Portland, Oregon. He is best known for writing the novels The Half-Life and Rain Dragon, and for writing the short stories or novels for the films Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, and First Cow, all directed by Kelly Reichardt, with whom he co-wrote the screenplays.
Andrea Berloff is an American screenwriter, actress, director, and producer. Berloff is best known for writing the 2006 disaster drama film World Trade Center, and co-writing the 2015 biographical drama Straight Outta Compton for which she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Chris Terrio is an American screenwriter and film director. He is best known for writing the screenplay for the 2012 film Argo, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Terrio also won the Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay of 2012 and was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, a BAFTA, and the 2013 Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for this work.
Dennis Foon is a Canadian playwright, producer, screenwriter and novelist.
Jonathan A. Levine is an American film director and screenwriter.
Shane Stanley is a filmmaker and founder of Visual Arts Entertainment, a film and television production company based in Los Angeles. He is best known for producing Gridiron Gang starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson for Sony Pictures and directing Bret Michaels's music videos. Stanley won a production Emmy Award at sixteen, and a second at nineteen for his work on The Desperate Passage Series. He made his directorial debut helming his own screenplay A Sight for Sore Eyes.
TheFilmSchool is a non-profit film program located in Seattle, Washington, that focuses on intensive training in screenwriting and directing. TheFilmSchool's mission statement 'to elevate the art of cinematic storytelling' guides the curriculum to heavily emphasize character, structure, and understanding the principles of storytelling. The program was founded in 2003 by Stewart Stern, John Jacobsen, Rick Stevenson, Warren Etheredge, and Tom Skerritt.
The 168 Film Project is a Christian film festival.
The Burbank International Film Festival (BIFF) is an annual film festival held since 2009 in Burbank, California, United States. It was founded by Val Tonione, and awards are distributed to filmmakers that have focused on social and environmental issues.
Deborah Chow is a Canadian filmmaker, television director and screenwriter known for her independent films and her work on Star Wars television. Two of her first short films, Daypass (2002) and The Hill (2004) have both won awards at various international film festivals. Her first feature film was The High Cost of Living (2010), which she both wrote and directed.
