John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for Passion Fish (1992) and Lone Star (1996). His film Men with Guns (1997) was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His directorial debut, Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980), was added to the National Film Registry in 1997.
Stand and Deliver is a 1988 American drama film directed by Ramón Menéndez, written by Menéndez and Tom Musca, based on the true story of a high school mathematics teacher, Jaime Escalante. For portraying Escalante, Edward James Olmos was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 61st Academy Awards. The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature in 1988. The film's title refers to the 1987 Mr. Mister song of the same name, which is also featured in the film's ending credits.
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for films that revolve mainly around suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films, Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); and the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016).
The Independent Spirit Awards, founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the bare budgets of independent films. Since 2006, winners have received a metal trophy depicting a bird with its wings spread sitting atop of a pole with the shoestrings from the previous design wrapped around the pole.
Ginny Mule Pictures was an independent film production company created by actors, Ray McKinnon, Lisa Blount and Walton Goggins. Ginny Mule was involved with producing four independent films, each featuring McKinnon and Goggins onscreen. Blount appeared in Ginny Mule's first three films, but died in 2010.
Tumbleweeds is a 1999 American comedy-drama film directed by Gavin O'Connor. O'Connor co-wrote the screenplay with his then-wife Angela Shelton, based on Shelton's childhood memories spent on the road with her serial-marrying mother. It stars Janet McTeer, Kimberly J. Brown and Jay O. Sanders.
Guadalupe Ontiveros was an American actress best known for portraying Rosalita in The Goonies, and Yolanda Saldívar in the film Selena. She acted in numerous films and television shows, often playing a maid or, near the end of her career, an all-knowing grandmother. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on Desperate Housewives and received critical acclaim for her role in Chuck & Buck, for which she won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress, and was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.
The Utopian Society is a 2003 film directed by John P. Aguirre and starring Sam Doumit, Austin Nichols, Malin Åkerman, Mat Hostetler, Kelvin Yu, and Kirsten Ariza. It was re-released by Warner Brothers in 2008.
Starting Out in the Evening is a 2007 American drama film directed by Andrew Wagner. The screenplay by Wagner and Fred Parnes is based on the novel of the same name by Brian Morton.
Carlos Reygadas Castillo is a Mexican filmmaker. Influenced by existentialist art and philosophy, Reygadas' movies feature spiritual journeys into the inner worlds of his main characters, through which themes of love, suffering, death, and life's meaning are explored.
Nancy Laura Savoca is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter.
Suzanne Todd is an American film and television producer, and the owner of the film production company Team Todd.
Olga Segura is a Mexican actress and producer.
Kyle Henry is an American independent filmmaker, editor, and educator. Henry teaches film production at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, while also spending time in Los Angeles and Austin.
Sanjay Arora is an Indian filmmaker and Actor. He is known for making films such as Expression, Chase, Butterfly Wings, Once Again.
Nestor Gregory Carter, professionally known as Greg Carter, is a filmmaker from Texas who has produced more than nineteen feature films and documentaries, nine of which he directed and six he wrote. He is a native of Houston. Carter has been inducted into the Texas Filmmakers' Hall of Fame in 2006, in recognition of his film and community contributions.
Jennifer Phang is an American filmmaker, most known for her feature films Advantageous (2015) and Half-Life (2008). Advantageous premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning a Special Jury Award for Collaborative Vision, and was based on her award-winning short film of the same name. Half-Life premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won "Best Film" awards at a number of film festivals including the Gen Art Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival as well an "Emerging Director Award" at the Asian American International Film Festival.
Taylor Sheridan is an American filmmaker and actor. Sheridan portrayed David Hale in the FX television series Sons of Anarchy and Danny Boyd in Veronica Mars (2005–2007).
Maryam Zahirimehr is an Iranian screenwriter and film director living in the USA.
