William Gale Vinton was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work alongside several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for his studio's work.
Jim Sheridan is an Irish playwright and filmmaker. Between 1989 and 1993, Sheridan directed three critically acclaimed films set in Ireland, My Left Foot (1989), The Field (1990), and In the Name of the Father (1993), and later directed the films The Boxer (1997), In America (2003), and Brothers (2009). Sheridan received six Academy Award nominations.
Anne Frank Remembered is a 1995 British documentary film produced and directed by Jon Blair about the life and posthumously published diary of the German-Jewish diarist, Anne Frank, who spent most of her life in the Netherlands. The film was produced in association with the Anne Frank House, Disney Channel, and the BBC, and features narration by Kenneth Branagh and extracts from Frank's diary read by Glenn Close. It originally aired on television in April 1995 before it was screened theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics in February 1996.
Arthur Lipsett was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada. His short, avant-garde collage films, which he described as "neither underground nor conventional”, contain elements of narrative, documentary, experimental collage, and visual essay. His first film, Very Nice, Very Nice, was nominated for an Academy Award.
Frank Joseph Perry Jr. was an American stage director and filmmaker. His 1962 independent film David and Lisa earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The couple collaborated on five more films, including The Swimmer, Diary of a Mad Housewife, and the Emmy Award–nominated A Christmas Memory, based on a short story by Truman Capote. Perry went on to form Corsair Pictures, privately financed by United Artists Theatres, which produced Miss Firecracker and A Shock to the System, then folded. His later films include Mommie Dearest and the documentary On the Bridge, about his battle with prostate cancer.
Hubert Sauper is an Austrian documentary filmmaker, director, writer, producer, and actor best known for the highly controversial Darwin's Nightmare (2004) which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Jennifer Abbott is a Sundance and Genie award-winning film director, writer, editor, producer and sound designer who specializes in social justice and environmental documentaries.
Márta Mészáros is a Hungarian screenwriter and film director. The daughter of László Mészáros, a sculptor, Mészáros began her career working in documentary film, having made 25 documentary shorts over the span of ten years. Her full-length directorial debut, Eltavozott nap/The Girl (1968), was the first Hungarian film to have been directed by a woman, and won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Valladolid International Film Festival.
Satyajit Ray was an Indian filmmaker who worked prominently in Bengali cinema and who has often been regarded as one of the greatest directors of world cinema. Ray was born in Calcutta to a Bengali family and started his career as a junior visualiser. His meeting with French film director Jean Renoir, who had come to Calcutta in 1949 to shoot his film The River (1951), and his 1950 visit to London, where he saw Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette (1948), inspired Ray to become a film-maker. Ray made his directorial debut in 1955 with Pather Panchali and directed 36 films, comprising 29 feature films, five documentaries, and two short films.
Charles Richard Shyer is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Shyer's films are predominantly comedies, often with a romantic-comedy overtone. His writing and directing credits include Private Benjamin (1980), Irreconcilable Differences (1984), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), and Father of the Bride Part II (1995), The Parent Trap (1998), The Affair of the Necklace (2001), Alfie (2004), and Ieri, Oggi Domani (2012), 'The Noel Diary' (2022).
R. J. Cutler is an American filmmaker, documentarian, television producer and theater director.
Debra Granik is an American filmmaker. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and for which Granik was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and 2018's Leave No Trace, a film based on the book My Abandonment by Peter Rock.
Martyn Burke is a Canadian director, novelist and screenwriter from Toronto, Ontario.
Elizabeth Freya Garbus is an American documentary film director and producer. Notable documentaries Garbus has made are The Farm: Angola, USA,Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,Bobby Fischer Against the World,Love, Marilyn,What Happened, Miss Simone?, and Becoming Cousteau. She is co-founder and co-director of the New York City-based documentary film production company Story Syndicate.
Cynthia Wade is an American television, commercial and film director, producer and cinematographer based in New York City. She has directed documentaries on social issues including Shelter Dogs in 2003 about animal welfare and Freeheld in 2007 about LGBT rights as well as television commercials and web campaigns. She has won over 40 film festival awards, won an Oscar in 2008, and was nominated for her second Oscar in 2013.
Thomas Wagner is an Emmy Award-winning American writer, producer and composer working primarily in documentary films. He is known for his work on Finding Lucy, an American Masters PBS documentary about actress Lucille Ball. Wagner won a prime-time Emmy Award for writing and producing that film. His script for Finding Lucy was also nominated for Best Documentary Script by the Writers Guild of America. Wagner also co-produced another PBS American Masters documentary, Rod Serling: Submitted for your Approval, and his script for that film bio, co-written with John Goff, was again nominated for Best Documentary Script by the Writers Guild of America. The Serling documentary also won a Bronze Plaque at the Columbus Film Festival and a Cine Gold Eagle. Wagner also composed the music for the Academy Award-nominated film, Daughter of The Bride which aired on HBO.
Andrew Rossi is an American filmmaker, known for directing and writing The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022).
Mainak Bhaumik is a Bengali film director and editor. He made his directorial debut with 2006 Bengali film Aamra.In 2012, he made another Bengali film Bedroom, a dark ensemble film about the new generation of young Indians. His critically and commercially successful movies are Maach Mishti & More, Bibaho Diaries, Generation Ami, Cheeni, Ekannoborti.
The Seattle Asian American Film Festival was founded in 1985 and has been revived over the years by different producers. The current iteration was founded in 2012 and made its debut in 2013 by co-founders Kevin Bang and Vanessa Au. It is a revival of of the previously running Northwest Asian American Film Festival, which was directed by Wes Kim from 2003 to 2007 and which had experienced a five-year hiatus. The inaugural film festival was also held at the Wing Luke Asian Museum from January 25 to 27, 2013. The festival is currently run and directed by Executive Director, Vanessa Au, and Festival Director, Victoria Ju.
Prague Independent Film Festival (PIFF) is an international film festival held annually in August in Prague, the capital of Czech Republic. The festival focuses on independent cinema. Festival founder and director is Diana Ringo.
