John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), Lone Star (1996), and Men with Guns (1997).
Daniel Edward Aykroyd is a Canadian and American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer.
Blackface is the practice of performers using burnt cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theatre, in works such as William Shakespeare's Othello.
The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revue band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who met and began collaborating as original cast members of Saturday Night Live.
Blues Brothers 2000 is a 1998 American musical action comedy film directed by John Landis from a screenplay written by Landis and Dan Aykroyd, both of whom were also producers, and starring Aykroyd and John Goodman. The film serves as a sequel to the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. It also includes cameo appearances by various musicians.
Kevin Roosevelt Moore, known as Keb' Mo', is an American blues musician. He is a singer, guitarist and songwriter, living in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been described as "a living link to the seminal Delta blues that travelled up the Mississippi River and across the expanse of America." His post-modern blues style is influenced by many eras and genres, including folk, rock, jazz, pop and country. The moniker "Keb Mo" was coined by his original drummer, Quentin Dennard, and picked up by his record label as a "street talk" abbreviation of his given name.
But I'm a Cheerleader is a 1999 American satirical teen romantic comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit in her feature directorial debut and written by Brian Wayne Peterson. Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan Bloomfield, a high school cheerleader whose parents send her to a residential in-patient conversion therapy camp to "cure" her lesbianism. At camp, Megan realizes that she is indeed a lesbian and, despite the "therapy", comes to embrace her sexuality. The supporting cast includes Clea DuVall, RuPaul, and Cathy Moriarty.
Bryce Dallas Howard is an American actress and director. Howard is the eldest child of filmmaker Ron Howard. She studied acting at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. While portraying Rosalind in a 2003 production of As You Like It, Howard caught the attention of director M. Night Shyamalan, who cast her as a blind girl in the thriller film The Village (2004) and a naiad in the fantasy film Lady in the Water (2006).
The Honey Drippers or The Honeydrippers may refer to:
Lone Star is a 1996 American neo-Western mystery film written, edited, and directed by John Sayles. Set in a small town in South Texas, the film deals with a sheriff's investigation into the murder of one of his predecessors decades earlier. The cast also stars Joe Morton, Elizabeth Peña, Clifton James, Ron Canada, Frances McDormand and Matthew McConaughey.
Casa de los Babys is a 2003 drama film written, directed, and edited by filmmaker John Sayles. It features an ensemble cast, including Marcia Gay Harden, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Daryl Hannah.
Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book.
I'm Not There is a 2007 musical drama film directed by Todd Haynes, who co-wrote the screenplay with Oren Moverman, based on a story by Haynes. An experimental biographical film, it is inspired by the life and music of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, with six actors depicting different facets of Dylan's public personas: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw. A caption at the start of the film declares it to be "inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan"; this is the only mention of Dylan in the film apart from song credits, and his only appearance in it is concert footage from 1966 shown during the film's final moments.
Harold Thomas Wright is an American television and film actor. He has appeared in The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Creepshow 2 (1987), City of Hope (1991), Passion Fish (1992), Seinfeld (1994), Extreme (1995), Star Trek: Voyager (1996), Martial Law (1998–1999), Sunshine State (2002), Barbershop (2002), Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004), Honeydripper (2007), Granite Flats (2014), Medical Police (2020), and Daisy Jones & the Six (2023).
City of Hope is a 1991 American drama film written, directed, and edited by John Sayles. The film features Vincent Spano, Stephen Mendillo, and Chris Cooper.
Blindness is a 2008 English-language thriller film about a society that suffers an epidemic of blindness. The film is an adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by the Portuguese author José Saramago. The film was written by Don McKellar and directed by Fernando Meirelles, starring Julianne Moore as the doctor's wife and Mark Ruffalo as the doctor. Saramago originally refused to sell the rights for a film adaptation, but the producers were able to acquire it with the condition that the film would be set in an unnamed and unrecognizable city. Blindness premiered as the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2008, and was released in Canada as part of the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2008.
Gary Lee Clark Jr. is an American guitarist and singer who fuses blues, rock and soul music with elements of hip hop. In 2011, Clark signed with Warner Bros Records and released The Bright Lights EP. It was followed by the albums Blak and Blu (2012) and The Story of Sonny Boy Slim (2015). Throughout his career, Clark has been a prolific live performer, documented by Gary Clark Jr. Live (2014) and Gary Clark Jr Live/North America (2017).
Ira Deutchman is a producer, distributor and marketer of independent films. In 2000, he moved into film exhibition as co-founder and managing partner of Emerging Pictures, a New York-based digital exhibition company, which was sold in January 2015 to Vancouver-based 20 Year Media. He also served as Chair of the Film Program at Columbia University School of the Arts from 2011 to 2015, where he has been a Professor since 1987. Deutchman is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was one of the original creative advisors to the Sundance Institute and formerly served on the board of advisors for the Sundance Film Festival. He has also served as a board member and former board chair for the Independent Feature Project, the board of advisors for the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, the Williamstown Film Festival, IFP/West, and the Collective for Living Cinema, and was a member of the board for Kartemquin Films.
Medicine for Melancholy is a 2008 romantic drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins in his feature directorial debut. The film stars Wyatt Cenac, Tracey Heggins, and Elizabeth Acker.
Go for Sisters is a 2013 American crime drama film written and directed by John Sayles. The title refers to the history of friendship between the two main characters: when they were in high school, the two African American women were so close they could "go for sisters". Sayles shot the film in 19 days, using 65 locations, for under a million dollars. The DVD was released in August 2014 and features a Director's Commentary in which Sayles talks at length about the art and craft of guerrilla film making.
