James Schamus | |
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Born | James Allan Schamus September 7, 1959 Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA, MA, PhD) |
Occupations |
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Spouse | Nancy Kricorian |
Children | 2 |
James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, and the co-founder and former CEO of motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company Focus Features, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal. He is currently president of the New York–based production company Symbolic Exchange, [1] and is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University, where he has taught film history and theory since 1989.
Schamus was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a Jewish family. [2] He is the son of Clarita (Gershowitz) Karlin and Julian John Schamus, and was raised in Los Angeles. He is married to writer Nancy Kricorian, with whom he has two children.
His output includes writing or co-writing The Ice Storm , Eat, Drink, Man, Woman , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hulk (all directed by Ang Lee), and producing Brokeback Mountain and Alone in Berlin . At Focus he oversaw the production and distribution of Lost in Translation , Milk , Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , Coraline , and The Kids Are All Right . In addition to his tenure at Columbia University, he has also taught at Yale University and at Rutgers University. He is the author of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word, published by the University of Washington Press. He earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in English from University of California, Berkeley. [3]
Schamus made his feature directorial debut with Indignation , an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel of the same name. Schamus also wrote the script for the film, which stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, and Tracy Letts, and is the story of a Jewish student at an Ohio college in 1951. [4] The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and was theatrically released by Roadside Attractions on July 29, 2016. [1]
He was president of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. [5] He has also been on the jury of the New York International Children's Film Festival, [6] and has served on the editorial boards of Film Quarterly and Cinema Journal , as well as on the board of Creative Capital and the Heyman Center for the Humanities. [7] In 2016, Outfest established the James Schamus Ally Award to honor individuals who give prominence to LGBTQ narratives, with winners including James Franco, [8] Rita Moreno, [9] Sandra Oh, [10] Octavia Spencer, [11] Andra Day, [12] Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone, [13] and Shirley MacLaine. [14]
Year | Title | Producer | Writer | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | The Golden Boat | Yes | No | Raúl Ruiz | |
1991 | Pushing Hands | Yes | Yes | Ang Lee | Also additional scenes |
Poison | Executive | No | Todd Haynes | ||
Keep It For Yourself | Yes | No | Claire Denis | ||
Angry | Yes | No | Nicole Holofcener | Short film | |
Homage By Assassination | Yes | No | Elia Suleiman | ||
Thank You and Good Night | Co-producer | No | Jan Oxenberg | Documentary | |
I Was on Mars | Co-producer | No | Dani Levi | Also line producer | |
Chicken Delight | Yes | No | Adam Isidore | Short film | |
Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier | Executive | No | Suzie Baer | Documentary | |
1992 | Swoon | Executive | No | Tom Kalin | |
Punch and Judy Get Divorced [15] | Yes | No | David Gordon and Mark Pellington | ||
Ambition [16] | Yes | No | Hal Hartley | Short film | |
Surviving Desire | Executive | No | |||
In the Soup | Associate | No | Alexandre Rockwell | ||
1993 | Terminal USA | Executive | No | Jon Moritsugu | |
Dottie Gets Spanked | Executive | No | Todd Haynes | Also line producer | |
Night Ride | Executive | No | Andy Garrison | Also line producer | |
The Secret Life of Houses [17] | Executive | No | Adrian Velicescu | ||
A Psychic Mom | Executive | No | Steve Busa | ||
Love Potion | Executive | No | Ayoka Chenzira | ||
Family Remains | Executive | No | Tamara Jenkins | ||
The Wedding Banquet | Yes | Yes | Ang Lee | ||
1994 | Eat Drink Man Woman | Associate | Yes | ||
Dark Waters | Yes | No | Kutluğ Ataman | ||
Roy Cohn/Jack Smith | Yes | No | Jill Godmilow | ||
What Happened Was | Executive | No | Tom Noonan | ||
1995 | Sense and Sensibility | Co-producer | No | Ang Lee | |
Greetings from Africa | Yes | No | Cheryl Dunye | ||
Safe | Executive | No | Todd Haynes | ||
The Brothers McMullen | Executive | No | Edward Burns | ||
1996 | She's the One | Yes | No | ||
Walking and Talking | Yes | No | Nicole Holofcener | ||
1997 | Love God | Executive | No | Frank Grow | |
The Myth of Fingerprints | Executive | No | Bart Freundlich | ||
Arresting Gena | Executive | No | Hannah Weyer | ||
Wonderland | Executive | No | John O'Hagan | Documentary | |
Office Killer | Executive | No | Cindy Sherman | ||
The Ice Storm | Yes | Yes | Ang Lee | ||
1998 | Happiness | Executive | No | Todd Solondz | |
1999 | Lola and Billy the Kid | Executive | No | Kutluğ Ataman | |
The Lifestyle | Executive | No | David Schisgall | Documentary | |
Ride with the Devil | Yes | Yes | Ang Lee | ||
2000 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | Executive | Yes | Also songwriter | |
2001 | Buffalo Soldiers | Executive | No | Gregor Jordan | |
2002 | Auto Focus | Executive | No | Paul Schrader | |
2003 | Hulk | Yes | Yes | Ang Lee | |
2005 | Brokeback Mountain | Yes | No | ||
2007 | Lust, Caution | Yes | Yes | Also songwriter | |
2009 | Taking Woodstock | Yes | Yes | ||
2014 | That Film About Money [18] | Yes | Yes | Himself | Short film |
2015 | Alone in Berlin | Yes | No | Vincent Perez | |
Suffragette | Executive | No | Sarah Gavron | ||
Junction 48 | Executive | No | Udi Aloni | ||
2016 | Indignation | Yes | Yes | Himself | Directorial debut |
2017 | Casting JonBenet [19] | Yes | No | Kitty Green | Documentary |
Dayveon [20] | Executive | No | Amman Abasi | ||
A Prayer Before Dawn [21] | Executive | No | Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire | ||
2018 | Benji | Executive | No | Brandon Camp | |
Furlough | Executive | No | Laurie Collyer | ||
2019 | Adam | Yes | No | Rhys Ernst | |
The Tomorrow Man | Yes | No | Noble Jones | ||
Driveways | Yes | No | Andrew Ahn | ||
The Assistant | Yes | No | Kitty Green | ||
Frames [22] | Yes | Yes | Himself | Short film | |
2022 | The King's Daughter | No | Yes | Sean McNamara | |
2024 | We Grown Now | Executive | No | Minhal Baig | |
2025 | The Wedding Banquet | Yes | Yes | Andrew Ahn | Post-production |
Year | Title | Awards/Nominations |
---|---|---|
1997 | The Ice Storm | Prix du Scénario (Best Screenplay Award) [23] Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated – WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay |
2000 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated – Academy Award for Best Original Song Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated – WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated – Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media |
2005 | Brokeback Mountain | BAFTA Award for Best Film Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama [24] Independent Spirit Award for Best Film [25] Nominated – Academy Award for Best Picture |
2007 | Lust, Caution | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film |
2016 | Indignation | Nominated – Berlin International Film Festival Best First Feature Award |
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a 2000 wuxia martial arts film directed by Ang Lee and written for the screen by Wang Hui-ling, James Schamus, and Tsai Kuo-jung. The film stars Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, and Chang Chen. It is based on the Chinese novel of the same name, serialized between 1941 and 1942 by Wang Dulu, the fourth part of his Crane-Iron Series. Set in 19th-century Imperial China, the plot follows two master warriors, Li Mu Bai (Chow) and Yu Shu Lien (Yeoh), who are faced with their greatest challenge when the treasured Green Destiny sword is stolen by the mysterious thief Jen Yu (Zhang).
The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado, during Labor Day weekend. The 51st edition took place on August 30–September 4, 2024.
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams. Its plot depicts the complex romantic relationship between two American cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, in the American West from 1963 to 1983.
Kimberly Ane Peirce is an American filmmaker, best known for her debut feature film, Boys Don't Cry (1999), which won Hilary Swank her first Academy Award for Best Actress. Peirce's second feature, Stop-Loss, was released by Paramount Pictures in 2008. Her third film Carrie was released on October 18, 2013. In addition to directing and writing, she is a governor of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and a National Board member of the Directors Guild of America.
Diana Lynn Ossana is an American writer who has collaborated on writing screenplays, teleplays, and novels with author Larry McMurtry since they first worked together in 1992, on the semi-fictionalized biography Pretty Boy Floyd. She won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, a Writers' Guild of America Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her screenplay of Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, along with McMurtry, and adapted from the short story of the same name by Annie Proulx. She is a published author in her own right of several short stories and essays.
Good Machine Productions was an American independent film production, film distribution, and foreign sales company started in the early 1990 by its co-founders and producers, Ted Hope and James Schamus. David Linde joined as a partner in the late 1990s and also started the international sales company Good Machine International. They sold the company to Universal Pictures, where it was then merged with USA Films and Universal Focus to create Focus Features. Hope, along with the heads of production development and business affairs then went on to form the independent production company This Is That Productions. Schamus and Linde became co-presidents of Focus Features.
Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
The Ice Storm is a 1997 American independent drama film directed by Ang Lee and written by James Schamus. Based on Rick Moody's 1994 novel of the same name and set during Thanksgiving 1973 in New Canaan, Connecticut, the film features an ensemble cast of Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Katie Holmes, Glenn Fitzgerald, Jamey Sheridan and Sigourney Weaver as two neighbouring, dysfunctional upper-class families seeking escapism through alcohol, adultery, and sexual experimentation.
Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City. He is best known for co-founding the production/sales company Good Machine, where he produced the first films of such filmmakers as Ang Lee, Nicole Holofcener, Todd Field, Michel Gondry, Moisés Kaufman, and Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. Hope then co-founded This is That with several associates from Good Machine. He later worked at the San Francisco Film Society and Amazon Studios.
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese filmmaker. His films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades including three Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.
La Mission is a 2009 drama film starring Benjamin Bratt and Jeremy Ray Valdez. It is written and directed by Peter Bratt. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and screened at various festivals, including the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. It received a limited release beginning April 9, 2010.
Eliza Hittman is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer from New York City. She has won multiple awards for her film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which include the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award—both for best screenplay.
Indignation is a 2016 American drama film written, produced, and directed by James Schamus. The film, based on the 2008 novel by Philip Roth, is set mostly in Winesburg, Ohio in the early 1950s, and stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, and Danny Burstein.
Susanna Fogel is an American director, screenwriter and author, best known for co-writing the 2019 film Booksmart and for co-writing and directing the 2018 action/comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me. Her many accolades include a DGA Award and nominations at the BAFTA Film Awards, the Primetime Emmy Awards and the WGA Awards.
Adam is a 2019 American comedy-drama film directed by Rhys Ernst, from a screenplay by Ariel Schrag, based upon the novel of the same name by Schrag. It stars Nicholas Alexander, Bobbi Menuez, Leo Sheng, Chloe Levine, and Margaret Qualley.
The Wedding Banquet is an upcoming American romantic comedy film directed by Andrew Ahn and co-written by James Schamus. It is a remake of the 1993 film of the same name. It stars Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Bowen Yang, Han Gi-chan, Joan Chen, and Youn Yuh-jung.
James Sweeney is an American actor, director, and screenwriter. He is most known for directing and starring in Straight Up (2019) and Twinless (2025).
The story of America, of Western culture, is often the story of queer culture, of being Jewish" — Schamus is Jewish — "of being outsiders and refugees who find a place that is the not-place.
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