Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee has won numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Peabody Awards. He has also been honored with an Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2015.
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, The New York Times named him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. He has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.
An Officer and a Gentleman is a 1982 American romantic drama film directed by Taylor Hackford from a screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart, and starring Richard Gere, Debra Winger, and Louis Gossett Jr. It tells the story of Zack Mayo (Gere), a United States Navy Aviation Officer Candidate who is beginning his training at Aviation Officer Candidate School. While Zack meets his first true girlfriend during his training, a young "townie" named Paula (Winger), he also comes into conflict with the hard-driving Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley (Gossett) training his class.
Joseph Frank Pesci is an American actor and musician. He is known for portraying tough, volatile characters in a variety of genres and for his collaborations with Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in the films Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and The Irishman (2019). He has received several awards including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award with nominations for three Golden Globe Awards.
Bedford–Stuyvesant, colloquially known as Bed–Stuy, is a neighborhood in the northern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Bedford–Stuyvesant is bordered by Flushing Avenue to the north, Classon Avenue to the west, Broadway to the east, and Atlantic Avenue to the south. The main shopping street, Fulton Street, runs east–west the length of the neighborhood and intersects high-traffic north–south streets including Bedford Avenue, Nostrand Avenue, and Stuyvesant Avenue. Bedford–Stuyvesant contains four smaller neighborhoods: Bedford, Stuyvesant Heights, Ocean Hill, and Weeksville. Part of Clinton Hill was once considered part of Bedford–Stuyvesant.
Ernest Roscoe Dickerson is an American director, cinematographer, and screenwriter of film, television, and music videos.
The Student Academy Awards are presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in an annual competition for college and university filmmakers.
4 Little Girls is a 1997 American historical documentary film about the murder of four African-American girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The film was directed by Spike Lee and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.
William James Edwards Lee III was an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, his compositions for jazz percussionist Max Roach, and his session work as a "first-call" musician and band leader to many of the twentieth-century's most significant musical artists, including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Billy Strayhorn, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger, among many others.
Anthony Dwane Mackie is an American actor. Mackie made his film debut starring in the music drama film 8 Mile (2002). He was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor for his performance in the LGBTQ drama Brother to Brother (2004), and in the same year, appeared in psychological thriller The Manchurian Candidate, the Spike Lee TV film Sucker Free City, and the sports film Million Dollar Baby. Mackie starred in Half Nelson (2006); in 2008, Mackie both appeared in the action thriller Eagle Eye and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Hurt Locker. He portrayed Tupac Shakur in Notorious (2009) and later starred in Night Catches Us (2010), and The Adjustment Bureau and Real Steel.
Dreams That Money Can Buy is a 1947 experimental feature color film written, produced, and directed by surrealist artist and dada film-theorist Hans Richter.
Spike Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor, known for films that deal with controversial social and political issues. Each of Lee's films is typically referred to as "A Spike Lee Joint" and the closing credits always end with the phrases "By Any Means Necessary," "Ya Dig," and "Sho Nuff."
The Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF) is an international film festival held in Atlanta, Georgia and operated by the Atlanta Film Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Started in 1976 and occurring every spring, the festival shows a diverse range of independent films, with special attention paid to women-directed films, LGBTQ films, Latin American films, Black films and films from the American Southeast. ATLFF is one of only a handful of festivals that are Academy Award-qualifying in all three short film categories.
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 two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.
Lucy Mulloy is a screenwriter and film director. She was nominated for the Student Academy Award for her NYU short film "This Morning". In 2010 Mulloy was awarded the Tribeca Film Festival Emerging Narrative Talent Award and in 2012 she won the Tribeca Film Festival as Best New Director. Her debut feature, Una Noche, also won Best Cinematography and Best Actor. She went on to win many awards internationally and Mulloy was nominated for Best New First Feature at the 2014 Spirit Awards.
Albert Nobbs is a 2011 period drama film directed by Rodrigo García and starring Glenn Close. The screenplay, by Close, John Banville and Gabriella Prekop, is based on the 1927 novella Albert Nobbs by George Moore.
Monty Austin Ross is an American film producer and director. He is the co-founder of 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks alongside Spike Lee and has produced, She's Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992) and Crooklyn (1994).
Barbershop: The Next Cut is a 2016 American comedy film directed by Malcolm D. Lee, written by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver and produced by Ice Cube, Robert Teitel and George Tillman Jr. It is the sequel to 2004's Barbershop 2: Back in Business and the third installment in the Barbershop film series. It stars an ensemble cast including actors Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Anthony Anderson, Eve, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Deon Cole who return, as well as new cast members Regina Hall, J. B. Smoove, Lamorne Morris, Tyga, Common, and Nicki Minaj. It is the first film in the series in which Michael Ealy and Leonard Earl Howze did not reprise their roles as Ricky and Dinka, respectively.
A gangster film or gangster movie is a film belonging to a genre that focuses on gangs and organized crime. It is a subgenre of crime film, that may involve large criminal organizations, or small gangs formed to perform a certain illegal act. The genre is differentiated from Westerns and the gangs of that genre.
