Mike Cahill | |
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 Mike Cahill, 2014 | |
| Born | July 5, 1979 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter |
Notable work | Another Earth (2011) |
Mike Cahill (born July 5, 1979) is an American film director and screenwriter.
Mike Cahill | |
|---|---|
| Mike Cahill, 2014 | |
| Born | July 5, 1979 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter |
Notable work | Another Earth (2011) |
Mike Cahill (born July 5, 1979) is an American film director and screenwriter.
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 Mike Cahill, at the Crosby Street Hotel in Manhattan.—indieWire [1] |
Mike Cahill was born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 5, 1979. [2] His first forays into filmmaking were with Fisher-Price and VHS camcorders when he was young. [3] He gained his first credit as a documentarian at the age of 17, when he and a friend directed a film titled The Pocket, about D.C go-go music. [4]
After high school, Cahill studied economics at Georgetown University, graduating in 2001. While a student there he formed a close relationship with professional colleague and friend Brit Marling, whom he met at a Georgetown film festival, [5] [6] [7] and the two began working on short films together where Marling would act and Cahill would direct. [8]
While still in his senior year at Georgetown, Cahill began interning with National Geographic Television and Film, soon becoming their youngest field producer, editor and cinematographer. [1] [9] He and Marling collaborated on Boxers and Ballerinas (2004), an exploration of the U.S.–Cuba conflict through the lives of four characters, while living in Cuba. [1] Cahill next moved to Los Angeles. There he was taken on as editor for two Sundance features, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man and Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out . [10]
2011 was Cahill's pivotal year. His first feature film as director, co-written with Marling, Another Earth , about a parallel planet Earth, won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight Pictures. [9] Variety reported: "[It] has been deemed one of the more highly praised pics of the fest as it received a standing ovation after the screening and strong word of mouth from buyers and festgoers." The distributor Fox Searchlight Pictures won distribution rights to the film in a deal worth $1.5 million to $2 million, beating out other distributors including Focus Features and the Weinstein Company. [11]
Cahill's second feature film I Origins again won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize, this time at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, making Cahill the only person to have received the award twice. The film was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight. [12]
In 2011, before the release of I Origins, a press release by Fox Searchlight stated that Cahill was working on a film about reincarnation and another about "a fashion designer who lives at the bottom of the sea." [13] As of 2015 he is also working on a sequel of I Origins. "There's a sequel in the works. It's not scripted. We're not in production yet, but we set up at Fox Searchlight". [14]
Starting in 2015, Cahill is an executive producer of the Syfy TV show The Magicians , and directed the pilot episode. He is also an executive producer on The Path , and directed the first two episodes.
Cahill has cited Julian Schnabel as a significant influence on his work. [15] He considers Krzysztof Kieslowski one of his favorite filmmakers, specifically citing The Double Life of Véronique as having a profound impact on him. [16] Cahill, who has a casual interest in astronomy, was also influenced by the work of astronomer Richard Berendzen, in particular, Berendzen's audiobook Pulp Physics. He is also an admirer of Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. [17] [18]
He has always admired science. [19]
His favorite movie of all time is 2001: A Space Odyssey . "Because that movie, what it presents to you, can’t be articulated in any other form than as a movie," he said. [20]
| Year | Film | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Boxers and Ballerinas | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2005 | Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man | Yes | |||
| 2006 | Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out | Yes | |||
| 2011 | Another Earth | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2014 | I Origins | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2021 | Bliss | Yes | Yes | ||
| Year | Award | Category | Film | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Breckenridge Festival of Film | Best of the Fest (shared with Brit Marling) | Boxers and Ballerinas | Won |
| Cinequest San Jose Film Festival | Director's Award (shared with Brit Marling) | Won | ||
| 2011 | Sundance Film Festival | Alfred P. Sloan Prize | Another Earth | Won |
| Special Jury Prize | Won | |||
| Grand Jury Prize | Nominated | |||
| Scream Awards | Best Independent Movie | Nominated | ||
| National Board of Review | Top Ten Independent Films | Won | ||
| Locarno International Film Festival | Junior Jury Award - Special Mention | Won | ||
| Golden Leopard | Nominated | |||
| Gotham Awards | Breakthrough Director Award | Nominated | ||
| Deauville Film Festival | Grand Special Prize | Nominated | ||
| 2012 | Georgia Film Critics Association | Best Picture | Won | |
| Independent Spirit Awards | Best First Feature (shared with Hunter Gray, Brit Marling and Nick Shumaker) | Nominated | ||
| Best First Screenplay (shared with Brit Marling) | Nominated | |||
| Golden Trailer Awards | Best Music | Won | ||
| Best Independent Poster | Nominated | |||
| Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films | Best Writing (shared with Brit Marling) | Nominated | ||
| Prism Awards | Feature Film - Mental Health | Nominated | ||
| 2014 | Sundance Film Festival | Alfred P. Sloan Prize | I Origins | Won |
| Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival | Best North American Independent Film | Nominated | ||
| Sitges Film Festival | Best Film | Won |
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He went on to spent [sic] a year in Cuba making the documentary "Boxers and Ballerinas" (with Marling) and moved to Los Angeles, where he worked on a number of documentaries (including "Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man") and directed several episodes of MTV's Emmy award-winning series "True Life."
Mike Cahill was born July 5, 1979 in New Haven, CT.
Born in New Haven, CT, Mike Cahill at a young age would experiment with filmmaking on Fisher Price and VHS camcorders.
Ms. Marling, 27, and Mr. Cahill, 32, who were economics majors at Georgetown and met at a film festival there, said they didn’t have cosmology or science fiction in mind when they started this film.
'I think the bond that formed between us at Georgetown, during that amazing time when you are free to read, learn, think, follow inspiration, with no distractions, both gave birth to our art and collaboration and also gave us a kind of immunity to pressures of the outside world,' Marling says.
We were friends for many years. We went to school together at Georgetown.
We met at Georgetown and started doing short films together back then. I was the director and she would act in them.
The movie was a bonanza for Mike Cahill, a National Geographic documentary filmmaker and video artist taking a stab at his first feature film.
Currently, Mike lives in Los Angeles, where he has worked on a number of music videos, television shows and films. This past year, he edited 'Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man' and 'Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out,' both featured at Sundance '06.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Cahill is currently developing several feature projects; among them is one on reincarnation and another about a fashion designer who lives at the bottom of the sea. Currently, Mike resides in Brooklyn, New York.
'It's interesting, it's really hard for me to pin down all my sources... there's this great filmmaker Julian Schnabel who I love...'
Krzysztof Kieslowski is one of my favorite filmmakers.
As she struggled to make it as an actress, Marling would sometimes come home to the Silver Lake house she and Cahill shared with another aspiring director, Zal Batmanglij, to find Cahill stretched out on the floor listening to an audiobook by astronomer Richard Berendzen. She and Cahill were captivated by the locutions of the scientist, a protégé of Carl Sagan's who puts a poetic spin on astrophysical math.
No, I already was a lay person who was interested. I loved Carl Sagan, I love Isaac Asimov, there's this Dr. Richard Berendzen who's this astrophysicist who has this book called Human Kind and the Cosmos.
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