Mike Cahill | |
|---|---|
 Mike Cahill, 2014 | |
| Born | July 5, 1979 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupations |
|
| Notable work | Another Earth (2011) |
Mike Cahill (born July 5, 1979) is an American filmmaker.
Mike Cahill | |
|---|---|
| Mike Cahill, 2014 | |
| Born | July 5, 1979 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupations |
|
| Notable work | Another Earth (2011) |
Mike Cahill (born July 5, 1979) is an American filmmaker.
| External image | |
|---|---|
 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 | DP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Boxers and Ballerinas | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| 2005 | Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| 2006 | Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| 2011 | Another Earth | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2014 | I Origins | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2021 | Bliss | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| 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 |
Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 American independent coming-of-age teen comedy film produced by Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt, and Sean Covel, written by Jared and Jerusha Hess, and directed by Jared Hess. The film stars Jon Heder in the role of the titular character, a nerdy high-school student who deals with several dilemmas: befriending an immigrant who wants to be class president, awkwardly pursuing a romance with a fellow student, and living with his quirky family.
Rick Famuyiwa is a Nigerian American filmmaker and television director. He is best known for the films The Wood (1999), Brown Sugar (2002), and Dope (2015), as well as for his work on the television series The Mandalorian, for which he directed five episodes and served as an executive producer for the third season. His films have been nominated for or won multiple awards, including in 2008, when he received an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture for the film Talk To Me (2007).
Thomas Edgar Rothman is an American businessman, film producer, film executive and current chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group. In this role, Rothman oversees all of the studio's motion picture production and distribution activities worldwide, including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Pictures Classics, 3000 Pictures, Sony Pictures International Productions, Stage 6 Films and AFFIRM Films. Rothman joined Sony Pictures in late 2013 as chairman of TriStar and in 2015 was promoted to Chairman of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, followed by the release in 2017 and 2018 of titles such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Venom, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Peter Rabbit, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Under Rothman's leadership, the Motion Picture Group was returned to strong profitability and experienced several of its most profitable years in history with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Little Women. Driven by tentpoles such as Spider-Man: Far From Home, Jumanji: The Next Level, and Bad Boys for Life, fiscal year 2020 was the film studio's best in over a decade in terms of both ultimate profitability and operating income.
Star Maps is a 1997 American drama film co-written and directed by Miguel Arteta and starring Douglas Spain. The film is the directorial debut of Miguel Arteta, and it was first presented at the Sundance Film Festival. It was a critical hit, receiving five Independent Spirit Award nominations, including Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay.
Another Earth is a 2011 American science fiction drama film directed by Mike Cahill and starring Brit Marling, William Mapother, and Robin Lord Taylor. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in January, and was given a limited theatrical release on July 22, 2011, by Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film earned two nominations at the 38th Saturn Awards for Marling's performance and for Cahill and Marling's writing. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls it slow paced but soulful.
Andrew Rossi is an American filmmaker, Emmy nominated for directing, writing and producing The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), Ivory Tower (2014) and Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011).
The 27th annual Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20, 2011 until January 30, 2011 in Park City, Utah, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah.
Brit Marling is an American actress and screenwriter. She rose to prominence after starring in several films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, including Sound of My Voice (2011), Another Earth (2011), and The East (2013), each of which she co-wrote in addition to playing the lead role. She co-created, wrote, and starred in the mystery series The OA (2016–2019), and the thriller miniseries A Murder at the End of the World (2023).
Sound of My Voice is a 2011 American psychological thriller film directed by Zal Batmanglij in his feature directorial debut from a script written by Batmanglij and Brit Marling, and starring Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius and Marling. The plot focuses on two documentary filmmakers who attempt to expose a cult led by a charismatic leader (Marling) who claims to be from the future.
The East is a 2013 thriller film directed by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, and Elliot Page. Writers Batmanglij and Marling spent two months in 2009 practicing freeganism and co-wrote a screenplay inspired by their experiences and drawing on thrillers from the 1970s. The American studio Fox Searchlight Pictures had bought rights to distribute Batmanglij's previous film Sound of My Voice and also collaborated with the director to produce The East. With Ridley Scott as producer and Tony Scott as executive producer, Fox Searchlight contracted Scott Free Productions, headquartered in London, to produce the film. The East was filmed in two months in Shreveport, Louisiana at the end of 2011. The film premiered to strong reviews at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2013. It was released in theaters on May 31, 2013.
The Sessions is a 2012 American drama film written and directed by Ben Lewin. It is based on the 1990 article "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate" by Mark O'Brien, a poet paralyzed from the neck down due to polio, who hired a sex surrogate to lose his virginity. John Hawkes and Helen Hunt star as O'Brien and sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene, respectively.
Zal Batmanglij is an American film director and screenwriter. He directed and co-wrote the 2011 film Sound of My Voice and the 2013 film The East, both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Netflix series The OA, which debuted in 2016.
Amy Virginia Talkington is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and author.
The Better Angels is a 2014 American biographical historical drama film about United States President Abraham Lincoln's formative years. It was written and directed by A. J. Edwards and produced by Terrence Malick.
The 2014 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16, 2014 until January 26, 2014 in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance Resort in Utah. The festival opened with Whiplash directed by Damien Chazelle and closed with musical drama Rudderless directed by William H. Macy.
I Origins is a 2014 American science fiction romantic drama film written and directed by Mike Cahill. The independent production premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014. It is distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and opened in limited release on July 18, 2014. It won the Best Feature Length Film Award at the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya on October 11, 2014.
The Birth of a Nation is a 2016 historical drama film written and directed by Nate Parker in his directorial debut. It is based on the story of Nat Turner, the enslaved man who led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. The film stars Parker as Turner, with Armie Hammer, Mark Boone Jr., Colman Domingo, Aunjanue Ellis, Dwight Henry, Aja Naomi King, Esther Scott, Roger Guenveur Smith, Gabrielle Union, Penelope Ann Miller, and Jackie Earle Haley in supporting roles. Parker also petitioned financiers to invest in the film, ultimately getting $8.5 million in production budget, and started filming in May 2015 in Georgia. The film's title is an ironic callback to the 1915 KKK-focused silent film.
Patti Cake$ is a 2017 American drama film directed by Geremy Jasper. It was screened in the US Dramatic Competition section of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It was released on August 18, 2017, by Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Magazine Dreams is a 2023 American drama film written and directed by Elijah Bynum. The film stars Jonathan Majors, Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Mike O'Hearn, Harrison Page, and Harriet Sansom Harris.
Another Earth (Music from the Motion Picture) is the score album to the 2011 film of the same name directed by Mike Cahill. The score is written and composed by former LCD Soundsystem band members, Phil Mossman and Will Bates, and produced by Lucy Alper. Although, they had credited Bates' music production company Fall On Your Sword for the soundtrack. The score was released by Milan Records on July 19, 2011, three days before the film's release.
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.
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.
