Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal is an American actress and filmmaker. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Achs, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
Million Dollar Baby is a 2004 American sports drama film directed, co-produced, scored by and starring Clint Eastwood from a screenplay written by Paul Haggis, based on stories from the 2000 collection Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner by F.X. Toole, the pen name of fight manager and cutman Jerry Boyd. It also stars Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. The film follows Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald (Swank), an underdog amateur boxer who is helped by an underappreciated boxing trainer (Eastwood) to achieve her dream of becoming a professional.
Manohla June Dargis is an American film critic. She is the chief film critic for The New York Times. She is a five-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Najmieh Khalili Batmanglij is an Iranian-American chef and cookbook author. Born in Tehran, she fled the Iranian Revolution in 1979, moving first to France, then the United States, building a career as a cookbook author as she went. Her first book, published in French, was called Ma Cuisine d’Iran (1984), followed by eight cookbooks in English, from Food of Life (1986) to Cooking in Iran (2018). The Washington Post hailed her in 2018 as "the grande dame of Iranian Cooking."
Boyhood is a 2014 American independent coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, and Ethan Hawke. Filmed from 2002 to 2013, Boyhood depicts the childhood and adolescence of Mason Evans Jr. (Coltrane) from ages six to eighteen as he grows up in Texas with divorced parents. Richard Linklater's daughter Lorelei plays Mason's sister, Samantha.
Last Train Home is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by Lixin Fan and produced by Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin of EyeSteelFilm. It won the Best Documentary Feature at 2009 IDFA and has been distributed by Zeitgeist Films in the US.
Rostam Batmanglij, known mononymously as Rostam, is an American record producer, musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whose first three albums he produced. He has been described by Stereogum as one of the greatest pop and indie-rock producers of his generation. Rostam also works as a solo artist and is a member of electro-soul group Discovery. He produced his first number-one album, Vampire Weekend's Contra, when he was 27 years old.
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.
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).
Holy Motors is a 2012 surrealist fantasy drama film written and directed by Leos Carax and starring Denis Lavant and Édith Scob. Lavant plays Mr. Oscar, a man who appears to have a job as an actor, as he is seen dressing up in different costumes and performing various roles in several locations around Paris over the course of a day, though no cameras or audiences are ever seen around him. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.
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.
Middle of Nowhere is a 2012 American independent drama film written and directed by Ava DuVernay and starring Emayatzy Corinealdi, David Oyelowo, Omari Hardwick and Lorraine Toussaint. The film was the winner of the Directing Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Knuckle is a 2011 Irish documentary film about the secretive world of Irish Traveller bare-knuckle boxing. The film was made in stages over 12 years. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. This film follows a history of violent feuding between rival clans.
Brad Pitt is an American actor and producer. His acting career began at age 23 in 1987 with roles in the hit Fox television series 21 Jump Street. He subsequently appeared in episodes for television shows during the late 1980s and played his first major role in the slasher film Cutting Class (1989). He gained recognition in Thelma & Louise (1991) and A River Runs Through It (1992). He later took on the role of vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the horror drama Interview with the Vampire (1994) and for his performance in the epic drama Legends of the Fall (1994), he earned his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nomination.
Starlet is a 2012 independent drama film directed by Sean Baker and starring Dree Hemingway and newcomer Besedka Johnson. Starlet explores the unlikely friendship between 21-year-old Jane and 85-year-old Sadie, two women whose lives intersect in California's San Fernando Valley.
Christopher Denham is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He is perhaps best known for supporting roles in Shutter Island, Argo, Being the Ricardos and his role in the Sundance Film Festival cult phenomenon, Sound of My Voice, as well as the television series Billions, Shining Girls, opposite Elisabeth Moss and Amazon Prime's Utopia, created by Gillian Flynn.
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.
The OA is an American mystery drama television series with science fiction, supernatural, and fantasy elements. The OA debuted on Netflix on December 16, 2016. Created and executive produced by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, the series is their third collaboration. The series consists of two seasons of eight episodes each, nearly all directed by Batmanglij, and is produced by Plan B Entertainment and Anonymous Content. In the series, Marling stars as a young woman named Prairie Johnson who resurfaces after having been missing for seven years. Prairie now calls herself "the OA" and can see, despite having been blind before her disappearance.
In Jackson Heights is a 2015 documentary film about the community of Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, directed by Frederick Wiseman. The film received widespread critical acclaim. In 2017, the film was considered the thirteenth "Best Film of the 21st Century So Far" by The New York Times.
American Factory is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, about Chinese company Fuyao's factory in Moraine, a city near Dayton, Ohio, that occupies Moraine Assembly, a shuttered General Motors plant. The film had its festival premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It is distributed by Netflix and is the first film acquired by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground Productions. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
