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Stefan Schaefer | |
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 Schaefer in 2015 | |
| Born | Stefan Schaefer August 17, 1971 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Education | Wesleyan University (BA) University of Kiel (Fulbright Scholar) |
| Occupations | |
| Spouse | Chenta Laury |
| Children | 2 |
Stefan Schaefer is an American writer, director and producer of films and television.
Schaefer was born in Boston. He spent his childhood in Sussex, England, and his adolescent years in Michigan and New York. He studied theater and political theory at Wesleyan University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. After a year and a half in Germany—where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Kiel—he returned to New York and co-founded the production company Cicala Filmworks. [1]
He is the maternal grandson of polar explorer and ornithologist Carl R. Eklund.
Schaefer's films have premiered and won several awards at festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival and SxSW, and have been released theatrically and via outlets such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO, PBS and the Sundance Channel.
He has over fifteen feature film credits and has worked with Melissa Leo, Ali Larter, Zoe Lister-Jones, Ken Duken, Nicole Beharie, David Harbour, and Michael Imperioli. In addition to these indie features, Schaefer and writing partner Chris Silber ha [2] ve written four TV movies for European networks ARD and ZDF, two of which were filmed in Hawaii. [3]
Schaefer directed the one-hour television documentary Contested Streets [4] , which looks at what New York can learn from London, Paris and Copenhagen in terms of organizing its streets and public spaces. The film was screened at environmental film festivals and aired as part of "The Green" series on the Sundance Channel. [5] In 2015, he released a feature documentary on Poet Laureate and environmental activist W.S. Merwin, titled Even Though the Whole World Is Burning . [6] A one-hour version of the film, W.S. Merwin: To Plant a Tree , was broadcast on PBS in 2016.
| Year | Title | Credit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Confess | Director/writer | |
| 2006 | Act Normal | Co-producer | |
| Contested Streets | Director/producer/editor | Documentary | |
| 2007 | Arranged [7] | Director/writer/producer | |
| 2008 | The Higher Force | Writer/producer/actor | |
| The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela | Writer/producer/actor | ||
| 2009 | The Hungry Ghosts | Producer/actor | |
| 2011 | The Roundup | Director/writer/producer | Short film |
| Get a Job [8] | Producer/actor | ||
| My Last Day Without You [9] | Director/writer/producer | ||
| 2014 | Even Though the Whole World Is Burning | Director/writer/producer | Documentary |
| 2017 | Kuleana | Producer/actor | |
| 2020 | Aloha Surf Hotel [10] | Director/writer/producer | |
| 2023 | Viral | Director/co-writer/producer | Short film |
| 2024 | Grit & Gratitude: The Sig Anderman Story | Director/writer/producer | Documentary |
| Year | Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Circledrawers [11] | Co-creator/producer/actor |
| 2012 | First Lady / Nicht mit mir, Liebling | Writer |
| 2013 | The Paradise Within / Das Paradies in uns | Writer |
| To Love, Let Go / Wer liebt, lässt los | Writer | |
| 2015 | Blue Water Living / Blauwasserleben | Writer |
| 2016 | Surf Break Hotel | Director/writer/producer |
| W.S. Merwin: To Plant a Tree | Director/writer/producer | |
| 2018 | I Am Because You Are | Director/writer/producer |
 | This section needs additional citations for verification .(June 2024) |
The Sarajevo Film Festival is the premier and largest film festival in Southeast Europe, and is one of the largest film festivals in Europe. It was founded in Sarajevo in 1995 during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War, and brings international and local celebrities to Sarajevo every year. It is held in August and showcases an extensive variety of feature and short films from around the world. The current director of the festival is Jovan Marjanović.
William Stanley Merwin was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Joshua Jacob Marston is an American screenwriter and film director best known for the film Maria Full of Grace.
Maria Schrader is a German actress, screenwriter, and director. She directed the award-winning 2007 film Love Life and the 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series. She also starred in the German international hit TV series Deutschland 83 (2015), known for being the first German-language series broadcast on US television.
Confess is a 2005 American independent feature film written and directed by Stefan Schaefer.
Arranged is a 2007 American independent film produced by Cicala Filmworks, directed by Diane Crespo and Stefan Schaefer, and starring Zoe Lister-Jones and Francis Benhamou. It tells the story of the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman (Rochel) and a Muslim woman (Nasira), both of whom are teachers in New York City.
Diane Crespo is a producer and director of feature films and documentaries. She co-founded Cicala Filmworks in 1997.
The Berlin International Film Festival, usually called the Berlinale, is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europe's "Big Three" film festivals alongside the Venice Film Festival held in Italy and the Cannes Film Festival held in France. Furthermore, it is one of the "Big Five", the most prestigious film festivals in the world. The festival regularly draws tens of thousands of visitors each year.
Cicala Filmworks is an American independent film production company based in New York City. Feature film credits include My Last Day Without You (2011), Get a Job (2011), Michael Imperioli's debut The Hungry Ghosts (2009), Olaf de Fleur's The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela (2008), Arranged (2007), and Confess (2005). Documentaries include Even Though the Whole World Is Burning (2014) and Contested Streets (2006), which was broadcast as part of "The Green" on The Sundance Channel. Founded in 1997 by Stefan Schaefer and Diane Crespo, the company has also created promotional content for The Guggenheim Museum, The New York Yankees and The March of Dimes.
Sally El-Hosaini is a Welsh-Egyptian BAFTA nominated film director and screenwriter.
My Last Day Without You is an independent feature film starring Nicole Beharie and Ken Duken, and directed by Stefan Schaefer. It was written by Schaefer and Christoph Silber, and produced by Diane Crespo, Silber and Schaefer and their companies Cicala Filmworks and Silver Shepherd.
Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology is an autobiographical documentary film directed by Tiffany Shlain, dedicated to her father. The film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Tiffany's father Dr. Leonard Shlain, MD battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain attempts to reveal the ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead.
Mark Albiston is a New Zealand film, television and advertising director. He graduated from University of Canterbury in Christchurch in 1992 with a degree in Fine Arts.
Louis Sutherland is a New Zealand film, television and advertising director and actor. He is of Samoan and Scottish descent, and based in Wellington.
Even Though the Whole World Is Burning is a feature documentary film about former United States Poet Laureate and environmental activist W. S. Merwin. The film is directed and produced by Stefan Schaefer, and screened at the Maui Film Festival, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital, Seattle International Film Festival, and the Hawaii International Film Festival.
Hisham Bizri is a film director, writer, and producer born in Beirut, Lebanon. Bizri began working in film in the US with filmmaker Raoul Ruiz. Bizri has directed over 25 shorts and one feature film. His industry experience includes work as Producer at Future TV (Beirut), Creative Director at Orbit Communications Company (Beirut), and President & Creative Director of Levantine Films (NYC). He previously taught at Brown University, the University of Minnesota, MIT, UC Davis, NYU, Boston University, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and in Lebanon, Korea, Japan, Ireland, and Jordan. His students have gone on to study film at NYU, USC, AFI, UCLA, La Fémis (Paris) and FAMU (Prague).
Myrsini Aristidou is a Cypriot film director based in Paris and Cyprus. She is best known for her short films Semele (2015) and Aria (2017).
Rajee Samarasinghe is a Sri Lankan filmmaker and visual artist. His work explores a wide array of topics including the Sri Lankan Civil War, his family, and the deconstruction of documentary and narrative film.
Aloha Surf Hotel is a 2020 American independent film written and directed by Stefan Schaefer, and produced by Cicala Filmworks and Jonathan Stern's Abominable Pictures. The film premiered at the 2020 Hawaii International Film Festival, and was released to theatres in Hawaii on December 4, 2020.
Supriyo Sen is an independent filmmaker from India. He produced and directed the film Tangra Blues (2021).
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