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Stephen Vittoria (born January 11, 1957) is an American filmmaker and author born in Newark, New Jersey who currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
Vittoria grew up in West Orange, New Jersey and attended West Orange Mountain High School. In 1973, when he was a 16-year-old high school student, Vittoria petitioned to run for the Board of Education of the West Orange Public Schools. Vittoria wanted student representation on the school board but was denied candidacy. With legal representation from the American Civil Liberties Union, the case went to the Supreme Court of the United States where Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. ruled against Vittoria and the ACLU. [1]
Vittoria graduated Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ in 1979 and Columbia College, Los Angeles, California 1981, where he studied film.
In 1987, Vittoria wrote and directed his first feature film, Lou, Pat & Joe D (later titled Black & White), starring Frank Vincent and Kim Delgado. Set in Newark, NJ after World War II, about racism and the friendship of two young boys. In 1995, Vittoria produced, wrote, and directed Hollywood Boulevard, starring John C. McGinley, Jon Tenney, and Julianne Phillips—a dark satire of the motion picture business. In 1996, Vittoria founded Street Legal Cinema, a documentary production company, and Deep Image, a commercial production company. [2] [3]
In 2005, Vittoria produced, wrote, and directed the documentary feature film, One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern , which won the Jury Prize for "Best Documentary Feature" at the 2005 Sarasota Film Festival and was released in theaters nationwide by First Run Features.[ citation needed ] In 2006, Vittoria wrote, directed, and edited the television documentary Keeper of the Flame with journalist Linda Ellerbee and actor Wilford Brimley, about ecological threats to American forests. In 2008 and 2011, respectively, Vittoria was segment producer on Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place, both directed by Alex Gibney.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, Vittoria produced, wrote, directed, and edited the feature documentary Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary, released nationally by First Run Features and internationally by Monoduo Films Berlin. The film documents the career of imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, before and during incarceration. [4] [5]
In 2018, Vittoria and co-author Mumia Abu-Jamal published volume one of a three-part book series entitled, Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide, and Manifest Destiny. [6] The nonfiction series covers the history of the United States of America, from the arrival of Europeans to the early 21st century, making the argument that the founding and evolution of America as a nation has been driven primarily by conquest, exploitation, and murder.
Volume one in the series, Dreaming of Empire, features an introduction by journalist Chris Hedges and deals with the early origins of the "American Empire." America's Favorite Pastime and Perfecting Tyranny, were released in 2019 and 2021, respectively. [7] [8] America's Favorite Pastime covers America's major wars (World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War) and Perfecting Tyranny covers economic and political systems.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. While on death row, he has written and commented on the criminal justice system in the United States. After numerous appeals, his death penalty sentence was overturned by a federal court. In 2011, the prosecution agreed to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. He entered the general prison population early the following year.
Albert F. Sabo was an American lawyer and judge of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. He is best known for presiding over the 1982 murder trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sabo served as a judge from 1974 until his retirement in 1998.
American Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel published in 1997 concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a successful Jewish American businessman and former high school star athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, which in the novel is described as a manifestation of the "indigenous American berserk". It is the first in Roth's American Trilogy, followed by I Married a Communist (1998) and The Human Stain (2000).
Marc Evans is a Welsh director of film and television, whose credits include the films House of America, Resurrection Man and My Little Eye.
Roger Nash Baldwin was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He served as executive director of the ACLU until 1950.
John Africa, born Vincent Leaphart, was the founder of MOVE, a Philadelphia-based, predominantly black organization active from the early 1970s and still active. He and his followers were killed at a residential home, which served as the headquarters of MOVE, in a fire after the Philadelphia Police Department bombed the house with C4-explosive, and deliberately let the fire rage until it was out of control following a standoff and firefight between MOVE and police.
Jamaal is an Arabic masculine given name, meaning "beauty", and a surname. It is used in the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and predominantly Muslim countries in South Asia. It is also used amongst African Americans and some Turkic peoples.
Leonard Irving Weinglass was a U.S. criminal defense lawyer and constitutional law advocate, best known for his defense of participants in the 1960s counterculture. He was admitted to the bar in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and California. He taught criminal trial advocacy at the University of Southern California Law School from 1974 to 1976, and at the Peoples College of Law, in Los Angeles, California from 1974 to 1975.
Benjamin Franklin High School is a public high school located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The school, located north of Center City, is a part of the School District of Philadelphia. Franklin serves sections of North Philadelphia and Center City.
Dave Lindorff is an American investigative reporter, filmmaker, a columnist for CounterPunch and a contributor to Tarbell.org,The Nation,FAIR and Salon.com. His work was highlighted by Project Censored 2004, 2011 and 2012.
Thomas Lee Ambro is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Mumia Abu-Jamal was a 1982 murder trial in which Mumia Abu-Jamal was tried for the first-degree murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. A jury convicted Abu-Jamal on all counts and sentenced him to death.
Jeffrey Blitz is an American film director, screenwriter and producer best known for the documentary Spellbound (2003), The Office, the fiction film Rocket Science (2007) and Comedy Central’sReview. Blitz is a two-time Emmy Award winner, the winner of the Directing Prize at Sundance and an Academy Award nominee.
Tigre Hill is a filmmaker known for tackling controversial subjects. He is perhaps best known for his first documentary, The Shame of a City.
In Prison My Whole Life is a 2007 documentary film about American journalist and prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, directed by Marc Evans, and written by Evans and William Francome. Others involved with the project were Robert R. Bryan, Angela Davis, Anthony Arnove, Dead Prez, Howard Zinn, Mos Def, Noam Chomsky, Robert Meeropol, Russell Simmons, Snoop Dogg and Steve Earle. The film's executive producer is Colin Firth.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? is a documentary film about journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal and his trial for murder of a Philadelphia police officer, produced and directed by John Edginton. There are two versions, both produced by Otmoor Productions. The first version was 57 minutes long and aired in 1996 by HBO.
A polarizing figure, Mumia Abu-Jamal has attracted widespread attention in popular culture. Since at least 1995, there are examples of references to him in notable popular music recordings and musical performances. He and his case have been the subject of three documentary films and a shorter 20/20 television special which aired shortly after the 27th anniversary of his apprehension.
John Herzfeld is an American film and television director, screenwriter, actor and producer. His feature film directing credits include Two of a Kind, 2 Days in the Valley (1996), 15 Minutes (2001) and Escape Plan: The Extractors (2017). He has also directed numerous made-for-television movies, including The Ryan White Story (1989), The Preppie Murder (1989), Casualties of Love: The "Long Island Lolita" Story (1993), and Don King: Only in America (1997) for which he was nominated for an Emmy and won the DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Specials. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for directing the 1980 ABC Afterschool Special titled "Stoned".
Safiya Bukhari was an American member of the Black Panther Party. She was also the co-founder of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), the Jericho Movement for U.S. Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, and was the vice president of the Republic of New Afrika.
