Tamara Jenkins | |
|---|---|
 Jenkins in 2013 | |
| Born | May 2, 1962 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1991–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
Tamara Jenkins (born May 2, 1962) is an American filmmaker and occasional actress. She is best known for her feature films Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), The Savages (2007), and Private Life (2018).
Jenkins was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of Lillian and Manuel Jenkins. [1] Her father is Jewish, and her mother is Italian American. [2] [3] After her parents divorced, her father, a former nightclub owner, took custody of her and her three brothers, moving the family to California to work as a car salesman. [4] [5] She lived in Beverly Hills with her father and brothers, and attended Beverly Hills High for a year and a half.
In the 1980s, Jenkins moved to New York City where she performed in various productions, including the first national tours of Chicago , Les Miserables , and Cats , as well as the 1993 Broadway Revival of My Fair Lady . [6] She enrolled in the graduate filmmaking program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in the 1990s. [7] Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking, Jenkins also attended the Sundance Institute Screenwriting and Filmmakers Lab. [8]
Jenkins began her career with a short film, 1991's Fugitive Love, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Afterwards, she completed a congressional mandate associated with PBS to bring diverse programming to public television that was funded by the Independent Television Service. [8] Another black-and-white short, 1993's Family Remains, followed, which received a Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Short Filmmaking at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. [9]
Her debut feature film, 1998's semi-autobiographical Slums of Beverly Hills, which she wrote and directed, played at both Sundance and the Cannes Film Festival. [10] Based on her own experience growing up in Beverly Hills in the 1970s, the film is a dark comedy about a nomadic family in Los Angeles. Using photographs Jenkins had kept from her time at Beverly Hills High School, art director Scott Plauch and production designer Dena Roth were able to create an accurate period depiction of Beverly Hills, while also staying true to the autobiographical element which is key to the film's success. [11]
Starring Alan Arkin, Natasha Lyonne and Marisa Tomei, Slums of Beverly Hills was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards (Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay). Jenkins took a nearly decade-long hiatus to complete her next feature film. [7] In the nine-year gap between her two films, she worked on an eventually abandoned screenplay about photographer Diane Arbus. [4] Before returning to her next feature film, Jenkins branched out to explore theater, essay publications, and nonprofit film and TV work. In 2003, she directed The New Group's theater production of A Likely Story, written and performed by David Cale. [12]
Shortly after her marriage, Jenkins went to Yaddo, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, to work on the screenplay that would eventually become 2007's The Savages . [10] For this tragicomedy about a dysfunctional family dealing with the aftershocks of its patriarch's elderly dementia, Jenkins took inspiration from her experiences with her grandmother and father, both of whom were in nursing homes with dementia. [13] Jenkins' father, who was much older than Jenkins’ mother, first needed care when she was in her 30s. [14] Additionally, Jenkins built upon her theater work at The New Group, departing from her previously straight dramas to something far more absurd. The film layers a bright, doll-like color palette upon a bleak and often morbid story, relying on the savage wit of her screenplay to tie the film together. [15]
The project was initially with Focus Features, which she says had given her a "blind deal" to write any script she wanted, but she sought to get a deal elsewhere after what she characterized as a disagreement over casting. [4] Fox Searchlight picked up the film with a modest budget ($8 million) and compressed shooting schedule of 30 days. [4] Starring Laura Linney (who received her third Academy Award nomination for her role) and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the film became a critical success after screening at numerous film festivals, including Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival. Jenkins was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
After the success of The Savages, it took Jenkins eleven years to make her third feature film, Private Life. When discussing the more than a decade-long hiatus, Jenkins noted that successful female directors do not often produce films at the same pace as their male counterparts, stating “It’s systemic. It’s gotta be systemic. There is something in the water.” [16]
Private Life, which starred Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, Molly Shannon, and Kayli Carter, was also written by Jenkins. The film began production in April 2017, [17] and was given a limited release in theaters on October 5, 2018, by Netflix, which also streamed the film. [18] [19] Private Life follows a couple dealing with infertility, and is based on Jenkins’ own struggles to have a child. [20] Rolling Stone magazine described the movie as "not only about infertility... a tender but unflinching portrait of a couple in the throes of a midlife crisis." [18] Jenkins was nominated at the 2019 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay for the film. [21] Private Life holds a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it Jenkins' highest-rated film on the site. [22]
In addition to her work in film, Jenkins' writing has been published in Zoetrope: All-Story and Tin House Magazine . Most recently her essay, "Holy Innocents" appeared in the book Lisa Yuskavage: Small Paintings 1993-2004. She has also directed theater at The New Group, worked with teens creating a sex-education film for the nonprofit organization Scenarios, and directed a series of public service announcements for Amnesty International. [9]
In 2002, Jenkins married screenwriter Jim Taylor. [4] They have a daughter and live in New York City as of 2019 [update] . [23]
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Slums of Beverly Hills | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2007 | The Savages | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2018 | Private Life | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2018 | Juliet, Naked | No | Yes | No |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Fugitive Love | Yes | Yes |
| 1993 | Family Remains | Yes | Yes |
| 2004 | Choices: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly | Yes | No |
| Year | Association | Category | Nominated Work | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Film Independent Spirit Awards | Best First Screenplay | Slums of Beverly Hills | Nominated | |
| Best First Feature | Nominated | ||||
| 2008 | Academy Awards | Best Original Screenplay | The Savages | Nominated | |
| Film Independent Spirit Awards | Best Director | Nominated | |||
| Best Screenplay | Won | ||||
| 2018 | Gotham Awards | Best Screenplay | Private Life | Nominated | |
| 2019 | Film Independent Spirit Awards | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| Best Screenplay | Nominated |
Marisa Tomei is an American actress. Her early appearances were in the soap opera As the World Turns (1983–1985) and the first season of the sitcom A Different World (1987). She gained prominence for her comedic performance in My Cousin Vinny (1992), which earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received additional Oscar nominations for In the Bedroom (2001) and The Wrestler (2008).
Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for her direction and costume design. Her film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue". She also directed the jukebox movie musical Across the Universe, based on the music of The Beatles.
Mena Alexandra Suvari is an American actress, producer, fashion designer and model. After beginning her career as a model and guest-starring on several television shows, she made her film debut in the 1997 drama Nowhere.
Slums of Beverly Hills is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, and starring Natasha Lyonne, Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei, David Krumholtz, Kevin Corrigan, Jessica Walter and Carl Reiner. The story follows a teenage girl (Lyonne) struggling to grow up in 1976 in a lower-middle-class nomadic Jewish family that relocates every few months.
Rebecca Augusta Miller, Lady Day-Lewis is an American filmmaker and novelist. She is known for her films Angela, Personal Velocity: Three Portraits, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and Maggie's Plan, all of which she wrote and directed, as well as her novels The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and Jacob's Folly. Miller received the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Personal Velocity and the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Director for Angela.
Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector.
This Is That Productions was one of the leading independent feature film production companies. Established in 2002, and based in New York City, the company was founded and fully owned by Ted Hope, Anne Carey, Anthony Bregman, and Diana Victor. The four partners previously worked together at the groundbreaking Good Machine, which Ted Hope co-founded in 1991.
The Savages is a 2007 American black comedy-drama film written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. It stars Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Philip Bosco.
May Miles Thomas is a film director and screenwriter.
Cynthia Wade is an American television, commercial and film director, producer and cinematographer based in New York City. She has directed documentaries on social issues including Shelter Dogs in 2003 about animal welfare and Freeheld in 2007 about LGBT rights as well as television commercials and web campaigns. She has won over 40 film festival awards, won an Oscar in 2008, and was nominated for her second Oscar in 2013.
Marielle Stiles Heller is an American director, screenwriter and actress. She is best known for directing the films The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018), and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), as well as acting in The Queen’s Gambit (2020).
Black women filmmakers have made contributions throughout the history of film. According to Nsenga Burton, writer for The Root, "the film industry remains overwhelmingly white and male. In 2020, 74.6 percent of movie directors of theatrical films were white, showing a small decrease from the previous year. In terms of representation, 25.4 percent of film directors were of ethnic minority in 2020. Of the 25.4 percent of minority filmmakers, a small percentage was female.
Pamela Martin is an American film and television editor with more than twenty-eight feature film credits since the 1990s. She is best known for her works on The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Film Editing, and King Richard, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, being nominated at the Satellite Award for Best Editing and earning her second Academy Award nomination for Best Film Editing.
Amy Virginia Talkington is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and author.
Lulu Wang is a Chinese-born American filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the comedy-drama films Posthumous (2014) and The Farewell (2019). For the latter, she received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and the film was named one of the top ten films of 2019 by the American Film Institute. Wang has also written, produced, and directed several short films, documentaries, and music videos.
Private Life is a 2018 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Tamara Jenkins and starring Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn, with Kayli Carter, Molly Shannon, John Carroll Lynch, Desmin Borges, and Denis O'Hare in supporting roles. The film focuses on Richard and Rachel, a middle-aged married couple of New York City creatives, who are desperately trying to have a child by any means possible.
The Lodge is a 2019 psychological horror film directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, written by Franz, Fiala, and Sergio Casci, and starring Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Alicia Silverstone, and Richard Armitage. Its plot follows a soon-to-be stepmother who, alone with her fiancé's two children, becomes stranded at their rural lodge during Christmas. There, she and the children experience a number of unexplained events that seem to be connected to her past.
Madeline's Madeline is a 2018 American drama film written and directed by Josephine Decker. It stars Helena Howard in her first film role, alongside Molly Parker and Miranda July. The film follows a teenage actress who is encouraged by her theater director to blur the lines between the character she is playing and her actual identity. The film is known for its experimental visuals and the improvisational process Decker used to create the story, not unlike the characters themselves.
Madeleine Olnek is an American independent film director, producer, screenwriter, and playwright. She has written 24 plays and three feature films, including Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, The Foxy Merkins, and Wild Nights with Emily. Her feature films have been described as "madcap comedies with absurdist leanings" and are all centered around queer characters.
Michal Vinik is an Israeli filmmaker, director and screenwriter. She teaches filmmaking at Tel Aviv University and Beit Berl College.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
