Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Film, theater |
Founded | 1995 |
Founder | Joshua Blum |
Headquarters | New York City , United States |
Website | wsfilms |
Washington Square Films (WSF) is an American production and management company based in New York City and Los Angeles. It was founded in 1995 by Joshua Blum. [1]
The company's debut project was United States of Poetry, [2] a five-part series for PBS, created and produced by Joshua Blum and Bob Holman and directed by Mark Pellington. The program featured sixty poets performing in stylized poetry videos, including Paul Beatty, Joseph Brodsky, Jimmy Carter, Sandra Cisneros, Leonard Cohen, Rita Dove, Allen Ginsberg, Czesław Miłosz, Lou Reed, Johnny Depp, and Amiri Baraka. The series was accompanied by a book of the same name published by Abrams Books [3] and a soundtrack album from Mercury Records. [4] [5]
The USOP also produced a live touring component, which was booked and managed by Kathleen Russo and Mary Shimkin. In 1996, Russo and Shimkin joined Washington Square Films to book and manage performers and spoken word acts, naming the division Washington Square Arts. [6] The roster included Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Danny Hoch, David Sedaris, Sandra Bernhard, and many others. The company discontinued booking from its host of services in 2010. In 1998, manager Katherine Atkinson [7] joined the division and built a roster of then unknown talent including Kerry Washington, [8] Dulé Hill, [9] Sarita Choudhury, [10] Victor Rasuk, [11] Adepero Oduye, [12] Alex Désert, [13] and others, all who are still represented by Atkinson and Washington Square Films.
Washington Square Films has worked with and produced films for Steven Soderbergh, [14] Abel Ferrara, [15] and Sally Potter. [16] The company is perhaps best known for supporting and producing the early work of filmmakers including J. C. Chandor, [17] Kelly Reichardt, [18] Alex Ross Perry, and others. [19] The company's projects have been nominated for two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards (winning one), sixteen Independent Spirit Awards (winning three), three Golden Globes (winning one), and one Peabody Award (won). [20] The company has had fourteen films premiere at Sundance and others at every major film festival including Cannes, [21] Berlin, [22] Toronto, [23] Tribeca, [24] and New York. [25] In 2024, Washington Square Films served as the NY production company for Pedro Almodóvar's first US production and first English-language feature film The Room Next Door . WSF's Joshua Blum and Han West served as Executive Producers in New York. [26]
In 2023, Washington Square Films produced a live musical based on the 1972 Jamaican film The Harder They Come , [27] with music by Jimmy Cliff and a book and additional songs by Suzan-Lori Parks. The show was developed by Blum and Bruce Miller, and its executive producers included Carmelo Anthony and Asani Swann. [28] It premiered in New York at The Public Theater and was nominated for nine Off-Broadway Awards and won the Outer Critics award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical. [29] On September 3, 2024, Stratford East announced that a stage adaptation of The Harder They Come will be a part of their 140th anniversary season lineup with a book and additional new songs by Suzan-Lori Parks. Blum and Miller return as producers and Matthew Xia is set to direct. The musical will run from September 13, 2025 to October 25, 2025. [30]
Bob Holman is an American poet and poetry activist, most closely identified with the oral tradition, the spoken word, and poetry slam. As a promoter of poetry in many media, Holman has spent the last four decades working variously as an author, editor, publisher, performer, emcee of live events, director of theatrical productions, producer of films and television programs, record label executive, university professor, and archivist. He was described by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in The New Yorker as "the postmodern promoter who has done more to bring poetry to cafes and bars than anyone since Ferlinghetti."
Tonantzin Carmelo is an American actress. She is known for her acting roles in film, TV and stage productions including in the Steven Spielberg miniseries, Into the West, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female in a Television Movie or Miniseries.
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Matthew Steven Leutwyler, is an American screenplay writer, film director, and producer.
Waitress is a 2007 American comedy drama film written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, starring Keri Russell as a young woman trapped in a small town and an abusive marriage, who faces an unwanted pregnancy while working as a waitress. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and received a limited theatrical release in the United States on May 2, 2007, by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Shelly's supporting role is her final film appearance before her death. In 2015, Waitress was adapted into a Tony-nominated musical of the same name.
Nick Foster is a British composer, songwriter and music producer based in London. He is best-known for his work as a composer for television, commercials and film.
Francis "Frank" Anthony Evers is an Irish & American businessman and film/TV producer, the CEO of Institute, Institute Artist, the Story Institute, and the president of Evergreen Pictures and Girl Culture Films.
Margin Call is a 2011 American drama film written and directed by J. C. Chandor in his feature directorial debut. The principal story takes place over a 24-hour period at a large Wall Street investment bank during the initial stages of the 2007–2008 financial crisis. It focuses on the actions taken by a group of employees during the subsequent financial collapse. The title comes from a finance term for when an investor must increase the securities or other assets used as collateral for a loan when their value falls below a certain threshold. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, and Stanley Tucci.
All Is Lost is a 2013 action drama film written and directed by J. C. Chandor. The film stars Robert Redford as a man lost at sea. Redford is the only cast member, and the film has 51 spoken English words. All Is Lost is Chandor's second feature film, following his 2011 debut Margin Call. It screened Out of Competition at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
Blumhouse Productions, LLC, doing business as Blumhouse, is an American independent film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum and Amy Israel.
A Most Violent Year is a 2014 crime drama film written and directed by J. C. Chandor, who also co-produced with Neal Dodson and Anna Gerb. It stars Oscar Isaac as a fuel supplier who tries to adhere to his own moral compass amid the rampant violence, corruption and decay that threaten his family and business. The film also stars Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Alessandro Nivola, and Albert Brooks.
Candescent Films is an American film production company that produces and finances documentary and narrative films that explore social issues.
RYOT is an American immersive media company founded in 2012 by Bryn Mooser, David Darg, Molly DeWolf Swenson and Martha Rogers, based in Los Angeles. It specializes in documentary film production, commercial production, virtual reality and augmented reality.
Chris Moukarbel is a film director, writer, producer, contemporary artist and runs the award winning production company Permanent Wave Productions. His first feature documentary Me at the Zoo premiered in competition at Sundance Film Festival in 2012 and was acquired by HBO Documentaries. The film charts the rise of YouTube and tells the story of an early viral Internet celebrity, Chris Crocker of “Leave Britney Alone!” fame. Moukarbel was approached by Sheila Nevins to direct the Emmy nominated documentary Banksy Does New York for HBO.
Janicza Bravo is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Her films include Gregory Go Boom, a winner of the short-film jury award at the Sundance Film Festival; Lemon, co-written with Brett Gelman; and Zola, co-written with playwright Jeremy O. Harris.
When They See Us is a 2019 American crime drama television miniseries created, co-written, and directed by Ava DuVernay for Netflix, that premiered in four parts on May 31, 2019. It is based on events of the 1989 Central Park jogger case and explores the lives and families of the five Black and Latino male suspects who were falsely accused then prosecuted on charges related to the rape and assault of a white woman in Central Park, New York City. The series features an ensemble cast, including Jharrel Jerome, Asante Blackk, Caleel Harris, Jovan Adepo, Michael K. Williams, Logan Marshall-Green, Joshua Jackson, Blair Underwood, Vera Farmiga, John Leguizamo, Felicity Huffman, Niecy Nash, Aunjanue Ellis, Marsha Stephanie Blake, and Kylie Bunbury.
Jonathan Schwartz is an American film producer and former entertainment lawyer, known for producing independent features. Schwartz's credits include Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006), Douchebag (2010), Like Crazy (2011), Smashed (2012), Nobody Walks (2012), Breathe In (2013), Imperial Dreams (2014), and The Vanishing of Sidney Hall (2017). Through his production label, Super Crispy Entertainment, most of Schwartz's works have screened, won awards and secured distribution at the Sundance Film Festival. Throughout his career, he has collaborated extensively with producer Andrea Sperling, director Drake Doremus and actor-producer Logan Lerman.
Dan Sickles is an American documentary film director, writer, actor and producer. He is best known for his documentaries, Mala Mala and Dina. In 2015, he was named in Out magazine's OUT100.
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