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 2023, Washington Square Films produced a live musical based on the 1972 Jamaican film The Harder They Come , [26] 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. [27] 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. [28]
Morgan Valentine Spurlock was an American documentary filmmaker, writer, and television producer. He directed 23 films and was the producer of nearly 70 films throughout his career. He received acclaim for directing the documentary Super Size Me (2004), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. He produced What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) and directed Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (2008), POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011), Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2011), and One Direction: This Is Us (2013).
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.
David Kahne is an American record producer, musician, composer, and former record company executive.
Philip Alexander Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."
Morgan J. Freeman is an American film director. In 1997, his debut feature, Hurricane Streets, won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival.
Jeffrey Friedman is an American filmmaker. In 2021, he and Rob Epstein won a Grammy Award for their work on the documentary film Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice
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.
Jason Ferus Blum is an American filmmaker. He is founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, which has produced the horror franchises Paranormal Activity (2007–2021), Insidious (2010–2023), The Purge (2013–2021), and Halloween (2018-2022). Blum has also produced Sinister (2012), Oculus (2013), Whiplash (2014), The Gallows (2015), The Gift (2015), Hush (2016), Split (2016), Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), Get Out (2017), Happy Death Day (2017), Upgrade (2018), Us (2019), The Invisible Man (2020), Freaky (2020), The Black Phone (2021), M3GAN (2022), and Five Nights at Freddy's (2023).
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.
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.
The 2017 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 to January 29, 2017. The first lineup of competition films was announced November 30, 2016.
Nostalgia is a 2018 American drama film directed by Mark Pellington, who also produced with Tom Gorai and Josh Braun. The screenplay, written by Alex Ross Perry, is based on a story by Perry and Pellington. The film stars an ensemble cast led by Jon Hamm, Catherine Keener, John Ortiz, Nick Offerman, James LeGros, Bruce Dern, and Ellen Burstyn. It revolves around the lives of several people who become connected through loss.
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.
Eliza McNitt is an American writer and director who specializes in blending science with art. In 2018 she was an Emmy Awards finalist and Grand Prize winner for the VR category at the Venice Film Festival. Other festivals that have exhibited her work includes SXSW, AFI Fest, Cannes NEXT, Tribeca, Telluride, and Sundance, where McNitt secured the first seven figure deal in VR film festival history for her project SPHERES.
Smriti Mundhra is an American filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her production company, Meralta Films, specializes in documentary films and non-fiction content.
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.