Lawyers as Filmmakers
Filmmakers, mainly film directors, - lawyers by education or otherwise.
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Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context.
After studying law at St. Peter's College, Oxford, he branched out into the theater, performing with a touring repertory company. This led to television, where in alliance with producer Tony Garnett he produced a series of docudramas, most notably the devastating "Cathy Come Home" episode of The Wednesday Play (1964), whose impact was so massive that it led directly to a change in the homeless laws.
He made his feature debut Poor Cow (1967) the following year, and with Kes (1969), he produced what is now acclaimed as one of the finest films ever made in Britain. However, the following two decades saw his career in the doldrums with his films poorly distributed (despite the obvious quality of work such as The Gamekeeper (1968) and Looks and Smiles (1981)) and his TV work in some cases never broadcast (most notoriously, his documentaries on the 1984 miners' strike).
He made a spectacular comeback in the 1990s, with a series of award-winning films firmly establishing him in the pantheon of great European directors - his films have always been more popular in mainland Europe than in his native country or the US (where Riff-Raff (1991) was shown with subtitles because of the wide range of dialects). Hidden Agenda (1990) won the Special Jury Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival; Riff-Raff (1991) won the Felix award for Best European Film of 1992; Raining Stones (1993) won the Cannes Special Jury Prize for 1993, and Land and Freedom (1995) won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival - and was a substantial box-office hit in Spain where it sparked intense debate about its subject matter. This needless to say, was one of the reasons that Loach made the film!- Writer
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Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many German films until Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Wilder immediately realized his Jewish ancestry would cause problems, so he emigrated to Paris, then the US. Although he spoke no English when he arrived in Hollywood, Wilder was a fast learner and thanks to contacts such as Peter Lorre (with whom he shared an apartment), he was able to break into American films. His partnership with Charles Brackett started in 1938 and the team was responsible for writing some of Hollywood's classic comedies, including Ninotchka (1939) and Ball of Fire (1941). The partnership expanded into a producer-director one in 1942, with Brackett producing and the two turned out such classics as Five Graves to Cairo (1943), The Lost Weekend (1945) (Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay) and Sunset Boulevard (1950) (Oscars for Best Screenplay), after which the partnership dissolved. (Wilder had already made one film, Double Indemnity (1944) without Brackett, as the latter had refused to work on a film he felt dealt with such disreputable characters.) Wilder's subsequent self-produced films would become more caustic and cynical, notably Ace in the Hole (1951), though he also produced such sublime comedies as Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960) (which won him Best Picture and Director Oscars). He retired in 1981.- Director
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Theo Angelopoulos began to study law in Athens but broke up his studies to go to the Sorbonne in Paris in order to study literature. When he had finished his studies, he wanted to attend the School of Cinema at Paris but decided instead to go back to Greece. There he worked as a journalist and critic for the newspaper "Demokratiki Allaghi" until it was banned by the military after a coup d'état. Now unemployed, he decided to make his first movie, Anaparastasi (1970). Internationally successful was his trilogy about the history of Greece from 1930 to 1970 consisting of Days of '36 (1972), The Travelling Players (1975), and Oi kynigoi (1977). After the end of the dictatorship in Greece, Angelopoulos went to Italy, where he worked with RAI (and more money). His movies then became less political.- Director
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Born in 1930, Wiseman is a Cambridge, Massachusetts resident and member of the Massachusetts Bar Association who turned to filmmaking in 1967, after years as an instructor and/or researcher at Boston University, Brandeis University, and Harvard. In 1970 he founded Zipporah Films, Inc., which continues to distribute his documentaries. Wiseman has also written and lectured widely on law enforcement issues.- Writer
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The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the devil herself said the priests who ran his school) - and the Gambettola farmhouse of his paternal grandmother would be remembered in several films. His traveling salesman father Urbano Fellini showed up in La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). His mother Ida Barbiani was from Rome and accompanied him there in 1939. He enrolled in the University of Rome. Intrigued by the image of reporters in American films, he tried out the real life role of journalist and caught the attention of several editors with his caricatures and cartoons and then started submitting articles. Several articles were recycled into a radio series about newlyweds "Cico and Pallina". Pallina was played by acting student Giulietta Masina, who became his real life wife from October 30, 1943, until his death half a century later. The young Fellini loved vaudeville and was befriended in 1940 by leading comedian Aldo Fabrizi. Roberto Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pietro in Rome, Open City (1945) and made the contact through Fellini. Fellini worked on that film's script and is on the credits for Rosselini's Paisan (1946). On that film he wandered into the editing room, started observing how Italian films were made (a lot like the old silent films with an emphasis on visual effects, dialogue dubbed in later). Fellini in his mid-20s had found his life's work.- Actor
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Güney and his work were almost entirely unknown outside of his homeland Turkey until his 1981 escape from imprisonment in Turkey and his "discovery" the following year at the Cannes Film Festival for his autobiographical screenplay for The Road (1982), the festival's grand prize winner. Born in 1937 in a village near the southern city of Adana, Güney studied law and economics at the universities in Ankara and Istanbul, but by the age of 21 he found himself actively involved in filmmaking. As Yesilcam, the Turkish studio system, grew in strength, a handful of directors, including Atif Yilmaz, began to use the cinema as a means of addressing the problems of the people. Only state-sanctioned melodramas, war films and play adaptations had previously played in Turkish theaters, but these new filmmakers began to fill the screens with more artistic, personal and relevant pictures of Turkish & Kurdish life. The most popular name to emerge from the Young Turkish Cinema was that of Yilmaz Güney. Güney was a gruff-looking young actor who earned the moniker "Cirkin Kral," or "the Ugly King." After apprenticing as a screenwriter for and assistant to Atif Yilmaz, Güney soon began appearing in as many as 20 films a year and became Turkey's most popular actor. More than a screen idol, Güney was a Kurdish who believed in the Kurdish people and their way of life, as well as being personally committed to social change. Although the early 1960s brought some political reform to Turkey, Güney was imprisoned in 1961 for 18 months for publishing a "communist" novel. The country's political situation and Güney's relationship with the authorities only became more tense in the ensuing years. Not content with his star status atop the Turkish film industry, Güney began directing his own pictures in 1965 and, by 1968, had formed his own production company, Güney Filmcilik. Over the next few years, the titles of his films mirrored the feelings of the Kurdish people: Hope (1970); Agit (1972); _Acý (1971)_; Umutsuzlar (1971). After 1972, however, Güney would spend most of his life in prison. Arrested for harboring anarchist students, Güney was jailed during preproduction on Zavallilar (1975) (completed in 1975), and before completing Endise (1974), which was finished in 1974 by Güney's assistant, Serif Gören. This was a cherished role that Gören would repeat over the next dozen years, directing several scripts that Güney wrote laboriously while behind bars. Released from prison in 1974 as part of a general amnesty, Güney was re-arrested that same year for shooting a judge. During this stretch of incarceration, his most successful screenplays were The Herd (1978) and Düsman (1980), both directed by Zeki Ökten. After escaping from prison in 1981 and fleeing to France, Güney was greeted at the Cannes Film Festival with a Palme d'Or for The Road (1982), again directed by Gören. It was not until 1983 that Güney resumed directing, telling a brutal tale of imprisoned children in his final film, The Wall (1983), made in France with the cooperation of the French government. At that point, Güney's name was unspeakable in his homeland; eleven of the films he directed or appeared in were confiscated and reportedly burned to ashes; even so much as writing about Güney was forbidden. Despite the great international success of Yol and Duvar, Güney was ultimately a Kurdish director for the Kurdish people; his final separation from his home audience must have been even more painful to endure than his years of imprisonment.- Director
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Vyacheslav Bihun is known for How Can I Not Love You (2017), Fatalis (2020) and Chendej's Shadows (2020).- Director
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Writer. Director. Producer. Studied law and graduated. Was one of the founders of the Oberhausener Manifest in 1962. Since 1962 Headmaster of the 'Institut fuer Filmgestaltung' at the 'Hochschule fuer Gestaltung' in Ulm, Germany. Since 1988 produces broadcastings dealing with cultural aspects in German private TV channels RTL and SAT.1 in his own responsibility (DCTP program).- Arkadiy Vayner was born on 13 January 1931 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a writer and actor, known for The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (1979), Me, gamomdziebeli (1972) and The Victims Have No Grievance (1986). He died on 24 April 2005 in Moscow, Russia.
- Georgiy Vayner was born on 10 February 1938 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a writer, known for The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (1979), Me, gamomdziebeli (1972) and The Victims Have No Grievance (1986). He died on 11 June 2009 in New York City, New York, USA.
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Igor Belyaev was born on 17 April 1932 in Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Protsess (1988). He died on 26 July 2018 in Moscow, Russia.- Bernhard Schlink is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel The Reader which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller.
He was born in Großdornberg to a German father (Edmund Schlink) and a Swiss mother, the youngest of four children. His mother, Irmgard, had been a theology student of his father, whom she married in 1938. Bernhard's father had been a seminary professor and pastor in the Confessing Church. In 1946, he became a professor of dogmatic and ecumenical theology at Heidelberg University, where he would serve until his retirement in 1971. Over the course of four decades Edmund Schlink became one of the most famous and influential Lutheran theologians in the world and a key participant in the modern Ecumenical Movement. Bernhard Schlink was brought up in Heidelberg from the age of two. He studied law at West Berlin's Free University, graduating in 1968.
Schlink became a judge at the Constitutional Court of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1988 and in 1992 a professor for public law and the philosophy of law at Humboldt University, Berlin. He retired in January 2006.
Schlink studied law at the University of Heidelberg and at the Free University of Berlin. He worked as a scientific assistant at the Universities of Darmstadt, Bielefeld and Freiburg. He had been a law professor at the University of Bonn and Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main before he started in 1992 at Humboldt University of Berlin. His career as a writer began with several detective novels. One of these, Die gordische Schleife, won the Glauser Prize in 1989.
In 1995, he published The Reader (Der Vorleser), a novel about a teenager who has an affair with a woman in her thirties who suddenly vanishes but whom he meets again as a law student when visiting a trial about war crimes. The book became a bestseller both in Germany and the United States and was translated into 39 languages. It was the first German book to reach the number one position in the New York Times bestseller list. In 1997, it won the Hans Fallada Prize, a German literary award, and the Prix Laure Bataillon for works translated into French. In 1999 it was awarded the Welt-Literaturpreis of the newspaper Die Welt.
In 2000, Schlink published a collection of short fiction called Flights of Love. In 2008, Stephen Daldry directed a film adaptation of The Reader. In 2010, his non-fiction political history, Guilt About the Past was published by Beautiful Books Limited (UK). - Writer
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Luis Lucia was born on 24 May 1914 in Valencia, Valencia, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain. He was a writer and director, known for Zampo y yo (1966), El príncipe encadenado (1960) and Jeromín (1953). He died on 15 March 1984 in Madrid, Spain.- Director
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Initially grew up wanting to be a violinist, but while at the University of Vienna decided to study law. While doing so, he became increasingly interested in American film and decided that was what he wanted to do. He became involved in European filmaking for a short time before going to America to study film.- Director
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After having studied German philology, law, piano and composition Andre Delvaux filmed some TV documentaries. In 1965 he debuted in the movies with a film adapted from a novel of Johan Daisne. His films always played in a set between reality and fantasy. Writing his own scripts he filmed e.g. Een vrouw tussen hond en wolf (1979) and Benvenuta (1983) but he had had then problems in financing his projects. Nevertheless he went on with e.g. L'oeuvre au noir (1988) but the interest of the masses was only small.- Writer
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Born in Massa Marittima, Italy on August 6, 1931, Umberto Lenzi was a movie enthusiast since his early grade school years. During those years, he founded various film fan clubs while studying law. Lenzi started out as a journalist for various local newspapers and magazines. Lenzi put off his law studies to pursue the technical arts of filmmaking at the Centro Sperimentale de Cinematografia.
After graduation from the school, Lenzi continued working as a writer and film critic. He found employment as an assistant director before making his directorial debut with Queen of the Seas (1961). Other pirate/sword flicks followed, starting with I pirati della Malesia (1964) (Pirates of Malaysia), which was part of the height of the career of fictitious tales of historic legendary characters including Robin Hood, Catherine the Great, Zorro, Sandokan and Maciste. For the movie Kriminal (1966), Lenzi turned to the new wave of adult-oriented comic books (known as fumetti) for fresh inspiration and initiated a popular trend.
After directing a war film and two "spaghetti westerns," Lenzi turned to the giallo gene with Paranoia (1969) (originally called "Orgasmo"), starring Carroll Baker and Lou Castel, which was the first of his thrillers and one of his personal favorites. Retitled Paranoia for its USA release, Orgasmo caused some confusion since Lenzi directed a movie with the same name, Paranoia, in 1970 also with Carroll Baker. During the 1970s, Lenzi directed a number of giallo thrillers among them So Sweet... So Perverse (1969), Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972) and Eyeball (1975). None of them were particularly successful since Lenzi blamed his tight budgets and poor scripts, which he believed no director could do well with.
In the late 1970s, Lenzi turned to the police thrillers (polizieschi), which rejuvenated his confidence and his popularity. Titles like Almost Human (1974), Tough Cop (1976) (Free Hand For a Tough Cop), and Brothers Till We Die (1978) (Brothers Till We Die) were the most popular and brutal of the thrillers. Prior to the polizieschi, Lenzi directed Sacrifice! (1972) (Man from Deep River), which was the start of the Italian cannibal sub-genre. A re-telling of the western A Man Called Horse (1970), with a south Asia setting, set the stage for a later group of extremely gory cannibal sub-genre movies most noteworthy being Ruggero Deodato's Last Cannibal World (1977) which featured a potent combination of extreme violence in a documentary realism. Lenzi responded with two very gory jungle cannibal features, Eaten Alive! (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981) (Make Them Die Slowly), which attempted to outdo Deodato's thrillers. The excess of Cannibal Ferox, which was banned in 31 countries, made Lenzi distance himself from the cannibal genre.
In between Eaten Alive and Cannibal Ferox, Lenzi directed Nightmare City (1980), a zombie flick, with Lenzi rejected the slow-moving zombies of the Romero and Fulci movies for a more type of fast-moving, weapons toting, super zombies with action and an anti-nuclear message.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Lenzi turned his attention to other genres: action-adventure, war films and even made-for-TV dramas, although he directed the occasional thriller most notable in that time was Ghosthouse (1988). His movie Le porte dell'inferno (1989) is a seldom-seen horror film, which makes the most of its low budget. Lenzi claimed to have shot it in three weeks at a cost of 300 million lire, whereas low-budget Italian horror films shot in Italy or abroad cost an average of a billion lire or more. It represented a personal challenge for Lenzi since the entire movie takes place in a cave and the suspense is maintained for the entire 90 minutes.
As his budgets and financing for his films dwindled, so did his output. The 1990s saw Lenzi directing a number of TV productions that were never broadcast, causing him lament upon the change in Italian film industry. After 40 years and directing over 60 films, Lenzi more or less retired from film directing and left his mark as one of the most creative and inexhaustible cult film directors of Italy.
Umberto Lenzi died on October 19, 2017 at a hospital in the Ostia district of Rome, Italy at age 86.- Director
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Costa-Gavras was born on 12 February 1933 in Loutra-Iraias, Greece. He is a director and writer, known for Z (1969), Missing (1982) and Amen. (2002). He has been married to Michèle Ray-Gavras since 1968. They have two children.Studied law at Sorbonne but left it to study film at the French national film school.- Writer
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He was only six years old when he started composing music under the protection of his brother Enrique. After the Spanish Civil War he was able to continue his studies at the Real Conservatorio de Madrid, where he finished piano and harmony. Being a Bachelor of Law and an easy-read novel writer (under the pseudonym David Khume), he signed on to enter the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográicas (IIEC), where he stayed for only two years, while he worked simultaneously as a director and theater actor. Later he went to Paris to study directing techniques at the I.D.H.E.C. (University of Sorbonne), where he used to go into seclusion for hours to watch films at the film archive. Back in Spain he began rted his huge cinematographic work as a composer, with Cómicos (1954) and El hombre que viajaba despacito (1957), and later worked as an assistant director to Juan Antonio Bardem, León Klimovsky, Luis Saslavsky, Julio Bracho, Fernando Soler and Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, among others. He also worked at Ágata Films S.A. as production manager and writer. His first works as a director were industrial and cultural short films. However, he soon applied all his knowledge and experience to his feature directorial debut, Tenemos 18 años (1959). From that moment on all his work was supported by co-production. His Succubus (1968) was nominated for the Festival of Berlin, and this event gave him an international reputation. His career got more and more consolidated in the following years, and his endless creativity enabled him to tackle films in all genres, from "B" horror films to pure hardcore sex films. His productions have always been low-budget, but he nevertheless managed to work extraordinarily quickly, often releasing several titles at the same time, using the same shots in more than one film. Some of his actors relate how they they were hired for one film and later saw their name in two or more different ones. As the Spanish cinema evolved, Jesús managed to adapt to the new circumstances and always maintained a constant activity, activity that gave a place in his films to a whole filming crew. Apart from his own production company, Manacoa Films, he also worked for companies like Auster Films S.L. (Paul Auster), Cinematográfica Fénix Films (Arturo Marcos), the French Comptoir Français du Film (Robert de Nesle), Eurociné (Daniel Lesoeur and Marius Lesoeur), Elite Films Productions (Erwin C. Dietrich), Spain's Fervi Films (Fernando Vidal Campos) or Golden Films Internacional S.A. He acted in almost all of his films, playing musicians, lawyers, porters and others, all of them sinister, manic and comic characters. Among the aliases he used--apart from Jesús Franco, Jess Franco or Franco Manera--were Jess Frank, Robert Zimmerman, Frank Hollman, Clifford Brown, David Khune, Frarik Hollman, Toni Falt, James P. Johnson, Charlie Christian, David Tough, Cady Coster, Lennie Hayden, Lulú Laverne and Betty Carter. Lina Romay has been almost a constant in his films, and it's very probable that in some of them she has been credited as the director instead of him. In many of the more than 180 films he's directed he has also worked as composer, writer, cinematographer and editor. His influence has been notable all over Europe (he even contacted producer Roger Corman in the US). From his huge body of work we can deduce that Jesús Franco is one of the most restless directors of Spanish cinema. Many of his films have had problems in getting released, and others have been made directly for video. His work is often a do-it-yourself effort. More than once his staunchest supporters have found his "new" films to contain much footage from one or more of his older ones. Jesús Franco is a survivor in a time when most of his colleagues tried to please the government censors. He broke with all that and got the independence he was seeking. He always went upstream in an ephemeral industry that fed opportunists and curbed the activity of many professionals. Jess Franco died in Malaga, Spain, on April 2, 2013, of a stroke.- Director
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Miklos Jancsó was born in 1921 in Vac, Hungary. His mother Angela Poparada was Romanian and his father Sandor Jancsó Hungarian. Jancsó received a degree in Law from the University of Cluj-Napoca in 1944. After fighting in WWII and a brief period as a POW, he chose to join the Film and Theater Academy in Budapest, and graduated with a diploma in Film Directing in 1950. His fifth feature film The Round-Up (1966) was a huge hit domestically and internationally and is often considered a significant work of world cinema. Hungarian film critic Zoltan Fabri called it "perhaps the best Hungarian film ever made." Film critic Derek Malcolm included the film in his list of the 100 greatest films ever made. In Hungary, it was seen by over a million people (in a country with a population of 10 million). His next film The Red and the White (1967) became Jancsó's biggest success internationally. It won for example the 'Best Foreign Film' award from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. In his following films he developed a personal style of historical analysis using complex camera movements, dance and popular songs, creating his own cinematic style he called "political musical". The long takes became a trademark of Jancsó, so for example the 80-minute long Winter Wind (1969) consists of only 12 shots. Jancsó received the 'Best Director' award at the Cannes Film Festival 1972 for the film Red Psalm (1972). During the 1970s, Jancsó divided his time between Italy and Hungary and made a number of films in Italy, the best known of which is Private Vices, Public Virtues (1976). At that time, his films Hungarian Rhapsody (1979) and Allegro barbaro (1979) were the most expensive to have been produced in Hungary, but the critical reaction was muted. Jancsó was awarded the Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film festival in 1990. After little success and a long break Jancsó returned with The Lord's Lantern in Budapest (1998), which proved to a be a surprising comeback for the director. This success led to a succession of 5 more Pepe (Zoltán Mucsi) and Kapa (Péter Scherer) films, the last in 2006. Jancsó also cemented his reputation by making appearances in a number of films, for example as himself in his Pepe and Kapa films and in guest roles in works by up-and-coming Hungarian directors. Jancsó died of lung cancer on 31 January 2014, aged 92. Fellow Hungarian director Béla Tarr called Jancsó "the greatest Hungarian film director of all time" and acknowledged Jancsó's influence on his own work.- Director
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Born in Paris on July 13th 1923, Alexandre Astruc is the son of a couple of journalists. Very good at school, he attended a preparatory school for Polytechnique but finally became both a law and an arts graduate. First a literary critic, he soon specialized as a film critic and worked for various papers and magazines such as "Combat", "La Gazette du Cinéma", "L'Ecran français", "La Nef", "Ciné-Digest", "Les Cahiers du Cinéma". He was instrumental in the creation of the film club "Objectif 49" and of the "Festival du Film Maudit" in Biarritz (circa 1949/50). His first two works were sixteen millimeter films characteristic of the Saint Germain des Prés" era. In the fifties and early sixties he directed very personal, elegant, literary movies but found it harder and harder to find producers interested in his style. He turned to television and novel writing instead.- Producer
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Judge Willis Brown was born on 30 July 1882 in Columbus, Ohio, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for The Girl Who Won Out (1917), The Spirit of '17 (1918) and Thief or Angel (1918). He was married to Josephine Folger. He died on 20 October 1931 in Columbus, Ohio, USA.In fact, he was not a lawyer with a law degree (as revealed later) but served as a judge.- Director
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Born in Brazil in 1897, Alberto Cavalcanti began his film career in France in 1920, working as writer, art director and director. He directed the avant-garde documentary Nothing But Time (1926) ("Nothing but Time"), a portrait of the lives of Parisian workers in a single day. He moved to England in 1933 to join the GPO Film Unit under John Grierson, working as a sound engineer (Night Mail (1936)) then as a producer. He went to work for Ealing Studios during the war, initially as head of Michael Balcon's short film unit until 1946, again working as an art director, producer and director. His notable films as director include Champagne Charlie (1944), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) and I Became a Criminal (1947). After the latter film he moved back to Brazil. There he made Song of the Sea (1953) ("The Song of the Sea") and A Real Woman (1954) ("Woman of Truth") with his own production company. However, his progressive political views caught the attention of the the right-wing Brazilian authorities, and Cavalcanti thought it prudent to return to Europe in 1954. He eventually settled in France, where he continued his work in television. He died in Paris in 1982.- Additional Crew
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Richard Ellef Ayoade was born in Hammersmith, and grew up in Suffolk, in England, the son of a Norwegian mother, Dagny Amalie (Baassuik), and a Nigerian father, Layide Ade Laditi Ayoade. He studied Law at Cambridge university, and followed in the footsteps of British Comedy legends like Monty Python's Eric Idle, Hugh Laurie and Graeme Garden when he became the president of the Cambridge Footlights club.
Ayoade's first real TV break was directing, co-writing and starring with Matthew Holness in the cult classic Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004) a parody of shlocky 1980's science fiction television shows, and noticed for it's "so bad it's good!" aesthetic. Notably shy and self-effacing in interviews, his performance as the debauched, self-assured publisher/pornographer/nightclub owner 'Dean Learner' showcased the young comedian's acting talent.
After cameos in another cult series The Mighty Boosh (2003) as the shaman "Saboo", his position in the popular consciousness was cemented in the series The IT Crowd (2006) where Ayoade played the social oblivious, dweebish savant known as "Moss".
All the while Ayoade continued to direct music videos for Vampire Weekend, Kasabian, and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs before finally getting his chance to direct a feature film, Submarine (2010), based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne.
Submarine was followed by The Double (2013) co-written by Avi Korine and based on a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky.- Composer
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Baligh Hamdy was born on 7 October 1934 in Cairo, Egypt. Baligh was a composer and writer, known for El-Batal (1998), The Beloved Diva (1967) and Abi foq al-Shagara (1969). Baligh was married to Warda and Omniya Tihemar. Baligh died on 12 September 1993 in Cairo, Egypt.- Director
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Vittorio Taviani studied law at the University of Pisa, becoming interested in the cinema after seeing Roberto Rossellini's Paisan (1946). After writing and directing short films and plays with his brother Paolo, he made his first feature in 1962. The brothers have continued to work together ever since, with each directing alternate scenes with the other watching but never interfering.- Director
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Chicago-born Robert Z. Leonard studied law at the University of Colorado, but the legal profession proved not to be his forte and he dropped out in favor of a career in the theatre. When his family moved to Hollywood in 1907 Leonard sought work in the fledgling film industry, starting as an actor with Selig Polyscope. Though he became an established star by 1916, his chief interest lay on the other side of the camera. Turning to directing from 1913, he helmed a brace of short comedy features and got his break when he was assigned a serial, The Master Key (1914), in 1914. From 1915-19 he was under contract at Universal, where he became chiefly associated with the films of his future wife, the ex-Ziegfeld Follies star Mae Murray. In 1919 Leonard and Murray founded Tiffany Productions, specifically as a means of creating suitable star vehicles for her. While the company lingered on as Tiffany-Stahl on the Talisman lot--one of the "Poverty Row" studios turning out cheap westerns and even cheaper "Chimp Comedies"' (yes, the stars were chimps and a lot cheaper to maintain than humans!)--Leonard and Murray moved on to join the newly-established Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924.
Leonard's union with the volatile Murray ended in divorce in 1925. After clashing with MGM chief Louis B. Mayer, Murray left the studio two years later. Leonard married another actress, Gertrude Olmstead, and went on to become one of the studio's most reliable contract directors for the next three decades. Fitting in perfectly with the studio system, he was part of a highly efficient team of top craftsmen under the auspices of producer Hunt Stromberg, turning out scores of musicals and light comedies. Though not generally regarded by film critics as among the top echelon of Hollywood directors, Leonard nevertheless capably handled a variety of A-grade pictures, often starring temperamental personalities. Among his most successful hits for MGM were the backstage musical Dancing Lady (1933); the opulent multi Oscar-winning musical biopic The Great Ziegfeld (1936) (completed on a budget of $2 million); all but two of the popular cycle of Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald operettas; and the stylish, witty Pride and Prejudice (1940), an adaptation of the famed Jane Austen novel, a production that typified the most lavish of MGM's post-Thalberg costume dramas. It was scripted by no less than Aldous Huxley and starred Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson.
While many of his films may be dismissed for lacking artistic merit, the plain truth is that few lost money. Leonard gave the public what it wanted: he excelled at providing escapist entertainment, particularly with glossy, all-star extravaganzas like Ziegfeld Girl (1941) or Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). It was ironic, that, in 1949, he made a rare and unsuccessful foray into the genre of film noir with The Bribe (1949), an endeavor equally untypical of its studio. Starring Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner (at her most ravishing) and Vincent Price as a war surplus racketeer, the picture bombed at the box office. Producer Pandro S. Berman subsequently lamented it as "a heap of junk" that should "never have been made", but in retrospect "The Bribe" is not at all bad. In fact, it has gained something of a cult following over the years. Scenes from it were conspicuously used by Steve Martin for his excellent montage comedy Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982).
Leonard left MGM on the studio retirement plan in 1955. He then had a brief sojourn in Italy, where he directed Gina Lollobrigida in Beautiful But Dangerous (1955) before finally making his swan song at Universal with a less-than-memorable family film, Kelly and Me (1956). With his wife Gertrude, Leonard resided in Beverly Hills until his death in August 1968.- Director
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ANTONIS TSONIS is a Greek born, writer/director, who studied law and history and received his Doctorate in Jurisprudence from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Antonis' narrative and visual inspiration comes from Italian neorealist cinema, the French poetic realists and the independent American new wave movement of the 1970's.
A contemporary filmmaker, Antonis is especially focused on stories about characters struggling on the fringes of society. His themes are contemporary, and his style is timeless - his stories could be set in any language or in any city.
Antonis, is celebrated as one of Greece's most successful independent short filmmakers. His body of work has received critical acclaim and has also resonated particularly well in Italy and within the U.S. independent film circuit. His short films have played in over 100 film festivals and have received many awards and nominations worldwide. In 2013, his independent short film, The Firebird, received many awards and won Best Dramatic Short at the Manhattan Film Festival. In 2016, 3000 participated in over 70 International Official Selections and awards festivals, won 18 awards and received 18 nominations for Excellence in Film.
In 2024, Antonis brings to the screen his debut feature film, BRANDO WITH A GLASS EYE.- Actor
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John's parents were Hans Buckup (b. 1902) and Kitty. He has a brother: Achim (b. 1931) and a sister: Ursula (b. 1934). He's descendant from Germany and English. He studied Law. He has a daughter and a son with actress Eva Wilma: Vivien (b. 1956) and John Herbert Junior (b. 1958). Vivien is a cinema director and has two sons: Miguel and Mateus. John Junior is a musician and has three children: Gabriela, Francisco and Vitorio. John Herbert is married to Claudia Librach (1978-present). They have two boys: Ricardo (b. 1979) and Eduardo (b. 1983).- Director
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Born in Yamanashi, Japan, Yasuzô Masumura would become known as a maverick director whose main legacy was films portraying and promoting individualism, which was the opposite of the norm in Japanese society. He earned a law degree towards the end of World War II from Tokyo University, yet joined Daiei Studio as an assistant director in 1950. He pursued a second degree at Tokyo University as a literature and philosophy double major. He was the first Japanese to study at Rome, Italy's Centro Sperimentale Di Cinematografia. He returned to Japan in 1953 and worked as assistant to Kenji Mizoguchi and Kon Ichikawa. Masumura's own lead directorial debut came in 1957 with Kuchizuke, which was a commercial success and also won praise from director Oshima Nagisa. Masumura went on to become a prolific director who also continued writing on Japanese cinema. A 1996 ten-day retrospective on Masumura in Rome was attended by Michaelangelo Antonioni who was an admirer.- Director
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He studied Law. He also directed theatre pieces, wrote movie criticisms and took part in the creation and development of the 'cinema novo' movement in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, becoming its theoretical leader and first embassador in Europe. After "Barravento (1962)", a trilogy of films and "Antonio das Mortes (1969)" he won various international prizes. As he symbolized the feelings of the ideology of the May of 1968, he became very popular in Europe and America. But when he started to film in Africa and Spain his followers were distracted and this marked the beginning of the decline of his fame. Thus, he only made a couple of films of minor interest later on.- Writer
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Born an illegitimate son of a wealthy physician, Abel Flamant, and a working class mother, Francoise Perethon. He was raised by his mother and her boyfriend, who later became her husband, Adolphe Gance. Pressured by his parents, he began his working career as a lawyer's clerk in hopes of achieving a prosperous career in law. But his passion for the theatre lured him to the stage and at 19 he made his stage debut in Brussels. Within a year, after returning to Paris, he made his screen debut as an actor in Moliere (1909). He made other film appearances in minor roles as well as taking a crack at screen-writing.
Living in poverty during this period in his life, he suffered from starvation and tuberculosis. But he regained strength enough to form a production company in 1911, and made his debut as a director that same year with La Digue (1911). However, like the rest of his early films, it was unsuccessful and as a consequence, he returned to the stage with a five-hour long play, Victoire de Samothrace, which he wrote himself. It was due to be a success with Sarah Bernhardt in the lead role, but the sudden outbreak of WWI canceled the premiere.
Due to his ill health he was kept out of most of the war. During this time he managed to achieve a profitable status at the Film d'Arte company as a director. He turned out such successful films as Mater Dolorosa (1917) and La Dixieme Symphonie (1918), but he gained a reputation at Film d'Arte as a wild experimentalist - using such outlandish techniques for the time as close-ups and dolly shots. As a consequence, he was frequently at odds with the management. At the point of being one of the most well known film directors in France, he entered the tail end of WWI. He was discharged shortly after due to mustard gas poisoning. But he requested that he be redrafted so that he could shoot on-location battle scenes for his latest idea for a film J'accuse! (1919). The three-hour long, triangular melodrama about the "futility of war" became a box-office smash all over Europe. It was Europe's first fictional film to show authentic footage of the catastrophes of war. Being an experimentalist, he employed a rapid cutting technique that is said to have influenced such Russian filmmakers as Sergei Eisenstein and Pudovkin.
During the making of his next film, The Wheel (1923), he and his second wife, Ida Danis, fell ill with the flu. Although he recovered and worked on the film in stages, his wife did not - she died shortly before the film's release. Grieved by death of his wife and friend, actor Severin Mars, who starred in many of his films, he fled Europe and sailed to America. The trip turned out to be a nationwide promotion of I Accuse. He recalls that he did not like the Hollywood filmmaking system and refused an offer from MGM to direct for a hefty sum. The happiest moment was D.W. Griffith's praise of I Accuse at a screening in New York.
Returning to France, Gance released the final cut of La Roue to much acclaim, especially for its montage sequence. His most important and outstanding film is Napoleon (1927). Considered to be a dictionary of all the techniques of the silent film era and an introduction to some techniques to come. It was shot using a three-camera panoramic process that involves the use of three projectors and a curved windscreen to create a deep, vast panoramic look. A couple thousand extras were used to fill the shots. Being the experimentalist that he was, he shot scenes in color, more than a decade before Hollywood would make The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939) in color, and in 3-D. But he decided against incorporating them into the film in fear that they would jar the audience's attention. The film received a standing ovation the night of its premiere at the Paris Opera. It was then shown only in 8 European cities due to the expensive and technical apparatus and large size theatre needed to project the film. In the US, MGM purchased the distribution rights and elected not to show the film using the three projector windscreen equipment, claiming that it would interfere with the introduction of sound. Nonetheless, that doesn't explain why MGM decided to drastically cut the film and rearrange it. As a consequence, the general release in the US was a not a success, audiences laughed at the film and critics panned it. It was the last film of Gance's career that was to possess that magnitude of creativeness. His sound films were mainly done for studios, where he lacked the ability to be creative. He would return to Napoleon a couple times in his career. In 1934 he added stereophonic sound effects to the original film using a Pictographe. He had criticized film historians throughout the rest of his life for not giving his film Napoleon (1927) the attention it deserves. Finally, British director Kevin Brownlow spent two decades doing the arduous task of putting the film back together in its original format. It was first screened in London using the three projector format with a score composed and conducted by Carl Davis in 1979. Francis Ford Coppola produced the screenings at the Radio City Hall in the US, in 1981 to much acclaim. His father Carmine Coppola, composed and conducted the score in the US. Finally, Napoleon (1927) and its director received the respect they deserve.- Director
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Roy Rowland studied law at the University of Southern California, then joined MGM as a script clerk. As if getting that job wasn't enough good luck in the middle of the Depression, he also married the niece of MGM chief Louis B. Mayer.
He sharpened his directing chops at MGM with a series of shorts starting in the 1930s, then moved up to features in 1943. He spent quite a bit of time at the studio, from 1943-51 and again from 1954-58. While not one of the studio's top-rank directors, he could be counted on to deliver sold "B" pictures--which, at MGM, were often better than most other studios' "A" pictures--and an occasional "A" production, in a variety of genres, including musicals (Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)) and dramas (Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945)). He was also responsible for the tough, fast-paced Rogue Cop (1954), one of the few MGM films that could be considered "film noir".
The last film he made at MGM was a "B" western with Stewart Granger, Gun Glory (1957), after which he made an action picture for independent release based on a Mickey Spillane "Mike Hammer" novel starring Spillane himself (The Girl Hunters (1963)), and then he traveled to Europe for a string of Italian-made westerns and costume dramas. His final film as director was a somewhat cheesy pirate movie (he was uncredited; his Italian co-director Sergio Bergonzelli got sole credit)) called Il grande colpo di Surcouf (1966). He was associate producer on Nathan Juran's Italian-shot Land Raiders (1969), after which he retired. He was the father of actor Steve Rowland.
Roy Rowland died in 1995, at age 84, in Orange, California..- Director
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Bertrand Tavernier was the son of Geneviève (Dumond) and René Tavernier, who was a publicist, writer, and president of the French PEN club. He was a law student that preferred write film criticisms. He also wrote a few books about American movies. Then his first film won a few awards in France and abroad and established his reputation.- Writer
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Director and screenwriter Philip Kaufman was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago and later Harvard Law School. He won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at Cannes in 1965 for his film Goldstein (1964). He was the screenwriter for The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and was to direct it but was replaced as director by Clint Eastwood, owing to their love triangle with the late Sondra Locke. Kaufman's first hit as director was Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), a remake of Don Siegel's 1956 sci-fi classic (in fact, Siegel has a cameo in it as a cab driver), and later, Kaufman was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay on Material from Another Medium in 1988 for The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). Kaufman's steamy Henry & June (1990) was the first film released by a major studio to be rated NC-17, which created much controversy.- Director
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Petar Borisov Vasilev-Milevin was born on June 26, 191 in Kriva Bara, Lom region, Bulgaria. He studied Law at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski". He graduated film directing at State Cinema Institute in Moscow (1954). He was a Member of the Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers. He has made some of the remarkable Bulgarian Cinema comedies. He received the title "Honored Artist" (1984) and the Order "Cyril and Methodius" (1960), the Order "People Republic of Bulgaria (1988). He died on July 29, 2001 in Sofia, Bulgaria.- Actor
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Nikola Asenov Rudarov (Rudy) is a Bulgarian actor and director. He was born on December 6, 1927 into a family of refugees from Macedonia . Initially he began to study law, but in the third year decided to move to study cinematography. He directed 6 films, but was an actor in many more. By actor's incarnations in films such as " The Swedish kings ", directed by Lyudmil Kirkov, " Yesterday " and " Adio Rio ", directed by Ivan Andonov, " Canaries Season ", directed by Evgeni Mihaylov, " The Camp ", directed by Georgi Djulgerov, " After the end of the world ", directed by Ivan Nichev Nicola Rudarov become one of the most prominent actors in Bulgarian cinema. Even today, movie fans remember his phrase from the film "Yesterday": "I'll show you how a horse e at bean!" he died on March 26, 2010 in Sofia.- Director
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Studied Law at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, between 1994 - 2000. Finished with Law degree. Studied film directing at Hamburg Film School under dean Hark Bohm between 2002 - 2004. Finished with diploma 'cum laude'. Set up his own Berlin-based production company 'Tucano Film' in 2005. His screenplay "Duende" got funded by the Mediaboard Berlin-Brandenburg in 2007. He directed his first feature 'The Race', starring Colm Meaney and Susan Lynch in 2008. In 2010 his kids-book serial 'The Ghostriders' will be published (German Titel: 'Die Geisterreiter').- Actor
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Jason Isaacs was born in Liverpool. He studied law at Bristol University but fell in love with the theatre and directed, produced and appeared in dozens of productions there, at the National Student Theatre Festival and at the Edinburgh Festival. He graduated in 1985 but then attended the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and began working in 1988.
Jason's notable roles include Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, Mr. Darling/Captain Hook in Peter Pan (2003), and many soldiers: Col. William Tavington in Roland Emmerich's The Patriot (2000), Captain Steele in Ridley Scott's Blackhawk Down, Major Briggs in Paul Greengrass's Green Zone, Captain Waggoner in Fury, Captain Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery, Field Marshall Zhukov in Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin and Rear-Admiral Godfrey in John Madden's Operation Mincemeat. He was Hap in the cult series The OA, Maurice in the WW2 film Good (2008) and Jay in the multi-award winning MASS. He has made many TV series in Britain and the US and has won or been nominated for a Golden Globe, International Emmy, BAFTA, Critics Choice, Peabody, Satellite and many other awards.
On stage he was Louis Ironson in the original productions of Angels in America parts 1 and 2 for the Royal National Theatre and has performed at the Royal Court, Almeida and West End Theatres.
Jason is married to documentary filmmaker Emma Hewitt, who he met at drama school and with whom he has two children.- Born in Pascani, Moldova he got a rural education, and at age of 17 published his first sketch in a weekly paper in Bucharest. At age of 20 decide to quit Law studies and to live from writing. Between 1910 and 1919 is the director of National Theater from Iasi and in 1921 become a full member of Romanian Academy. Is extremely productive in historical novels in the period between the World Wars. After the WWII and the occupation of Romania by the Russian Red Army, begins to get political positions in the new communist regime, the highest position being the Parliament speaker. Dies at age of 81 in Bucharest and is buried next to greatest Romanian poet Mihail Eminescu and play-writer Ion Luca Caragiale.
- Born on December 1, 1892, Cezar Petrescu was the first born of professor Dimitie Petrescu, doctor in agriculture of Paris University. At age of 15, Cezar Petrescu publishes his first short novel. Between 1911 and 1915 studies Law in Jassy University. In 1919 moves to live in Bucharest, working as a redactor at some of the important dailies of the time. Between 1923 and 1928 publishes novels including "Intunecarea" - (the Gathering Clouds), one of the best novels about the World War I. In 1940, he rearranges all his writing in a large fresco, of the Romanian society between the World Wars, named "the Chronicle of Romania in the 20th Century". Since 1955 is a member of Romanian Academy. Died on March 9, 1961 by a heart failure.
- Born in Falticeni, Romania, studied Law at the Iasi University, and then Dramatic Art Conservatory in Iasi. At the beginning of his activity he was a theater actor in Iasi (between 1927 and 1929), the move to Bucharest, where acted in theater and movie industry till his death in 1963.
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Silent-film star William Russell was born in the Bronx, New York, in the late 1880s (various sources give it as 1884, 1886 and 1889). His mother, Clara, was a highly regarded stage actress. Russell studied law at Fordham University (and, some sources say, Harvard University). He started a law practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but it wasn't particularly successful. He tried a variety of other jobs--including bookmaker and boxing instructor--before deciding to give the stage a shot. He had actually been a fairly successful child actor on the stage, and after re-entering the profession as an adult, he found himself acting with Ethel Barrymore in "Cousin Kate" on Broadway. Russell kept busy as a stage actor, appearing with many of the top stars of the day, including Chauncey Olcott and Cathrine Countiss. He toured the country in various stock productions.
His film career began at Biograph in 1910 with "The Roman Slave", directed by D.W. Griffith. He stayed almost a year at Biograph, although he was used mostly in small parts. In 1910 he left Biograph for Thanhouser. There he became a star, and Thanhouser put him in quite a few of its productions. His brother Albert Russell also appeared in several of his films.
In 1913 Russell left Thanhouser to return to Biograph, but later that year he again left Biograph to go back to Thanhouser. He finally left Thanhouser and worked for a variety of studios, both major and minor, over the next several years. In 1917 he married actress Charlotte Burton, but it ended in divorce four years later. From 1916-20 he worked for American Film Co., appearing in The Torch Bearer (1916), The Strength of Donald McKenzie (1916) and The Man Who Would Not Die (1916), among others. In 1919 he formed his own production company, William Russell Productions, and produced and appeared in This Hero Stuff (1919), directed by Henry King. He freelanced at studios as varied as Fox Films and Victor. In the 1920s he decided to move to Hollywood after having spent much of his life in New York City. He married actress Helen Ferguson, and that marriage lasted until his death in Beverly Hills, California, on February 18, 1929, from pneumonia.- Director
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Michael Tekle was born and raised in Munich, Germany, where he studied law before turning to filmmaking and film studies. He studied "Digital Filmmaking" at SAE Institute Munich and graduated best in class in 2018. In addition to directing a number of projects Michael has been working for several TV productions as Assistant Editor and Cameraman.- Camera and Electrical Department
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From 1979 to 1990 he lived between Libya and Saudi Arabia. He studied law and literature, then took a degree in Film Directing and Production at the "National Academy of Cinema" in Bologna, Italy. He's a member of the Mantova Film Commission. He's also a song composer, a singer, and plays keyboards in some rock-bands.- Director
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Herz Frank was born on 17 January 1926 in Ludza, Latvia. He was a director and writer, known for Flashback (2003), Reiz dzivoja septini Simeoni (1989) and Augstaka tiesa (1987). He died on 3 March 2013 in Jerusalem, Israel.- Writer
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Born July 13, 1990, in Ukraine. In 2012 graduated from the National Aviation University, specialty "jurisprudence." 2013 had a screenwriting course of Paul Brown from New York Film Academy. Debut short film "The stop" shot in 2014. A member of the public organization "Contemporary Ukrainian cinema", a stand-up comedian, a member of the Almanac "Ukrainian new wave 20/16+".- Aleksandr Shpeyer was born on 8 March 1929. He was a writer, known for Sluchay iz sledstvennoy praktiki (1968), Srok davnosti (1983) and Svoy (1970). He died on 10 July 2000.
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Maryna Vroda was born in 1982 in Kyiv. She graduated from the Cinematography and TV faculty at the Karpenko-Karyy National University of Theatre, Cinematography and Television in Kyiv, with a specialization in feature films direction. She attended workshops run by Mikhail Illenko and Valery Sivak. After graduation, she worked with Sergei Loznitsa. Her short student films have been shown at international film festivals in both in Eastern and Western Europe, and in 2011 she won a Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival for Cross.- Director
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Amir Masoud Soheili is an Iranian filmmaker, photographer, and festival programmer born in 1988. With his films "Blue-eyed boy" (2014) and "Elephantbird" (2019), he has won more than 40 awards from over 300 film festivals. He was a member of 9 film festivals, including the Yogya Netpac Asian Film Festival (2015), Avanca International Film Festival in Portugal (2016 and 2018), Saark Film Festival in Sri Lanka (2017), International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala in India (2018), Malatya International Film Festival in Turkey (2018), Dhaka International Youth Film Festival in Bangladesh (2020), Accra Indie Film Festival in Ghana (2022), Chaktomuk Short Film Festival in Cambodia (2022) and Azemeis Film Festival in Portugal (2022). Masoud is the co-founder and creative director of the "Asia Peace Film Festival" in Islamabad, Pakistan, and programmer of the "Changing Perspective Intentional Film Festival" in Istanbul, Turkey. Additionally, he directed the inaugural "Safe Community" International Film Festival in Mashhad, Iran (2017). He holds a bachelor's degree in law from Ferdowsi University. He studied cinema at the Indonesian Art Institute in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for one year. In 2016, he attended the Asian Film Academy, and in 2018, he studied "International Film Business" at the Busan Asian Film School. Presently, he is studying for his master's in script writing at Kinoeyes, a European joint master's program. In addition, he has worked as a freelance photographer, ideograph, and video-journalist for platforms including National Geographic, AJ+, VICE media, TRT, Great Big Story, VOA, and Business Insider. His debut photography book, "Durian on my head," was published in Iran and Indonesia.- Evgeniy Zagdanskiy was born on 7 January 1919 in Kiev, Ukraine. He was a writer, known for Sem shagov za gorizont (1968), Skazka o karasyakh, zaytse i bublikakh (1984) and Alice in Wonderland (1981). He died on 8 September 1997 in Kiev, Ukraine.
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Ignas van Schaick is known for Wild Amsterdam (2018), De nieuwe wildernis (2013) and Poeslief 2 (2021).- Writer
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Film director and screenwriter.
Known for his debut "U311 Cherkasy" (2019), which had an impressive success in Ukraine in 2020, becoming one of the most prominent contemporary Ukrainian films.
Interesting fact that "U311 Cherkasy" is the first feature film about the Ukrainian NAVY. It was sold to USA (Amazon Prime Videos), Canada, UK, Latin America, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Norway, the Baltic countries, Iceland, Czech Republic, Poland, etc.
In 2013, Tymur graduated from the directing faculty of the prestigious Lodz Film School in Poland (Szkola Filmowa w Lodzi / PWSFTviT). He also studied film line at the Kulturama Art School in Stockholm, Sweden, and received his law degree from Cherkasy National University, Ukraine.
Tymur lives and works in Warsaw and Kyiv.- Director
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Dmitry Badera was born in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region, Ukraine on 25th March 1994. He finished acting courses and took part in different projects as an actor in series and video ads. He graduated as a lawyer in a local college in his hometown in 2013. In 2021, the director finished a one-year program on the Masterclass platform where he could learn from the greatest living artists such as Aaron Sorkin, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and many others. Dmitry has been doing filmmaking since 2018. During that time, he shot a few commercials and three short films as a director. As a screenwriter, Dmitry wrote dozens of stories related to films and commercials. The locked door is his first film where he was in charge of every aspect of making the movie. From idea to final editing.- David Marian is known for Na dalnem vostoke (1937).
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Aleksandr Ivanovsky was born on 29 November 1881 in Kazan, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Muzykalnaya istoriya (1940), Tri portreta (1919) and House of Greed (1934). He died on 12 January 1968 in Leningrad, USSR.- Producer
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Mariia Springis a British Director, Producer and founder of Dreams Into Reality Production who was born and grew up in Ukraine. Having two degrees one in law and a second in Finance, she started her carrier at Financial Times where she never felt it is what she would love to do for her whole life. When Mariia moved to Cannes Lions she started finding herself, surrounded by creativity, inspiration and people who believed in the power of creativity through cinematography.
In addition to a successful career Mariia tried herself as a supporting actor and this is when she stepped into the world of cinematography and made an appearance in The Crown series and other featured films shot in Warner Bros. Studios and other studios. One should dream to be on a set with a famous actor and to be a part of a famous featured film but at some point Mariia realises her dream job is not acting but being behind the camera, leading, directing and creating amazing films.
Mariia mentioned when she was on the set of Fast & Furious chatting with Vin Diesel was the first time when she started admiring the job of the crew behind the camera and since there she tried to spend more and more time with the film crew rather acting with famous actors on set. Since then she started giving up on her acting carrier and spent more time with the filming crew and gained unforgivable experience assisting the filming crew in some scenes of House of Dragons, Luther, Secret Invasion, Slow Horses and other less-known films. Same time Mariia registered her production company and started filming documentaries and commercials for big brands like Cosmopolitan, Vogue, BT, Dell, GoPuff, Porsche, Panasonic, Cognism and more.
Mariia received her first credit when Dreams Into Reality Production was appointed by Roar Film to shoot London scenes for the Documentary: "Conviction Politics ARC Linkage Project". This was an amazing experience and her first chance to work shoulder-to-shoulder with a film producer and creative Director Stephen Thomas. Straight after she was asked to film an interview with Richard E. Grant and his house for the documentary "A Look Through His Lens" about Oscar-winning cinematographer Philippe Rousselot directed by Matthew Berkowitz.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 Mariia started working on the Documentary "Ukrainki Displaced" a documentary about the brutal assault on Ukraine by Russia which has forced over 7.02 million women and children to be displaced and flee Ukraine.- Director
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Léonide Moguy was born on 14 July 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was a director and writer, known for Tomorrow Is Too Late (1950), Prison sans barreaux (1938) and Bethsabée (1947). He was married to Daan. He died on 21 April 1976 in Paris, France.- Director
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Sigizmund Navrotsky was born on 4 April 1903 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. Sigizmund was a director and writer, known for Bogatyr idyot v Marto (1954), Zigmund Kolosovskiy (1946) and Lyudi moey doliny (1961). Sigizmund died on 15 September 1976.- Actress
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Alexandra Murrietta was born and raised in Chernovtsy, Ukraine. She spent most of her childhood in Ukraine, even studying Civil and Criminal Law there. Alexandra grew up with passion for sports and since 7 years old she attended karate and kickboxing classes.
At 21, Alexandra moved to the United States and realized her love and passion for acting and modeling. Alexandra is a former 2x Team Ukraine National Karate Champion, which landed her 13 medals and 21 diploma.
Recently landing the lead Role in the upcoming film "The Memory Scanner," followed up by a recurring role on the TV show African Twist. Alexandra has over 320k followers on Instagram @Alexandracreteau, and a YouTube channel with over 11k subs. From karate, TV/film credits, and social media presence, Alexandra is the full package on any project. Alexandra speaks Russian, Ukrainian, English and Ukrainian accent in English.
Her likable personality motivates and inspires her loyal fans to become the best version of themselves. Alexandra Creteau aspires to keep growing as a human being, as a social media person, as a creative artist and as an inspirational actress to make a difference in the world.- Director
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Oleksii Yasakov is known for Those Who Stayed (2023) and Grown by Freedom (2023).- Director
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Nikita Lagutin is known for Verso Portrait (2021).- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
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Mateusz Lachowski is known for Bialy potok (2020) and Ucho od sledzia (2019).