Authors — Nick Dawson

Martin Hynes, The Go-Getter

LOU TAYLOR PUCCI IN DIRECTOR MARTIN HYNES’S THE GO-GETTER. COURTESY PEACE ARCH RELEASING. Though best known for playing a legendary director on screen, Martin Hynes seems destined to become an auteur in reality as well. A native of Eugene, Oregon, Hynes studied history at Columbia before embarking on a career as an actor and sketch comedian. He then enrolled in the graduate film program at USC where he not only made the highly-regarded short Al As In Al (1995) but played the eponymous lead in Joe Nussbaum’s cult favorite George Lucas in Love (1999). He made his feature debut with […]
by Nick Dawson on Jun 5, 2008
Stuart Gordon, Stuck

MENA SUVARI IN DIRECTOR STUART GORDON’S STUCK. COURTESY THINKFILM. Since the very beginning of his career, Stuart Gordon has set out to shock and disrupt. Gordon, a native of Chicago, began his assault on the public after developing a love of drama at the University of Wisconsin. He subsequently started the Screw Theater – which made national news in 1968 when they performed a nude, psychedelic version of Peter Pan – and went on in 1970 to found the Organic Theater Company in Chicago, where he was artistic director for 15 years. Over that period, Gordon worked with Roald Dahl, […]
by Nick Dawson on May 30, 2008
Parvez Sharma, A Jihad For Love

GAY MUSLIM REFUGEES MEET IN DIRECTOR PARVEZ SHARMA’S A JIHAD FOR LOVE. COURTESY FIRST RUN FEATURES. After a distinguished career as a print and television journalist, Parvez Sharma has made a notable transition to documentary filmmaker. Born and raised in India, Sharma studied English at the University of Calcutta before gaining three film and journalism related masters degrees at universities in India, Britain and the U.S. He spent the nineties as a newspaper reporter in India and then moved on to working for his country’s premier news network, Star News Channel, using his position to draw attention to human rights […]
by Nick Dawson on May 21, 2008
Georgina Riedel, How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer

AMERICA FERRERA, LUCY GALLARDO AND ELIZABETH PEÑA IN DIRECTOR GEORGINA RIEDEL’S HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER. COURTESY MAYA RELEASING. Like her friends Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo and Goran Dukic, Georgina Riedel is a distinctive new voice in American independent filmmaking. A first generation Mexican American who grew up in Arizona, Riedel studied film at the University of Arizona where she made a series of shorts. She gained her MFA at the American Film Institute, where she became friends with fellow directing students Jacobs, Naranjo and Dukic. Riedel’s graduation film, One Night It Happened (2002), a black-and-white romance about […]
by Nick Dawson on May 16, 2008
Nick Broomfield, Battle For Haditha

ERIC MEHALACOPOULOUS IN DIRECTOR NICK BROOMFIELD’S BATTLE FOR HADITHA. COURTESY NICK BROOMFIELD. Immediately distinguishable by his understated good looks, laid-back, drawling English voice and, of course, the boom mike seemingly always in his hands, Nick Broomfield is an iconic figure in documentary filmmaking, as well as one of the form’s most talented artists. The son of English photographer Maurice Broomfield and a Czech refugee, Broomfield went to a Quaker boarding school before studying law at Cardiff University, political science at Essex University and finally film at the National Film School in his hometown of London. Combining his interest in sociopolitical […]
by Nick Dawson on May 7, 2008
Garth Jennings, Son Of Rambow

WILL POULTER AND BILL MILNER IN DIRECTOR GARTH JENNINGS’ SON OF RAMBOW. COURTESY PARAMOUNT VANTAGE. When you meet Garth Jennings, it is immediately apparent where much of the energy, enthusiasm and imagination in his films comes from. The effervescent Jennings, born in Essex, England in 1972, attended the Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design in London where he met Nick Goldsmith with whom he formed the creative partnership Hammer & Tongs. Though the pair have always collaborated closely on everything, over time Goldsmith has taken on production duties while Jennings now directs. The pair are most famous for […]
by Nick Dawson on May 2, 2008
Yung Chang, Up The Yangtze

A SCENE FROM DIRECTOR YUNG CHANG’S UP THE YANGTZE. COURTESY ZEITGEIST FILMS. At a time when the popularity of documentaries is at an all-time high, Canadian director Yung Chang is not only telling stories as compelling as his peers’, but doing so with a truly cinematic sensibility that is often lacking in his field. Born in Whitby, Ontario, to first generation Chinese immigrant parents, Chang studied film production at Concordia University, graduating in 1999. He was also a student at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where he learned the Meisner Technique. He directed the short film The […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 25, 2008
Scott Hicks, Glass: A Portrait of Philip In Twelve Parts

PHILIP GLASS IN DIRECTOR SCOTT HICKS’ GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS. COURTESY KOCH LORBER FILMS. Best known for his fiction films, Scott Hicks has returned to another form in which he has also distinguished himself: documentary. Usually identified as an Australian, Hicks was in fact born in Uganda and lived in Kenya until the age of 10, before his family moved to England and then Australia. He studied English, Drama and Cinema at Flinders University of South Australia, and made his directorial debut the year of graduation with the ultra-low-budget drama Down the Wind (1975). After working […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 18, 2008
Stephen Walker, Young@Heart

THE YOUNG@HEART CHORUS IN DIRECTOR STEPHEN WALKER’S YOUNG@HEART. COURTESY FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. Television directors often go through their careers dreaming of striking cinematic gold like Stephen Walker has. The 46-year-old Brit is a veteran of the small screen who plied his trade at the BBC before setting up his own production company, Walker George Films, with his producer and life partner, Sally George. Walker has directed narrative material, including Prisoners in Time (1995) starring John Hurt, but is best known for his TV documentary work. He won acclaim for Hiroshima – A Day That Shook The World (2005), a drama-documentary […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 9, 2008
Etgar Keret And Shira Geffen, Jellyfish

NICOLE LEIDMAN AND SARAH ADLER IN ETGAR KERET AND SHIRA GEFFEN’S JELLYFISH. COURTESY ZEITGEIST FILMS. After proving their mastery of the written word, Israel’s first couple of literature, Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, have now turned their attention to film. Keret was born in 1967 in Tel Aviv, Israel, and started writing in 1992. He has since written graphic novels, plays and children’s books, but he is best known for his short stories, which have been collected in The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories (2004) and The Nimrod Flipout (2006). He has also written a […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 4, 2008

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