Writers' Biographies
ANDREW BIENEN is the co-writer of the Academy Award winning movie, Boys Don't Cry. He teaches screenwriting at the Columbia University Graduate Film Division and he has also taught at La Femis (Paris), the New School, and the University of Virginia. He has an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from Columbia where his thesis screenplay Wankers won the award for Best Student Screenplay in 1996. He has written screenplays for New Line Cinema and Dreamworks, and has served as a story consultant at Miramax Films. He is currently at work on a fictional screenplay set on the night of John Lennon's death.
PAULA BRANCATO is an award-winning filmmaker, published poet and produced playwright. Brancato executive produced the feature film Somewhere in the City, starring Sandra Bernhard and Bai Ling which won the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Brancato has written 11 screenplays, including 5 works for hire and or option. Her film, Her Fathers Daughter won the Houston International Remi Award and Women of Color Film Festivals. The feature film script won the People’s Pilot TV award and was a finalist at SUNDANCE. She has most recently published excerpts from her first novel, Never Iron Naked and her second book of poems, The World of the Married Woman. She is the founder and president of the Brancato-Fritsch Company and Brancato Productions, has over twenty years’ experience in global capital raising, corporate finance, filmmaking and music production. A former music industry CFO and Wall Street derivatives expert, Brancato has structured over $300 million in complex financial transactions, raising over $50 million for entertainment projects including the sale of Concerts West to Anschutz Entertainment, development funds for Pretty Dangerous Films and private equity capital for new media companies and independent films. Brancato earned her M.B.A. at Harvard Business School, where she was a Godfrey-Cabot fellow. A graduate of Hunter College and the Los Angeles Film School, she also serves as full-time faculty for screenwriting, poetry and The Business of the Business at the University of Southern California.
KENNETH FRIEDMAN, is a graduate of the NYU School of Film. As a student he wrote and directed Showdown, winner of the National Student Film Festival. Professor Friedman has written numerous feature films, including White Line Fever, Heart Like a Wheel with Bonnie Bedelia, Beau Bridges), Johnny Handsome with Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Forrest Whitaker and Morgan Freeman and Cadillac Man with Robin Williams and Tim Robbins. Professor Friedman often works as a rewriter, including the films The Fugitive, Unlawful Entry, Bad Girls, The Getaway and most recently The Bank Job with Roger Donaldson. In television, he wrote and was Co-executive Producer of the six-hour limited series, The Grid with Julianna Margulies and Dylan McDermott. Professor Friedman also directed and wrote the feature Made in USA with Chris Penn, Lori Singer and Adrian Pasdar, which premiered at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes and was featured at many film festivals including Sundance and Munich. He is currently a Professor of Screenwriting at the Tisch School of the Arts, Graduate Film at NYU.
CHRISTINA LAZARIDI was nominated for an Academy Award for her screenplay of One Day Crossing. Christina currently teaches screenwriting at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Division and works as a screenwriter and consultant. Recent projects include the screenplays for When the Bough Breaks with Lisa Albright, two adaptations for Argonauts Productions and producer Panos Papahatzis, slated for production in 2008, and the adaptation of Elias Kulukundis’ memoir My Taste of Illusion. Lazaridi, has also written and produced documentaries including the feature length Varian and Putzi: a 20th Century Tale directed by Academy Award® winner Richard Kaplan and Assignment: Rescue a documentary for Richard Kaplan Productions narrated by Meryl Streep. She holds an M.F.A. (Honors) in Screenwriting from Columbia University and a B.A (Honors) in Comparative Literature & Creative Writing from Princeton University.
STEPHEN MOLTON is an author, screenwriter, and former film executive with 28 years experience in the narrative arts. As a creative exec for Showtime Networks, HBO and MTV, he oversaw the development of dozens of film and television projects, from Hiroshima and Harlan County War, to Elvis Meets Nixon and Charms For the Easy Life. He has adapted such disparate works as Gus Russo’s Pulitzer-nominated Live By the Sword, and Clive Barker’s Weaveworld. His most recent book, one co-written with Russo, was Brothers in Arms: the Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder, published by Bloomsbury USA in November of 2008. Molton has served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Screenwriting at Columbia University, since January of 2007.
FRANK PUGLIESE is a playwright and screenwriter and the author of Aven'U Boys (Obie Award). He is also the author of The King of Connecticut, The Talk, The Alarm (all with Naked Angels); The Summer Winds (Naked Angels and NY Stage and Film); Hope is the Thing with Feathers (The Drama Dept); Kaos (New York Theatre Workshop.) As a screenwriter, he is responsible for Aven' U Boys (in development); 29th Street (for Paramount and produced by Fox); Born to Run (produced by Fox): Dion (based on Dion and the Belmonts ) The Six (for Baltimore Pictures); Buddy Boys (based on the NYPD police corruption scandal at Warner Bros.) Oliver (an updated version of Oliver Twist produced by Quincy Jones); Mob Girl (Castle Rock); Trinities (based on the Nick Tosches novel, New Line Cinema); Cousin Joey (Sante D'orazio directing); Infamous (produced by Hart-Sharp, directed by John Leguizamo); Shot in the Heart (directd by Agnieszka Holland, produced by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana); Italian (Greenstreet producing): Absent (Chris Messina attached). For television, he has written Night of the Living Dead, "Homicide" (WGA Award); and Love and Blood for "Fallen Angels" (Cable Ace Award Nomination); Two plus One (A pilot written for Fox Television and Tom Fontana); Broken City (A pilot for HBO created at Castle Rock) The Beat (The Season Finale); Street-time (producer): Bluefish (For HBO, creator, currently in development). Frank is a graduate of Cornell University where he won the Forbes Herman award for playwriting and was Artistic Director of the Whistling Shrimp Theatre Co. At the NYU Dramatic Writing Program, he was named "Graduate Student of the Year," and Frank is also a former Playwright in Residence at the Royal Court in London. Frank was honored by New York University's Tisch School of the Arts fifteenth anniversary, as their outstanding alumnus in the field. Frank is a proud member of Naked Angels, Drama Dept., and is co-founder of both The Writer's Group and The Screenwriter's Collective. Frank is a consultant for the Cherry Lane/Alternative Mentor program for young playwrights. And he sits on the artistic committee and board of Naked Angels. Frank teaches screenwriting and playwriting at Columbia University. A collection of his plays was published by Broadway Play Publishing. And his new play The Crazy Girl is due to be released this year.
MALIA SCOTCH MARMO's credited screenplays are ONCE AROUND (directed by Lasse Hallstrom), HOOK (directed by Steven Speilberg) and MADELINE. Scotch Marmo has written on many other projects including Jurassic Park, Gilbert Grape, Only You, Other Sister, Polar Express and Enchanted. Once a year she teaches a screenwriting course at Columbia University's Film School and is often an advisor at the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab in Utah.
LINDA SEGER created and defined the job of script consultant when she began her business in 1981. Since then she has consulted on over 2000 scripts, including over 40 produced feature films and about 35 produced television projects. Dr. Seger is an internationally known speaker in the area of screenwriting, having taught and lectured in over 30 countries on 6 continents. She presented the first professional screenwriting seminar in both Moscow and Bulgaria. As the author of ten books, Seger has appeared in more than 60 radio and television shows. www.LindaSeger.com
RENEE SHAFRANSKY is a psychotherapist, writer and award-winning independent film producer with more than 20 years experience in the film and television industries. She has written screenplays for Columbia,Tri-Star, Universal, and Disney as well as teleplays for HBO and PBS. She has worked on film projects as either writer or producer with directors Harold Ramis, Mike Newell, Jonathan Demme, Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Bette Gordon, among others. A former freelance journalist and film critic for the Village Voice, her articles have appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, Harper’s Bazaar and American Film Magazine as well as other publications. She received a Directing Grant from the PEW Charitable Trust for her work in the theater. Her films have been selected for numerous film festivals including: the Cannes Film Festival (Director’s Fortnight); the Toronto Film Festival; The Sundance Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival.
SUSAN B. LANDAU heads THOMPSON STREET ENTERTAINMENT. The production/management company has numerous projects in development and represents writers Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), Frank Pierson (Dog Day Afternoon), Stephen Surjick (Burn Notice) and best-selling novelist Richard North Patterson among others. A Producer, Susan has produced such films as All Over the Guy starring Lisa Kudrow and Christina Ricci, The Perfect You starring Jenny McCarthy, Princess of Thieves with Keira Knightley, An Ideal Husband starring Academy Award nominees Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver, Julianne Moore and Rupert Everett, Angus starring George C. Scott and Kathy Bates and Cool Runnings. Formerly President of Orr & Cruickshank Productions, she Co-Produced Mr. Destiny with Jim Belushi, Rene Russo and Courtney Cox as well as developed pilots for NBC and the Fox network. She also produced two films for the Disney Sunday Movie with them – Young Harry Houdini, nominated for an EMMY in 1987.
PETER REIGERT made his directorial debut with the short film By Courier, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000. He has appeared as an actor in more than 30 films including Animal House, Local Hero, Crossing Delancey, Chilly Scenes of Winter, Coldblooded, and Utz. His many television credits include The Sopranos, Gypsy, Barbarians at the Gate, Law and Order and the final episode of Seinfeld. Riegert has appeared in a number of acclaimed theatrical productions on and off Broadway such as The Old Neighborhood, An American Daughter, The Nerd, Dance with Me ,The Birthday Party, Sexual Perversity in Chicago and A Rosen by Any Other Name. He recently directed a 30th anniversary production of Sexual Perversity at the Geary Theater in San Francisco for ACT. Several years ago, Riegert co-wrote, directed and acted in King of the Corner, a film based on a collection of short stories written by Gerald Shapiro. The cast included Riegert, Isabella Rossellini, Eli Wallach, Rita Moreno, Beverly D’Angelo, Eric Bogosian, Dominic Chianese, Harris Yulin, Frank Wood, Peter Friedman, Ashley Johnson and Jake Hoffman. He took the film on the road and traveled the country over a seven-month period to show the film and meet with audiences.
CAROL DYSINGER has been a feature film and documentary editor for the past 25 years. Films she has edited include: Deadline, Rain, Payakan, Punk and Santitos. Films she has edited or supervised have premiered at Sundance, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals; have been nominated for Emmy and Academy Awards; and have screened theatrically and/or been broadcast on network, public, and cable television. She also had a career as a screenwriter with scripts produced for 20th Century Fox, Disney and HBO. She is a tenured Professor of Graduate Film and New Media at NYU film school in the Tisch School of the Arts.