He's a graduate of Yale University, has an M.A of Shakespearean Studies from the University of Birmingham (England), and has Ph.D. in Film & Media Studies at the University of California-Berkeley. He won the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award at Berkeley. Routledge Research published his book, “Post-Production: the Invisible Revolution of Filmmaking,” in Decemeber, 2018. He currently is the Chair and a Professor of Filmmaking at Woodbury University. In 2018, he won Woodbury’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Award (for making a difference) and the Gatsby Award (for innovative teaching methods).
He was the head of development and post production supervisor on two of David O. Russell's films (Spanking the Monkey & Flirting With Disaster) as well as Manny & Lo, The Last Good Time, and Wigstock: the Movie.
·The films premiered at the Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, and Avignon Film Festivals and were distributed by Miramax, New Line, Sony Classics, and Samuel Goldwyn.
Flirting with Disaster
Written & directed by David O. Russell. Starring Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda, and Lily Tomlin.
Distributed by Miramax. Official selection and closing night film at the Cannes Film Festival. Declared one of the top ten films by Time Magazine and one of the top five by the NY Times and numerous other publications. Nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards.
Spanking the Monkey
Written & directed by David O. Russell. Starring Jeremy Davies, Alberta Watson, and Benjamin Hendrickson. Distributed by Fine Line. Audience Award for Best Film at the Sundance Film Festival. First film to win both the First Time Feature and First Screenplay Independent Spirit Awards. Cited as one of the best films of the year by numerous publications including the NY Times, NY Post, Rolling Stone, and Premiere Magazine.
Wigstock: The Movie
Directed by Barry Shils. Starring The Lady Bunny, Alexis Arquette, RuPaul, Joseph Arias, Candis Cayne, Lypsinka, Misstress Formika, Flotilla De Barge, and Crystal Waters Distributed by Samuel Goldwyn. Official selection for the Sundance & Berlin Film Festivals. Opening night film at the New York Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.
Manny & Lo
Written & directed by Lisa Krueger.
Starring Mary Kay Place, Scarlett Johansson, Aleksa Palladino, Glenn Fitzgerald, and Paul Guilfoyle. Distributed by Sony Picture Classics. Official selection for the Sundance Film Festival. Also won the Gotham Award for Best First Time Director of a feature. Nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards.
The Last Good Time
Directed by Bob Balaban Written by Bob Balaban & John McLaughlin. Based on a novel by Richard Bausch. Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Maureen Stapleton, Lionel Stander, Olivia d'Abo, Adrian Pasdar, Zohra Lampert, and Kevin Corrigan Distributed by Samuel Goldwyn. Won best film and best director at the Hamptons International Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Avignon Film Festival. Also won the Telly award for Best Independent Feature Film.
I directed and produced two short films, Sami’s Cock (2011) and Speaking of Baghdad (2010). In the movies, an acclaimed international cast performs stories about life during the war written by Iraqi writers in Baghdad over the last seven years. In these films, we hear about the ongoing, devastating war from Iraq’s own artists. They've played on TV, won best drama at the Independent Film Quarterly Film & New Media Festival, screened at ten other festivals (including Napa-Sonoma, Starz-Denver, Big Apple, Miami Short Film Festival, the Short Attention Span, and the Baghdad International Film Festivals), six times thru Amnesty International, at SCMS, Columbia Law School, NYU, U-Mass Boston, the University of York, University of Baghdad, University of Basra, University of California-Berkeley, and at the US Air Force Academy.
The films starred C.S. Lee (Dexter, Chuck), Rex Lee (Entourage), Silas Weir Mitchell (Grimm, Rat Race), Navid Negahban (Homeland), Geoffrey Owens (The Cosby Show), Keith Szarabajka (The Dark Knight, Argo), and Michael Urie (Ugly Betty).