UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television Honors 3

Oscar®-winning producer Cathy Schulman (“Crash”) will join two UCLA alums, writer-director Paul Schrader (“Auto Focus”) and screenwriter Scott Kosar (“The Machinist”) in receiving recognition for their achievements during Festival, the School?s annual week-long celebration of student work in film and theater.

Cathy Schulman will receive the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and Producers Guild of America Vision Award, during the Producer’s Marketplace event Thursday, June 15, at the James Bridges Theater at UCLA. The Vision Award honors a producer whose career is distinguished by the highest standards, and whose body of work exemplifies quality, persistence, and integrity. Past honorees include Mike Medavoy, Tom Cruise & Paula Wagner and Mark Gordon.

Paul Schrader will be saluted as the School’s Filmmaker of the Year during the Directors Spotlight presentation of award-winning student films at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Hollywood on June 13. The Filmmaker of the Year award recognizes the achievements of a director or writer-director who over the course of a notable career has made a significant contribution to the development of the art of cinema. Past recipients include Alexander Payne (“Sideways”), Penelope Spheeris (“The Decline of Western Civilization”), Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen”) and Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean”).

Scott Kosar will be presented with the Distinguished Achievement in Screenwriting Award during the Screenwriters Showcase at the Writers Guild of America West Theater on Monday, June 13, a program of staged readings from the five finalists in a student screenwriting competition. Past recipients of the Award include Robert Towne (“Chinatown”), James Cameron (“Titanic”), Ernest Lehman (“North by Northwest”) and David Koepp (“Spider-Man”).

CATHY SCHULMAN

When Cathy Schulman won an Oscar for producing Paul Haggis’s “Crash” in 2005, she had been an executive and producer in the film business for almost twenty years, since 1987, most recently at Bull’s Eye Entertainment with her partner Tom Nunan.
Schulman was a production and acquisitions executive at Sovereign Pictures, supervising a slate of feature films for international distribution including “My Left Foot” (1989), “Reversal of Fortune” (1990) and “The Commitments” (1991). She programmed the Sundance Film Festival for three years during the festival’s formative period in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and as vice president of production and acquisitions at the Samuel Goldwyn Company, she was an executive on films including “Much Ado About Nothing” (1993) and “The Madness of King George” (1994). She also produced “Sidewalks of New York” (2001) and associate produced “Tears of the Sun” (2003) and “Isn’t She Great?” (2000).

As president of Artists Production Group, Schulman oversaw more than 50 projects, including Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed “Gangs of New York” (2002). She also serves as a visiting professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Producers Program.

PAUL SCHRADER

Paul Schrader has been one of America?s most respected filmmakers for almost three decades. He earned an M.A. in Critical Studies at UCLA in 1970; the University of California Press published his thesis on the films of Ozu, Bresson and Dreyer as ?Transcendental Style in Film.? He was briefly the film critic of the Los Angeles Free Press but he put criticism aside when his script for “The Yakuza,” a drama about Japanese gangsters, was filmed in 1975 by Sydney Pollack.

Schrader’s landmark collaboration with Martin Scorsese on the noir psychodrama “Taxi Driver” (1976) started a durable creative relationship that also produced “Raging Bull” (1980), “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988), and “Bringing Out the Dead” (1998). His notable screenplays for other directors include “Obsession” (Brian de Palma, 1976), “Rolling Thunder” (John Flynn, 1977) and ?The Mosquito Coast? (Peter Weir, 1986).

In 1977, Schrader made an impressive debut as a writer/director with “Blue Collar,” and has continued to develop his unique contemplative approach to often extreme material in “Hardcore” (1979), the unique, landmark film “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” (1985), “Patty Hearst” (1988), “The Comfort of Strangers” (1990) and “Light Sleeper” (1991).

He has recently completed production on “The Walker,” a conceptual progression of his 1979 hit “American Gigolo,” and will film “Adam Resurrected,” based on the novel by Yoram Kaniuk, in the fall of this year.

SCOTT KOSAR

The script that launched Scott Kosar’s meteoric career, “The Machinist,” was written when he was part of the Graduate Screenwriting program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. This highly personal screenplay was not intended as a calling card. Kosar says: ?I wanted to write something from the guts, and [TFT faculty members] Hal Ackerman, Richard Walter and Tim Albaugh taught me how to do that.?
?The Machinist? took several years to get produced, attracting attention in 2004 both for its uncompromising Dostoyevskian portrait of a personality in decline, and for the shocking weight-loss undertaken by star Christian Bale to depict the title character?s deterioration.
The script also attracted the attention of producer-director Michael Bay, who hired Kosar to write a remake of Tobe Hooper?s horror classic ?The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? (2003) for Platinum Dunes. The success of this film led Kosar to another collaboration with Bay?s company with the remake of ?The Amityville Horror? (2005).
Kosar is currently adapting John Albert?s lewd baseball memoir ?Wrecking Crew? for Anonymous Content and Paramount Pictures, and will write and produce a movie about the Manson family later this year for Paramount Classics.

UCLA SCHOOL OF THEATER, FILM AND TELEVISION

Consistently ranked among the leading institutions in the nation, the School of Theater, Film and Television is unique in the world in that it brings together the arts of theater, film and television in one academic institution. UCLA?s reputation as an outstanding training ground for the theater, film and television professions, and for critical scholarship is based on its long tradition of fostering creative growth, encouraging experimentation and ensuring artistic freedom. Many of the most respected names in the entertainment and communication arts, and the world of scholarship, are UCLA alumni.

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Keywords

"alexander payne" "david koepp" "gore verbinski" "catherine hardwicke" "martin scorsese" "hal ackerman" "tim albaugh" "tom nunan" "cathy schulman" "paula wagner" "tom cruise" "mark gordon" "mike medavoy" "paul schrader" "robert towne" "james cameron" "ernest lehman" "paul haggis" "scott kosar" "richard walter" 

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