Fall 2014 Alumni Newsletter

The Department of Theater was well represented when the 2014 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards nominations were announced in late September. Ten alumni and two faculty members were recognized for their contributions to regional theater in the Greater Los Angeles area during the 2013-14 theater season.

UCLA TFT Visiting Associate Professor BRIAN KITE (B.A. '91, M.F.A. '04, Theater), who is also the producing artistic director of the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, was nominated as best director of a musical for the company's production of Les Miserables. His nomination was one of 17 that La Mirada received as a whole.

The Los Angeles Theater Center production of Premeditation, directed by LATC Artistic Director and Professor JOSE LUIS VALENZUELA, received three nominations: best director of a play (Valenzuela); best production of a play (large theater); and best lighting design, in which PABLO SANTIAGO (M.F.A. '13, Theater) was nominated.

Visiting Assistant Professor JESSICA KUBZANSKY was nominated as best director of a play for her direction of Everything You Touch at The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena, one of 19 nominations that the theater received.

Additionally, Professor RICH ROSE designed the set for La Mirada's production of Floyd Collins, which received a total of nine nominations.

A full list of UCLA TFT nominees follows:

SHEILA CALLAGHAN (M.F.A. '97, Theater)
Playwriting for an original play, Everything You Touch

SHANNON HOLT (B.A. '84, Theater)
Featured actress in a play, Passion Play

ANNA KHAJA (B.A. '97, Theater)
Lead actress in a play, My Name Is Ahser Lev

HANA KIM (M.F.A. '12, Theater)
Video/projection design, The Ugly One
Video/projection design, Pray to Ball

BRIAN KITE (B.A. '91; M.F.A. '04, Theater)
Director of a musical, Les Miserables

JESSICA KUBZANSKY
Director of a play, Everything You Touch

SPENCER LEE (B.A. '98, Film and Television)
Video/projection design, Pray to Ball

DOUG NEWELL (M.F.A. '82, Theater Arts)
Sound design, Foxfinder

TIM ROBBINS (B.A. '82, Theater)
Director of a play, A Midsummer Night's Dream

PABLO SANTIAGO (M.F.A. '13, Theater)
Lighting design, Premeditation

KELLY TODD (B.A. '97, Theater)
Choreography, Lysistrata Jones

JOSE LUIS VALENZUELA
Director of a play, Premeditation

The Ovation Awards will take place on Sunday, Nov. 2 at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse.

Warner Bros. has picked up the U.S. and Canadian rights to the period noir film The Nice Guys, co-written by Iron Man 3 filmmaker SHANE BLACK, (B.A. '83, Theater), starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. Black is also set to direct Sony Pictures' The Destroyer.

Alumni JACK BOWDAN (B.A. '75, Theater) and SHEILA GUTHRIE (B.A. '78, Theater), and UCLA TFT Lecturer MICHAEL DONOVAN have been nominated for Artios Awards from the Casting Society of America. The ceremony will take place simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015.

Apocalypse Now, the seminal film written, directed and produced by executive board member and UCLA TFT alumnus FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA (M.F.A. '67, Theater Arts), received the Telluride Film Festival's Silver Medallion Award. This was the first time the fest's honor, which is usually reserved for an artist's 'significant contribution to the world of cinema,' was given to a film. 

MARIELLE HELLER, (B.A. '01, Theater) has finished principal photography and is in postproduction on the 2015 feature film, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, which she directed and wrote. Based on Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel, the film stars Bel Powley, Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgard.

JEFF MAYNARD (B.A. '93, Theater) directed David Lindsay-Abaire's Tony Award-winning play Good People at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. The play was in production from Friday, Sept. 19 to Sunday, Oct. 12.

YouTube phenomenon CHESTER SEE (B.A. '06, Theater) is the executive producer, song co-writer and star of the musical series Side Effects, which was recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal. Season One can be seen on YouTube. 

CHRISTINE AVILA (B.A. '69, Theater Arts) was a member of the 20-person cast of O-Lan Jones' Iceland, which opened in late July in downtown Los Angeles as part of REDCAT's 11th annual New Original Works Festival…Our Lives Our Voices Our Music, written by historian, dramatist and playwright CHARLES DAVID BROOKS, III (B.A. '74, Theater; M.F.A. '76, Theater Arts) was published in January. In April, the play Our Lives Our Voices Our Music, adapted from his book, was performed at the Ponders Theatre in Columbia, S.C…American Cinematographer magazine spotlighted ALEX FUNKE (B.A. '66, Theater Arts) in July's ASC Close-Up column…The hip-hop theater production Dreamscape, by playwright RICKERBY HINDS (M.F.A. '96, Theater) premiered in Portland at the Milagro Theatre as part of the La Luna Nueva festival in mid-September…In late August, DONNY JACKSON (M.F.A. '12, Theater) began a new position as the lighting instructor at Cypress College. Additionally, he will create the lighting design for the musical Spring Awakening at the Long Beach Playhouse, which runs Oct. 18 to Nov. 15…MIKE MORELL's (B.A. '71, Theater Arts) recently published book, Romeo and Julieta and Other Plays, is available on Amazon. Morell is also the author of Show Me Your Papers! An Immigration Romp and Gothic Horror Works: Small Town Crimes, among others…In August, MARCO RAMOS (B.A. '13, Theater) performed in the Princess and Pirates Sing-Along Concert at the Kirk Douglas Theater.

First-time nominee and UCLA TFT alumnus BRIAN LOSCHIAVO became a winner at the Primetime Creative Emmy Awards in mid-August, when the 'Mazel Tina' episode of Fox's Bob's Burgers, which he directed, was named Outstanding Animated Program. Three other alumni also received Primetime Creative Emmy Award nominations. First-time Emmy nominee MITCHELL CANNOLD (B.A. '71, Theater Arts) was the executive producer of the critically acclaimed Fox/NatGeo documentary Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, a follow-up to the highly regarded 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Seven-time Emmy winner LOUIS J. HORVITZ (B.A. '68, Theater Arts) received his 18th nomination, in the category of Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, for his direction of The Kennedy Center Honors on CBS. He took home the award last year for his direction of The Kennedy Center Honors. Digital effects supervisor ANDREW ORLOFF (B.A. '93, Film and Television) received his ninth Emmy nomination, for his work on the CW's The 100.

DUSTIN LANCE BLACK (B.A. '96, Film and Television) has signed on to adapt A. Scott Berg's award-winning biography Lindbergh for Paramount Television. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Killoran and Kevin McCormick will executive produce.

Margarita, with a Straw, from filmmaker SHONALI BOSE (M.F.A. '97, Film and Television), won the NETPAC Award for World or International Asian Film Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Filmmaker JUSTIN LIN (B.A. '95, Film and Television) will direct the first two episodes of the hit HBO series True Detective when the second season airs in January. He will also direct the China-set, Chinese language 3D film Shaolin Temple for Beijing Enlight Pictures and his company, Perfect Storm Entertainment.

Alumnae CRYSTAL LIU (B.A. '02, Film and Television) and HEATHER MARION (M.F.A. '13, Film and Television) were among the 10 writers who headed to Utah in late September to participate in the Sundance Institute's first-ever Episodic

Story Lab.

Jaya, an award-winning thesis film from PUJA MAEWAL (M.F.A. '12, Film and Television) had its New York premiere at Urbanworld Film Festival, the nation's largest competitive multicultural film festival, in mid-September. Cry Now, a new film from director ALBERTO BARBOZA (M.F.A. '04, Film and Television), also screened at the fest. Barboza and his film were profiled in this El Observador article.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the most recent film from ANA LILY AMIRPOUR (M.F.A. '10, Film and Television), screened at the Rome Film Festival in mid-October…In early September, The Boy Scout, directed by PATRICK BROOKS (M.F.A. '12, Film and Television) screened at the Nevada City Film Festival as part of the fest's first-ever Student Film Showcase…In mid-September, 20 Rules for Sylvie, a new comedy-romance feature from GIACUN CADUFF (M.F.A '08, Film and Television), was released in Switzerland…Sprite Films Blue Ribbon winner and production grad student MERLIN CAMOZZI was featured in the Daily Bruin and Backstage…Elon University professor PAUL CASTRO (M.F.A. '00, Film and Television), who wrote the screenplay for 2007's August Rush, was profiled in this MyFox8.com article…RANI DEMUTH (M.F.A. '05, Film and Television) was one of nine screenwriters selected by Film Independent for its 16th annual Screenwriting Lab…Suspense thriller Reclaim, written by CARMINE GAETA (M.F.A. '03, Film and Television), and starring John Cusack, Ryan Phillippe and Jacki Weaver, is currently showing in select theaters and on VOD…ARTEL GREAT (B.A. '10, M.F.A. '12, Film and Television) was interviewed by Black Enterprise about his most recent venture, Project Catalyst, a transmedia organization that combines creative community building practices with cinema, visual art, music and technology…Legendary Pictures' As Above/So Below, the latest film from executive producer ALEX HEDLUND (M.F.A. '08, Film and Television), opened in late August and has grossed more than $39 million worldwide…ALEX O'FLINN (M.F.A. '09, Film and Television) has been awarded the Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship by the Sundance Institute…ERIC MARTIN (M.F.A. '12, Film and Television) and UCLA grad student Farzad Sangari's new documentary Mudbloods, which spotlights the UCLA Quidditch team, was featured in this UCLA Newsroom article. The film premiered in June at the AFI Docs documentary festival in Washington, D.C., and had a theatrical release in October…IFP's 2014 Project Forum, held in mid-September, included Dara Ju, the feature directorial debut of ANTHONY ONAH (M.F.A. '13, Film and Television). The film was produced by JUSTIN BEGNAUD (M.F.A. '10, Film and Television)…Filmmaker DOUG PRAY's (M.F.A. '91, Film and Television) new documentary, Levitated Mass, screened at West L.A.'s Nuart Theater in early September…In late July, author REBECCA PRIME (Ph.D. '09, Film and Television) signed copies of Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture at the Billy Wilder Theater preceding a screening of the 1949 film Christ in Concrete…MIKE STEIN (M.F.A. '12, Film and Television) has been named a development coordinator at Davis Entertainment…Vietnamese film director HAM TRAN (M.F.A. '10, Film and Television) was featured as Immigrant of the Day on the Immigration Prof Blog, which included the trailer from his 2013 film How to Fight in Six Inch Heels, about the lives of modern, young Vietnamese-Americans…LISA VANGELLOW's (M.F.A. '13, Film and Television) Franco. A Documentary, about a year in the life of actor/producer James Franco, was one of five films selected for the Sundance Institute's 2014 Documentary Edit and Story Lab program, which took place in June and July. The program chose films that were in the editing stage and conducted an intensive workshop for the filmmakers.

Kicking off Orientation 2014 on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 30, Dean TERI SCHWARTZ welcomed new and returning UCLA TFT students to the start of the 2014-15 academic year. Keynote speaker and Tony Award-winning producer ROBERT L. FREEDMAN (BA '79, Theater) offered words of wisdom to incoming freshmen; in the afternoon, undergraduate and graduate FTVDM and Dept. of Theater students met with their respective chairs, department professors, counselors and staff to learn more about the School, their classes and the resources available to them. Orientation continued on Wednesday, Oct. 1 and concluded on Thursday, Oct. 2.

Ten FTVDM graduate students, RITA RANI AHUJA (screenwriting), LEAH MICHELLE APPLEBAUM (producing), ANDREA BRUSA (screenwriting), ANDREW MICHAEL DEWAARD (Cinema and Media Studies), MELISSA ANN FINELL (production/directing), JI YOUNG KIM (a.k.a Shirley) (production/directing), TIMOTHY DONALD LEWIS (producing), MELODY J. SANDOVAL (producing), DAWN SPINELLA (screenwriting) and SHADAE LAMAR SMITH (production/directing), were selected to attend the 41st Annual Telluride Film Festival during Labor Day weekend as FilmLAB fellows. At Telluride, FilmLAB fellows learn from prominent filmmakers, enjoy exclusive sessions with world-renowned writers, producers and industry leaders, and experience the festival like VIPs, thanks to the partnership developed by Dean TERI SCHWARTZ between UCLA TFT and Telluride co-director Julie Huntsinger in 2010.

Fourth-year production grad student MARK COLUMBUS, a 2013 Student Academy Award finalist for his documentary Battle of the Jazz Guitarist, premiered his short narrative drama, Guests, at the Telluride Film Festival. The short is part of The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards anthology created in visiting professor James Franco's 2013 'Adaptation and Collaboration' class.

This fall, UCLA TFT welcomed the first student from New Zealand to be accepted into the graduate screenwriting program. SHOSHANA SACHI, one of 121 incoming graduate students, was recently featured in the New Zealand newspaper The Dominion Post.

Fourth-year production grad student LUCRETIA STINNETTE was one of three recipients of the prestigious Princess Grace Foundation Graduate Film Scholarship and the winner of the Charles Evans Film Award for her film Quyen. The awards ceremony took place in early October at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. 

 

 

Eight new faculty members have joined UCLA TFT for the 2014-15 academic year: five in the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media and three in the Department of Theater.

The appointments of filmmakers GINA KIM and RORY KELLY, the first new ladder faculty to join the production arm of the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media in 10 years, are the result of an international search that drew more than 200 interested applicants. Kim, appointed as an assistant professor, most recently taught at Harvard University. Kelly, also appointed as an assistant professor, has been a TFT lecturer since 1999. Three current UCLA professors will now have affiliated faculty appointments with TFT's Cinema and Media Studies. Professor ERKKI HUHTAMO is a media archaeologist, author and exhibition curator who teaches in the Department of Design Media Arts in the School of the Arts and Architecture; ARNE LUNDE is associate professor and chair of UCLA's Scandinavian Section in the College of Letters and Science, and will lead film history courses on Nordic national cinemas; Department of Gender Studies Associate Professor PURNIMA MANKEKAR will teach UCLA TFT courses in Gender Studies.

The Department of Theater has hired playwright, screenwriter and trans theater artist SYLVAN OSWALD, who was previously a visiting assistant professor at SUNY Purchase. He joins UCLA TFT as an assistant professor. Theater historian MICHELLE LIU CARRIGER has accepted a Critical Studies professorship position. Carriger most recently taught at Queen Mary University of London. Assistant Professor in Directing MARIKE SPLINT, a native of the Netherlands, specializes in site-responsive and immersive theater, creating work outside regular theater venues in the public space.

'We are thrilled to grow the ranks of our outstanding faculty and heartily welcome the newest members of our UCLA TFT family,"  said Dean TERI SCHWARTZ. 'The measure of any great school is its faculty, and as such, the impact of these most recent hires will reverberate brilliantly and wonderfully for years to come. We currently have a unique opportunity to build a new generation of faculty here at UCLA TFT, and it is with great pride that we continue to create a profound legacy."

Welcome, one and all!

From October 2, 2014 through March 2, 2015, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present the final showing of the multimedia exhibition Hollywood Costume in Los Angeles' historic Wilshire May Company building, the future location of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The exhibition was organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A), and curated by Professor DEBORAH NADOOLMAN LANDIS, founding director of UCLA TFT's David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design, with Sir Christopher Frayling (Professor Emeritus of Cultural History, Royal College of Art), and set and costume designer and V&A Assistant Curator Keith Lodwick. This ticketed exhibition explores the central role of costume design as an essential tool of cinematic storytelling. The Academy enhanced the V&A's exhibition, which includes 145 costumes from more than 60 lenders, by adding more than 30 original costumes to this landmark show.

In September, Department of Theater Chair MICHAEL HACKETT was interviewed by Backstage about the best methods actors should employ when auditioning.

Costume design professor CHRISI KARVONIDES moderated the Costume Designers Guild's 'Costumes as a Career' panel at July's Comic Con convention in San Diego. Panelists included costume designer Kristin Burke (Sleepy Hollow); assistant costume designer Brigitta Romanov (Glee); costume illustrator Gina DeDomenico Flanagan (Godzilla); Cate Adair, vice president, Costume Designers Guild Local 892; Western Costume Company's Eddie Marks; Celia Sedwick Rogus, creative director, FIDM Film & TV Costume Design Advanced Study Program; and Shane Mahan, co-founder of Legacy Effects.

In September, the Latino Theater Company/Los Angeles Theatre Center, headed by Artistic Director and UCLA TFT Professor JOSE LUIS VALENZUELA, won a 2014 ICWP 50/50 Applause Award. The award recognizes theaters that have produced the work of women playwrights in 50% or more of their theater season shows.

The most recent edition of Stoneslide Corrective's Stoneslide Story Contest gave HAL ACKERMAN, co-area head of the Screenwriting Program, an Honorable Mention for his story Continental Divide. Stoneslide Corrective, a division of Stoneslide Media, is an online weekly that publishes both fiction and nonfiction.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Terminator, in July, Professor BARBARA BOYLE was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly about her role as a producer on the film.

In late September, JEFF BURKE, assistant dean, technology and innovation, chaired the Internet of Things workshop session at the first annual ACM Information Centric Networking conference in Paris, France, which discussed the future of the Internet. He was also on the conference's technical program committee and on a panel that discussed data-centric network architecture (NDN).

FTVDM alumnus and part-time instructor JOSH FELDMAN was named head of development at Hasbro Studios in August. Feldman will focus on adapting the company's toy properties into live action and animated films, working closely with the company's TV arm.

BuzzFeed has named Continuing Lecturer JONATHAN KUNTZ's History of American Motion Picture class one of the eight coolest classes to take at UCLA. Separately, in June, Kuntz gave a presentation about the history of Hollywood to the students participating in AMPAS' Science and Technology Council Internship Program.

Animation head CELIA MERCER discussed her career and work at UCLA TFT in this Animation Career Review Q&A. She was also quoted in this Oregonian story about the Focus Features/Laika stop-animation film Boxtrolls.

In August, Adjunct Professor MYRL SCHREIBMAN was named president of production at Good Deed Entertainment.

Professor CHON NORIEGA in this Los Angeles Times article about the disproportionate numbers of minorities represented in Hollywood films…Professor TOM NUNAN in this AFP story about the summer boxoffice slump; in this North Jersey.com story about posthumous films; in this AFP story on Business Insider about the evolution of Netflix; in this AFP/Yahoo News article about the summer TV season. Along with Lecturer GLENN WILLIAMSON, Nunan was quoted in this AFP/Yahoo News story about the ease in which film actors are finding roles on television…Williamson was quoted in this French AFP/Yahoo News story about the disappointing boxoffice numbers for The Expendables 3 and in a wire story about the upcoming Oscar race. This article appeared in many outlets including Business Insider. He was also quoted in this French AFP story about summer films.

In early July, it was announced that the Producers Program would be the recipient of a multi-year gift from the award-winning Shaftesbury, a producer and distributor of original content based in Toronto and Los Angeles. The gift was made possible by the efforts of Shaftesbury's U.S. head, Maggie Murphy, who is also a visiting assistant professor at UCLA TFT. Shaftesbury production executives will offer guidance and assist students in creating television and digital projects, working with them from concept to completion. The gift will supply UCLA TFT students with the materials needed to develop these projects.

Also in July, UCLA TFT landed in the No. 3 spot (up from No. 4 last year) on The Hollywood Reporter's annual film schools list.

CMS Professors JOHN CALDWELL and STEVE MAMBER contributed chapters ('Thinking Digitally/Acting Locally' and 'Films Beget Digital Media,' respectively) to the recently published book Transmedia Frictions: The Digital, the Arts, and the Humanities, edited by Marsha Kinder and Tara McPherson (University of California Press, 2014).

In August, two special guests spoke about reality television in MYRL SCHREIBMAN's summer directing class: EYTAN KELLER, (BA '71, Theater Arts) the award-winning director of Iron Chef America, and current UCLA biomedical physics Ph.D. candidate and reality star Brendon Villegas, who appeared in CBS' Big Brother and The Amazing Race.

Professional Programs, which offers graduate level non-degree certificate programs focused on the entertainment industry, announced in early August a new academic course dedicated to the study of video game development, one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment in the world. 'Interactivity: A Course in Video Game Design and Development' began in late September and is taught by renowned game writer MARIANNE KRAWCZYK (God of War franchise) and Sony Computer Entertainment's Senior Manager of Internal Production, WHITNEY WADE. The course teaches students about the gaming development process beginning with the initial phase of creating ideas to the technicalities of production, including scheduling, resourcing and budgeting, resulting in the creation of a Greenlight Game Proposal. In August, Animation Career Review spoke with Professional Programs Director JOE ROSENBERG about the new course.

Also new to Professional Programs is a unique course, 'Producing Theater Now.' It has been a dream of Dean TERI SCHWARTZ to add an exciting new dimension to Professional Programs offerings, one that focuses exclusively on the business of theater. Dean Schwartz brought five-time Tony Award nominee SUSAN DIETZ to create and teach 'Producing Theater Now,' which covers the latest developments in this complicated and ever-changing world. The immersive five-week course, which will take place Feb. 2-March 5, 2015, encompasses the fundamentals of producing theater, including budgeting, money management, marketing, script development, legal concerns, fundraising, technical theater and artist relations. Each class explores all topics in equal measure through the prisms of commercial and not-for-profit theater, both of which are crucial to the contemporary landscape of the American theater.

The 62nd edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival hosted a retrospective of groundbreaking director Dorothy Arzner's career in September, presenting six Arzner titles restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Arzner is considered the first female director to forge a career during the golden age of Hollywood studios and is said to have invented the boom mic when improvising during Clara Bow's first talkie, The Wild Party (1929). In addition to The Wild Party, other UCLA-restored prints that screened at the fest include: Sarah and Son (1930), Anybody's Woman (1930), Honor Among Lovers (1931), Working Girls (1931) and Merrily We Go to Hell (1932).

The landmark PBS series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History uses footage from the Archive's Hearst Metrotone News Collection to chronicle the lives of Theodore, Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt. The seven-part, 14-hour film premiered in mid-September and utilizes one-of-a-kind material from original nitrate negatives in the Archive's holdings, including speeches from the campaign trail, Teddy Roosevelt hunting trips, Roosevelt family gatherings, the ravages of the Great Depression and rare footage of FDR walking.

In August and September, the Archive presented the film series 'What I Really Do Is Magic: Edith Head and Hollywood Costume Design' at the Billy Wilder Theater.

UCLA TFT Professor DEBORAH NADOOLMAN LANDIS introduced several films throughout the retrospective, which was profiled in the Los Angeles Times, and appeared in conversation with John Landis and Carl Reiner at the opening night screening of Head's last feature film, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). Also presented were Sunset Blvd. (1950), The Lady Eve (1941) and Mae West and Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong (1933).

In July and August, the Archive explored the careers of blacklisted filmmakers exiled abroad in 'Hollywood Exiles in Europe' at the Billy Wilder Theater. The retrospective, which was was profiled in the Los Angeles Times, featured works from Jules Dassin, Joseph Losey, Cy Endfield and others, as well as an illuminating conversation with blacklisted writer Norma Barzman on opening night.

SJ Hodges was recently appointed as the Assistant Director of Alumni Affairs for UCLA TFT. She is an artist advocate and published playwright/author with an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts:

Dear Alumni,

At the start of the 2014-15 academic year, UCLA TFT launched the Parents' Alliance, which seeks to bring together parents of UCLA TFT students and alumni from around the world to share their insights, experiences and perspectives, while philanthropically supporting and serving as ambassadors for the School. For more details, please visit the Parents' Alliance webpage.

Executive Board member REGINALD HUDLIN will produce the 2014 Governors Awards ceremony for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The ceremony will take place on Saturday, Nov. 8 at Hollywood & Highland.

Paramount is in talks to acquire U.S. distribution rights to Silence, a film by TFT Executive Board Member MARTIN SCORSESE. Separately, Scorsese's new documentary, The 50 Year Argument, about the history and influence of the New York Review of Books, was shown in September at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. It premiered in June at the Sheffield Doc/Fest in Sheffield, England.