Rapey directors
Directors who have abused their position of power. For shame.
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Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.
His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years before World War II began. On Germany's invasion in 1939, as a family of mostly Jewish heritage, they were all sent to the Krakow ghetto. His parents were then captured and sent to two different concentration camps: His father to Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, where he survived the war, and his mother to Auschwitz where she was murdered. Roman witnessed his father's capture and then, at only 7, managed to escape the ghetto and survive the war, at first wandering through the Polish countryside and pretending to be a Roman-Catholic kid visiting his relatives. Although this saved his life, he was severely mistreated suffering nearly fatal beating which left him with a fractured skull.
Local people usually ignored the cinemas where German films were shown, but Polanski seemed little concerned by the propaganda and often went to the movies. As the war progressed, Poland became increasingly war-torn and he lived his life as a tramp, hiding in barns and forests, eating whatever he could steal or find. Still under 12 years old, he encountered some Nazi soldiers who forced him to hold targets while they shot at them. At the war's end in 1945, he reunited with his father who sent him to a technical school, but young Polanski seemed to have already chosen another career. In the 1950s, he took up acting, appearing in Andrzej Wajda's A Generation (1955) before studying at the Lodz Film School. His early shorts such as Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958), Le gros et le maigre (1961) and Mammals (1962), showed his taste for black humor and interest in bizarre human relationships. His feature debut, Knife in the Water (1962), was one of the first Polish post-war films not associated with the war theme. It was also the first movie from Poland to get an Oscar nomination for best foreign film. Though already a major Polish filmmaker, Polanski chose to leave the country and headed to France. While down-and-out in Paris, he befriended young scriptwriter, Gérard Brach, who eventually became his long-time collaborator. The next two films, Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966), made in England and co-written by Brach, won respectively Silver and then Golden Bear awards at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1968, Polanski went to Hollywood, where he made the psychological thriller, Rosemary's Baby (1968). However, after the brutal murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson Family in 1969, the director decided to return to Europe. In 1974, he again made a US release - it was Chinatown (1974).
It seemed the beginning of a promising Hollywood career, but after his conviction for the sodomy of a 13-year old girl, Polanski fled from he USA to avoid prison. After Tess (1979), which was awarded several Oscars and Cesars, his works in 1980s and 1990s became intermittent and rarely approached the caliber of his earlier films. It wasn't until The Pianist (2002) that Polanski came back to full form. For that movie, he won nearly all the most important film awards, including the Oscar for Best Director, Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, the BAFTA and Cesar Award.
He still likes to act in the films of other directors, sometimes with interesting results, as in A Pure Formality (1994).Still making films despite being on the run. Some people support him (mostly the French) others condemn.- Director
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Jean-Claude Brisseau was born on 17 July 1944 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Secret Things (2002), Sound and Fury (1988) and Céline (1992). He died on 11 May 2019 in Paris, France.Made auditionees jill-off. I guess used "I'm French" as his defence to allegations.- Director
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Onir is an Indian filmmaker, producer, screenwriter and editor.
Born as Anirban Dhar in Samchi, Bhutan, Onir spent much of his childhood going to the cinema. Earlier, Onir studied comparative literature at Jadavpur University in 1989, he received a scholarship to study film editing at SFB/TTC in Berlin. He later returned to India and worked as an editor, scriptwriter, art director, music album producer and song/music video director.
Onir directed and produced his first Documentary film on painter Bijon Chaudhary, "Falling Hero" in 1992. In 1999 he worked as the film editor, song designer and song director of the film "Daman" directed by Kalpana Lajmi. He is best known for his film "My Brother...Nikhil", based on the life of Dominic D'Souza, starring Sanjay Suri, Juhi Chawla and Purab Kohli. It was one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships.
In January 2006, he started shooting his second feature film "Bas Ek Pal" with Juhi Chawla, Urmila Matondkar, Jimmy Shergill, Rehaan Engineer and Sanjay Suri. The film was released on Sep 15, 2006.
In 2007 he started his third film "Sorry Bhai!" under his and Sanjay's home production Anticlock Films. Sorry Bhai! starred Shabana Azmi, Boman Irani, Sanjay Suri, Chitrangada Singh and Boman Irani.
In 2009, Anticlock Films started the unique citizen-funded film project called "I Am" which was Onir's fourth feature film. The film had four stories that are interlinked by characters and shot across four cities in India. The funds for the films have been through Facebook and Blogs. "I Am" is probably the first and largest crowd-sourced film through social networks in India. Over 400 people across 47 cities across the world have come together to make this film. "I Am" was released to wide critical acclaim on April 29, 2011. He won the Indian National Film Awards for Best Film (Hindi) for the anthology "I Am" in 2011. "I Am" is considered one of the first and largest crowd-funded and crowd-sourced films through social media in India. The film dealt with single motherhood, child sexual abuse, displacement and LGBTQI+ rights.
Onir produced "Chauranga" (Four Colours) which won the Incredible India Award as the best script at the Goa Film Bazaar, International Film Festival of India, won best film India Gold at MAMI and IFFLA. This film is about a class conflict set in rural India and directed by Debutant Director Bikas Mishra. The script was also a part of Berlin Talent Campus 2010.
The feature-length documentary "Raising the Bar", an Indi-Australian documentary featuring the lives of 6 children and young people living with down syndrome premiered at the Melbourne Indian Film Festival in 2016.
"SHAB" (The night) directed by Onir released in 2017. The film premiered at New York Indian Film Festival, screened at Melbourne Indian Film Festival, Sydney Indian Film Festival, Florence River to River Indian Film Festival and Stuttgart India Film Festival.
His 6th feature film as director "Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz" (Rain-soaked words) was released in Feb 2018. The film had its Festival premiere at the London South Asian Film Festival in March 2018. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.
In 2018, he made a short documentary, 'Widows of Vrindavan', about unwanted mothers who try and seek solace in pursuit of divine love. The documentary portrays the lives of widows living at Maitri Ghar (House), their journey to Vrindavan, their childhood, their crushed dreams and what keeps them alive now. Widows of Vrindavan is a film about these widows trying to find dignity and hope as they await death. The documentary premiered at the Indisches Film festival Stuttgart in 2019. It received the Best Documentary (Audience choice award) at the 9th Jagran Film Festival.
In 2018 he received Likho Award (Trailblazer Award) Onir has received the Diversity Award from Film Victoria Australia and La Trobe University at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2019.
Onir received the Engendered Spirit of Independent Cinema Award 2020 at the Engendered Human Rights Film Festival in Delhi. Onir directed the Indo-Italian documentary film on contemporary art, SAMA: Symbols and Gestures in Contemporary Art of Italy and India (2021) which underlines the artistic parallels between India and Italy.
Onir's memoir; "I Am Onir and I Am Gay" which he has co-written with his sister Irene Dhar Malik was published by Penguin Viking in 2022. In August Onir's semi-autobiographical film "Pine Cone" premiered at 'The KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival where he won the 'Rainbow Warrior Award' for his film "Pine Cone". In August, 2023, "Pine Cone" had its Australian premiere at the 'Indian Film Festival Of Melbourne' where it won the 'Rainbow Stories Award'. Consecutively it was also screened at the 'Samabhav Travelling International film Festival' in Bhutan where Onir won the 'Trailblazing Award'.
He is also working on a SonyLiv web series on Pulwama Attack based on Rahul Pandita's book.
Onir is also working on a sequel to his 2011 National Award winning film "I Am", titled "We Are".- Writer
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Born in Martinez, California, 20 miles outside San Francisco, Victor Salva had written and directed over 20 short and feature-length films before graduating from high school. In the mid-'80s his 37-minute short Something in the Basement (1986) took first place in the fiction category at the Sony/AFI Home Video Competition. A horror allegory about a young boy awaiting his brother's return from a bloody war, this highly acclaimed short went on to win several national awards (including a Bronze Plaque at the Chicago International Film festival) and brought Salva to the attention of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola then produced Salva's first theatrical feature, Clownhouse (1989), which Salva again wrote and directed. Using the talented cast of his award-winning short, Salva called the film "a campfire story." However, his early career was derailed by the revelations of sexual misconduct with one of the film's underage stars. He was tried, convicted and spent a year in state prison. He described it as "a dark time in my confused young life, but also a time when I took responsibility for my own arrested development and the ramifications of growing up in a deeply dysfunctional family."
His next film brought him to Los Angeles. Based on characters he met in prison, The Nature of the Beast (1995), which Salva wrote and directed, starred Lance Henriksen and Eric Roberts and quickly became New Line Cinema's biggest direct-to-video title of that year. Salva next made his first big-studio picture, Powder (1995), a strange tale about an albino boy with special powers that ironically make him an outcast. "Powder" received much critical acclaim and made several top-ten lists for the year.
He next made Rites of Passage (1999), a coming-of-age thriller starring Jason Behr (Roswell (1999)), Dean Stockwell and James Remar which dealt with a homophobic father who unwittingly pushes his gay son into the arms of a psychotic killer. In 2001 Salva wrote and directed Jeepers Creepers (2001), which was one of the year's breakout hits and set a world record for largest Labor Day box-office in history, up until that time. Salva followed this up with his sixth feature film, Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), breaking his old record and setting another Labor Day milestone, as of 2003. His next film, Peaceful Warrior (2006), an adaptation of Dan Millman's best-seller "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior", was very significant to him because of the year he spent in prison. The film starred Nick Nolte and Amy Smart.