The following is from one of my students at Columbia. This is an issue that all film lovers should be aware of. Please voice your words of protest as per the instructions below…
Dear Ira,
The Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi decided to close the Italian National Film School (Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia) with the excuse to [...]
Some of you are already aware that I brought 12 of the Columbia University producing students with me to Cannes this year. My goal was to demystify the event, and to give them a ground level tutorial so that if they end up coming back in any capacity, they could hit the ground running. I [...]
Scott Kirsner just informed me that videos of many of the panels at “The Conversation,” held at Columbia University back in March, are now available on line. Below is the video of my apparently controversial opening remarks, which many people interpreted as dashing the hopes and dreams of aspiring filmmmakers everywhere. But listen carefully to [...]
Last week, I went to a conference at the Columbia Business School, and I saw a presentation by Columbia Professor and branding expert David Rogers. He was giving a summary of major themes the emerged from a recent branding conference that he organized. In the aftermath of “The Conversation” and “DIY Days,” I wanted to [...]
The following is the outline of the kickoff speech I gave at “The Conversation,” a conference on the future of independent film at Columbia University. Sorry that it’s missing the adlibs…maybe someone taped it.
On behalf of the Columbia University School of the Arts and the Columbia Business School, I’d like to welcome you all to our [...]
I was very sad to read in the New York Times about the death of Steven Bach. Steven and I were colleagues at Columbia University, and we discovered we had many other things in common. We both went to Northwestern and we both worked at United Artists at the same time, although we didn’t get to [...]
Congrats to our new Columbia producers. On January 31, four of our students presented their thesis films, the final step before graduating with their MFA in film with a concentration in producing. Our February graduates are Geoffrey Booth, whose thesis film is “Cemetery Club,” Molly Pearson with “Last First Kiss,” Sarna Lapine with “Sinkhole” and Shilpa Mankikar [...]
