49 Notable alumni of
American Film Institute Conservatory
Updated:
American Film Institute Conservatory is 634th in the world, 234th in North America, and 215th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 49 notable alumni from American Film Institute Conservatory sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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David Lynch
- Occupations
- directorproducercomposerfilm actorvisual artist
- Biography
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David Keith Lynch was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and was acclaimed for films often distinguished by their surrealist and experimental qualities. In a career spanning more than five decades, he received numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 2006 and an Honorary Academy Award in 2019.
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Darren Aronofsky
- Occupations
- film directorfilm producerscreenwriterdirectorwriter
- Biography
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Darren Aronofsky is an American filmmaker. His films are noted for their surreal, melodramatic, and often disturbing elements, frequently in the form of psychological fiction. Over his career he has received a Primetime Emmy Award and has been nominated for several awards including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
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Charlie McDowell
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directoractor
- Biography
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Charles Malcolm McDowell is an American-British film director and screenwriter. McDowell made his directorial film debut with the romantic thriller The One I Love (2014). He has since written and directed the Netflix drama films The Discovery (2017) and Windfall (2022).
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Brad Falchuk
- Enrolled in American Film Institute Conservatory
- In 1994 graduated with Master of Fine Arts
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directordirectortelevision directortelevision producer
- Biography
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Bradley Douglas Falchuk is an American television writer, director, and producer. He is best known for co-creating the television series Glee, American Horror Story, Scream Queens, and Pose with Ryan Murphy. He was also a writer and executive producer for Nip/Tuck and is married to actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
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Ari Aster
- Occupations
- screenwriterwriterfilm directordirector
- Biography
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Ari Aster is an American filmmaker. After garnering initial recognition for the short film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), he became best known for writing and directing Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019), and Beau Is Afraid (2023), all of which were released by A24. His films have been noted for their unsettling combination of horror, dark comedy, and depictions of graphic violence. He co-founded the production company Square Peg with Danish producer Lars Knudsen in 2018.
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Terrence Malick
- Enrolled in American Film Institute Conservatory
- In 1969 graduated with Master of Fine Arts
- Occupations
- translatorscreenwriterfilm producerfilm actorfilm director
- Biography
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Terrence Frederick Malick is an American filmmaker. Malick began his career as part of the New Hollywood generation of filmmakers and received awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and Venice International Film Festival, and nominations for three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Cesar Award, and a Directors Guild of America Award.
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Sam Esmail
- Occupations
- television producerscreenwritertelevision directorfilm producerfilmmaker
- Biography
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Sam Esmail is an American film and television producer, director, and screenwriter who runs the production company Esmail Corp. He is best known as the creator, writer, and director of the award-winning USA Network television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019), starring Rami Malek. He wrote and directed the feature films Comet (2014) and Leave the World Behind (2023). He produced and directed the first season of the acclaimed Amazon Prime Video psychological thriller Homecoming (2018–2020), starring Julia Roberts and Janelle Monáe, and produced USA's Briarpatch (2020), Starz's Gaslit (2022), and Peacock's Angelyne (2022) and The Resort (2022).
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Paul Schrader
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm criticfilm directordirector
- Biography
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Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader has also worked extensively as a director: his 23 films include Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts "man in a room" stories which feature isolated, troubled men confronting an existential crisis.
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Patty Jenkins
- Occupations
- film directorfilm producerscreenwriterdirectortelevision director
- Biography
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Patricia Lea Jenkins is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. She has directed the feature films Monster (2003), Wonder Woman (2017), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).
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Edward Zwick
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directordirectorfilm producer
- Biography
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Edward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker. He has worked primarily in the comedy drama and epic historical film genres and has received nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
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Todd Field
- Occupations
- film producerfilm actorscreenwriterfilm directorfilm score composer
- Biography
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William Todd Field is an American film-maker and actor. He is known for directing In the Bedroom (2001), Little Children (2006), and Tár (2022), which were nominated for a combined fourteen Academy Awards. Field has personally received six Academy Award nominations for his films; two for Best Picture, two for Best Adapted Screenplay, one for Best Director, and one for Best Original Screenplay.
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Janusz Kamiński
- Occupations
- film directorcamera operatormanufacturerdirectorcinematographer
- Biography
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Janusz Zygmunt Kamiński is a Polish cinematographer and director.
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Amy Heckerling
- Occupations
- directorscreenwriterwriterfilm producerfilm director
- Biography
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Amy Heckerling is an American writer, producer, and director. Heckerling started out her career after graduating from New York University and entering the American Film Institute, making small student films. Heckerling is a recipient of AFI's Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal celebrating her creative talents and artistic achievements. She struggled to break out into big films up until the release of her breakout film Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
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Zal Batmanglij
- Occupations
- film producerexecutive producerscreenwriterfilm directorwriter
- Biography
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Zal Batmanglij is an American film director and screenwriter. He directed and co-wrote the 2011 film Sound of My Voice and the 2013 film The East, both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Netflix series The OA, which debuted in 2016.
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Jack Fisk
- Occupations
- film directorproduction designer
- Biography
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Jack Fisk is an American production designer and director.
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Andrea Arnold
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directortelevision presenteractor
- Biography
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Andrea Patricia Arnold OBE is an English filmmaker and former actress. She won an Academy Award for her short film Wasp in 2005. Her feature films include Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), and American Honey (2016), all of which have won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Mimi Leder
- Occupations
- film directorfilm producertelevision producer
- Biography
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Miriam Leder is an American film and television director and producer; she is noted for her action films and use of special effects. She has directed the films The Peacemaker (1997), Deep Impact (1998), Pay It Forward (2000), and On the Basis of Sex (2018). She was the first female graduate of the AFI Conservatory, in 1973. She has been nominated for ten Emmy Awards, winning two.
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Robert Richardson
- Occupations
- cinematographer
- Biography
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Robert Bridge Richardson, ASC is an American cinematographer. Known for his trademark aggressively bright highlight as well as shapeshifting style, he is one of three living persons who has won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography three times, the others being Vittorio Storaro and Emmanuel Lubezki. He has frequently collaborated with Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese.
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Steve Golin
- Occupations
- film producerproducertelevision producer
- Biography
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Steven Aaron Golin was an American film and television producer and the founder and CEO of Anonymous Content LLP, a multimedia development, production and talent management company and co-founder and CEO of Propaganda Films. Golin graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 1976 and attended the AFI Conservatory. He won Best Picture at the 2016 Academy Awards for Spotlight.
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Rodrigo García Márquez
- Occupations
- theatrical directorscreenwriterfilm directordirectortelevision director
- Biography
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Rodrigo García Barcha is a Colombian and Mexican television and film director, screenwriter, author and former cinematographer, best known for his films Nine Lives (2005), Mother and Child (2009), Albert Nobbs (2011), Last Days in the Desert (2015), as well as his work on the HBO drama series In Treatment. He also created, wrote, and directed the award-winning web series Blue (2012–2015), starring Julia Stiles, for which he won an IAWTV Award in 2014. In 2021 García released his first memoir, A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha.
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John Dahl
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directordirectortelevision director
- Biography
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John Dahl is an American film and television director and writer, best known for his work in the neo-noir genre.
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Carl Franklin
- Occupations
- film actorscreenwritertelevision directortelevision actorfilm director
- Biography
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Carl Franklin is an American filmmaker and former actor. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986.
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Matthew Libatique
- Occupations
- cinematographer
- Biography
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Matthew Libatique is an American cinematographer. He is best known for his collaborations with director Darren Aronofsky on the films Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006), Black Swan (2010), Noah (2014), and Mother! (2017). Libatique has received three Academy Award for Best Cinematography nominations for his work on Black Swan (2010), A Star Is Born (2018), and Maestro (2023).
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Doug Ellin
- Occupations
- film directorshowrunnerfilm producerscreenwriterdirector
- Biography
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Douglas Reed Ellin is an American screenwriter and film and TV director, known best for creating the HBO television series Entourage. Ellin also served as executive producer, director, head writer and supporting actor for the series, and wrote, directed and produced its 2015 film adaptation.
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Frank Spotnitz
- Occupations
- television producerscreenwritertelevision directorfilm producer
- Biography
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Frank Charles Spotnitz is an American television writer and producer. He is best known for his work on the series The X-Files (1995-2002) and its spin-off The Lone Gunmen (2001), and as the developer/creator of The Man in the High Castle (2015-19), Medici (2016-19), Ransom (2017-19), and Leonardo (2021)
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Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
- Occupations
- film produceractortelevision directordirectorfilm director
- Biography
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Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is an American film and television director. He made his directorial film debut with the slasher film The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014). He has since directed the coming of age film Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), and the historical drama The Current War (2017).
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Rachel Morrison
- Occupations
- directortelevision directorcinematographer
- Biography
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Rachel Morrison is an American cinematographer and director. For her work on Mudbound (2017), Morrison became the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. She has twice worked with director Ryan Coogler, as cinematographer on the films Fruitvale Station (2013) and Black Panther (2018). Morrison's feature film directorial debut is the biographical sports drama The Fire Inside (2024).
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Dean Israelite
- Occupations
- writerfilm directorscreenwriter
- Biography
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Dean Israelite is a South African film director, writer, and producer, best known for directing the found footage film Project Almanac (2015), the 2017 reboot of Power Rangers, and the 2019 reboot of Are You Afraid of the Dark.
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Drake Doremus
- Occupations
- film directorscreenwriter
- Biography
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Drake Doremus is an American film director, screenwriter and producer best known for directing the films Like Crazy (2011), which won the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Douchebag (2010), which was in Dramatic competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and Equals (2015).
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Jon Avnet
- Occupations
- film directorfilm producerproducerscreenwriterdirector
- Biography
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Jonathan Michael Avnet is an American director, writer and producer.
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Manny Coto
- Occupations
- television producerscreenwriterfilm directorfilm producer
- Biography
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Manuel Hector Coto (June 10, 1961 – July 9, 2023) was a Cuban-born American screenwriter, television and film director, and producer on various films and television programs.
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Matthew Robbins
- Occupations
- film produceractorscreenwriterdirectorfilm director
- Biography
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Matthew Robbins is an American screenwriter and film director best known for his writing work within the American New Wave movement.
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Julie Dash
- Occupations
- screenwriterwriternovelistfilm director
- Biography
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Julie Ethel Dash is an American filmmaker, music video and commercial director, author, and website producer. Dash received her MFA in 1985 at the UCLA Film School and is one of the graduates and filmmakers known as the L.A. Rebellion. The L.A. Rebellion refers to the first African and African-American students who studied film at UCLA. Through their collective efforts, they sought to put an end to the prejudices of Hollywood by creating experimental and unconventional films. The main goal of these films was to create original Black stories and bring them to the main screens. After Dash had written and directed several shorts, her 1991 feature Daughters of the Dust became the first full-length film directed by an African-American woman to obtain general theatrical release in the United States. In 2004, Daughters of the Dust was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for its "cultural, historical and aesthetic significance". Stemming from the film's success, Dash also released novels of the same title in 1992 and 1999. The film was later a key inspiration for Beyoncé's 2016 album Lemonade.
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Gary Winick
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directorfilm producerfilm editor
- Biography
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Gary Scott Winick was an American filmmaker whose films as a director include Tadpole (2002) and 13 Going on 30 (2004), and who also produced such films as Pieces of April (2003) and November (2004) through his New York City-based independent film production company InDigEnt.
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Marshall Herskovitz
- Enrolled in American Film Institute Conservatory
- Studied in 1975
- Occupations
- television producerscreenwriterfilm directorfilm producer
- Biography
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Marshall Schreiber Herskovitz is an American film director, writer, and producer, and currently the President Emeritus of the Producers Guild of America. Among his productions are Traffic, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, and I Am Sam. Herskovitz has directed two feature films, Jack the Bear and Dangerous Beauty. Herskovitz was a creator and executive producer of the television shows thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, and Once and Again, and also wrote and directed several episodes of all three series.
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Jeffrey Reiner
- Years
- 20th Century
- Occupations
- television producerscreenwritertelevision directorfilm directorfilm editor
- Biography
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Jeffrey Reiner is an American film director, editor, screenwriter, television director, and producer.
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David M. Rosenthal
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directorfilm producer
- Biography
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David Mitchell Rosenthal is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He has directed the films A Single Shot, How It Ends, Janie Jones, and The Perfect Guy, among others.
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Kirby Dick
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directordirectorfilm producer
- Biography
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Kirby Bryan Dick is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best known for directing documentary films. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith (2005) and The Invisible War (2012). He has also received numerous awards from film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival.
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Neal Baer
- Occupations
- screenwritershowrunnertelevision producer
- Biography
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Neal Baer is an American pediatrician and television writer and producer. He is best known for his work on the television shows Designated Survivor, ER and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
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Duke Johnson
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directordirectorfilm producer
- Biography
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Duke Johnson is an American film director who specializes in stop-motion animation. He currently serves as a director and junior partner for Dino Stamatopoulos's animation production studio Starburns Industries in Burbank, California.
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Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
- Occupations
- photographerfilm directordocumentary filmmaker
- Biography
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Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is an American documentary filmmaker and portrait photographer based in New York City. The majority of his work is shot in large format.
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Jennifer Phang
- Occupations
- film producerscreenwriterdirectorfilm directorfilm editor
- Biography
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Jennifer Phang is an American filmmaker (writer, director, producer), most known for her feature films Advantageous (2015) and Half-Life (2008). Advantageous premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning a Special Jury Award for Collaborative Vision, and was based on her award-winning short film of the same name. Half-Life premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won "Best Film" awards at a number of film festivals including the Gen Art Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (now known as CAAMFest) as well an "Emerging Director Award" at the Asian American International Film Festival.
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Maria Ripoll
- Occupations
- film directorscreenwriter
- Biography
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María Ripoll i Julià is a Spanish film director from Barcelona, with an international background and eight feature films to her credit. The success of her film It's Now or Never has placed her as the highest-grossing female film director in Spanish history.
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Susan Johnson
- Occupations
- film directorfilm producermusic video director
- Biography
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Susan Johnson is an American film producer and director, known for directing the 2016 comedy film Carrie Pilby and the 2018 feature To All the Boys I've Loved Before.
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Anku Pande
- Occupations
- television producer
- Biography
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Anku Pande is a film producer from Nainital, Uttarakhand in India.
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Gavin Heffernan
- Occupations
- directorscreenwriterphotographerfilm producerfilm director
- Biography
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Gavin Heffernan is a Canadian filmmaker/screenwriter/photographer.
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Alonso Mayo
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directorfilm producer
- Biography
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Alonso Mayo is a Peruvian film director and screenwriter best known for his independent film The Story of Luke (2012). He has won a Student Academy Award (for Wednesday Afternoon).
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Sandra Espinet
- Years
- 1964-.. (age 61)
- Occupations
- interior designer
- Biography
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Sandra Espinet is a luxury interior designer who resides in and has offices in both San José del Cabo, Mexico and Los Angeles, California.
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David Milhous
- Occupations
- television editortelevision producer
- Biography
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David Milhous is a motion picture editor. He is known best as the editor of Crime Watch Daily, which won the Emmy award for Editing in 2017. Milhous has been elected to membership in the American Cinema Editors (ACE) and has helped shape the curriculum for the first master's degree program in the field of Editing at the New York Film Academy at Universal Studios. He is also a founding member of the American post-punk band Lippy's Garden.
