Richard Linklater- Director
Writer/Director Richard Linklater is known for his independent-spirited filmmaking and for discovering some of today's most talented actors.
Before SLACKER, an experimental narrative revolving around 24 hours in the lives of 100 characters, garnered acclaim in 1991, Linklater had made many shorts and completed a Super 8 feature, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN TO PLOW BY READING BOOKS (1988). All of his films have been produced under the banner of his company, Detour Filmproduction.
Linklater's additional credits include the '70s cult hit DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993); BEFORE SUNRISE (1995), for which Linklater won the Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear Award for Best Director; SUBURBIA (1997); and most recently, THE NEWTON BOYS (1998), a western/gangster film set in the 1920s. His two fall 2001 releases are WAKING LIFE and TAPE.
Linklater also serves as the Artistic Director for the Austin Film Society, which he founded n 1985 to showcase films from around the world that were not typically shown in Austin. The Film Society shows over 100 films a year and in the last five years has given out $230,000 in grants to Texas filmmakers. In 1999, the Austin Film Society received the first National Honoree Award from the Directors Guild of America in recognition of its support of the arts.
Stephen Belber- Screenwriter
Stephen Belber was most recently part of Tectonic Theater Project's, The Laramie Project, which ran off-broadway for four months following a run at the Denver Theater Center. He was one of three associate writers on the piece, as well as an actor in it. Mr. Belber's play, Tape, was produced at Actor's Theater of Louisville as part of The Humana Festival 2000, after which it was made into a film by director Richard Linklater, starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Robert Sean Leonard. TAPE was recently screened to wide acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. His other full-length plays have been produced by Soho Rep, Via theater, Juilliard, The 78th St. Theater Lab, Lincoln Center Living Room, Expanded Arts, Goldsmith Productions (Beckett Theater), Urban Stages (Playwrights Horizons upstairs, Gable Stage (FL) and Brandeis University (upcoming). His plays have been workshopped and read at York Stage & Film, Second Stage, New York Theater Workshop, Juilliard, and the Chautauqua Institute; and Laramie was worked on at the Sundance Theater Lab and New York Theater Workshop's Dartmouth Residency. A new play, The Transparency of Val, was recently produced by The Trustus Theater, in Columbia, SC. His solo show, Finally, won the Best Playwright's Award for the New York Fringe Festival 2000, and is currently under option for a French production next summer. Stephen has also written the book for the new rock musical, Sugar Mountain, which is to be produced next summer by Via Theater, in New York. Stephen is a graduate of Juilliard's Playwrights Program.
Anne Walker-McBay- Producer
Longtime Linklater collaborator Anne Walker-McBay has produced Richard Linklater's last six films, including DAZED AND CONFUSED, BEFORE SUNRISE, SUBURBIA and THE NEWTON BOYS. She first worked with Linklater on SLACKER, in which she was production manager and casting director.
Gary Winick- Producer
Producer Gary Winick received a B. A. degree in English from Tufts University in 1985 and an M. F. A. degree in Film from both the University of Texas at Austin in 1987 and the American Film Institute in 1990.
Winick's film directing credits include CURFEW (1988), OUT OF THE RAIN (1991), SWEET NOTHING, starring Mira Sorvino and Michael Imperioli and distributed by Warner Brothers (1996), and THE TIC CODE, starring Polly Draper and Gregory Hines and distributed by Lions Gate (2000). He recently completed his first digital feature film, SAM THE MAN, starring Fisher Stevens, Annabella Sciorra, Ron Rifkin, Rob Morrow, Luis Guzman and Maria Bello, which premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival 2000.
Winick has directed plays at the Julliard School and at the Naked Angels Theater Company, working with playwrights Kenneth Lonnergen and Warren Leight. He also teaches at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Winick teamed up with John Sloss and IFC Productions to create Independent Digital Entertainment (InDigEnt), which will oversee the production of ten feature-length films shot in digital video and to be released both theatrically and as a series on the Independent Film Channel.
Prior to Tape, InDigEnt had completed six films: FINAL, directed by Campbell Scott and starring Hope Davis and Denis Leary; CHELSEA WALLS, directed by Ethan Hawke and starring Kris Kristofferson, Steve Zahn and Natasha Richardson; WOMEN IN FILM, directed by Bruce Wagner and starring Beverly D'Angelo, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Portia de Rossi; TEN TINY LOVE STORIES, directed by Rodrigo Gharcia and starring Radha Mitchell, Elizabeth Pena and Deborah Unger; and TADPOLE, starring Sigourney Weaver, Bebe Neuwirth and John Ritter.
Alexis Alexanian- Producer
Producer Alexis Alexanian graduated Northwestern University School of Speech in 1985. She spent a year at Scali, McCabe, Sloves Advertising and worked in commercial music production before launching her film career in 1987.
Alexanian has worked as a production coordinator and production supervisor on such notable films as MISSISSIPPI BURNING, JACOB'S LADDER, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, THE HARD WAY, BILLY BATHGATE, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, GUARDING TESS, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU, BED OF ROSES and STRIPTEASE, among others.
As an independent producer, Alexanian has several feature projects in development under her banner Elixir Films. She met Gary Winick in 1999 when they teamed up to produce digital features for InDigEnt.
