Stone Highlights

Academy Award winner Robert De Niro and Oscar® nominee Edward Norton deliver powerful performances as a seasoned corrections official and a scheming inmate whose lives become dangerously intertwined in Stone, a thought-provoking drama directed by John Curran (The Painted Veil, We Don’t Live Here Anymore) and written by Angus McLachlan (Junebug).

Edward Norton is an American actor, screen writer, and director. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Support Actor. Two years later, his lead role in American History X earned a nomination for Best Actor.

His other films include period dramas such as Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Illusionist (2006), and The Painted Veil (2006); and other notable films such as Rounders (1998), Fight Club (1999), 25th Hour (2002), Red Dragon (2002), and The Incredible Hulk (2008).

In addition to acting, Norton is also a writer and director. He made his directorial debut with the film Keeping the Faith (2000) and is slated to direct the film adaptation of the novel Motherless Brooklyn. Norton did uncredited work on the scripts for The Score, Frida, and The Incredible Hulk.

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Waiting for Superman

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim reminds us that education “statistics” have names: Anthony, Francisco, Bianca, Daisy, and Emily, whose stories make up the engrossing foundation of WAITING FOR SUPERMAN.

As he follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying “drop-out factories” and “academic sinkholes,” methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems.

However, embracing the belief that good teachers make good schools, and ultimately questioning the role of unions in maintaining the status quo, Guggenheim offers hope by exploring innovative approaches taken by education reformers and charter schools that have—in reshaping the culture—refused to leave their students behind.”

Davis Guggenheim

Davis Guggenheim is an American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries The First Year and Teach. He directed and produced An Inconvenient Truth, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.His most recent feature film is Gracie.

His 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, about the failures of American public education, received the Audience Award for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Its public release will be in October 2010.

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Jack Goes Boating

Jack Goes Boating is a tale of love, betrayal, friendship and grace centered around two working-class New York City couples. The film stars John Ortiz (American Gangster), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Broadway’s "Rent"), Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), with Hoffman making his feature directorial debut. Bob Glaudini ("A View From 151st Street") adapted his acclaimed Off Broadway play for the screen.

Amy Ryan is is an American actress. She has been nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Gone Baby Gone (2007). After being voted Best Supporting Actress for Gone Baby Gone by the National Board of Review as well as the critics circles in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, DC, Ryan's performance was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting role at the 80th Academy Awards.

Ryan appeared in Changeling (2008), directed by Clint Eastwood, and opposite Matt Damon in Paul Greengrass's Green Zone (2010). She recently completed a role in Philip Seymour Hoffman's directorial film debut, Jack Goes Boating.

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Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

Director, screenwriter and producer Zack Snyder studied art at London’s Heatherley’s School and refined his talent at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, (where his classmates included Michael Bay and Tarsem Singh). Snyder began his career as an award-wining director of commercials and music videos before making his feature film directorial debut in 2004 with the horror thriller Dawn of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead earned him widespread acclaim and paved the way for his 2007 box office hit, 300. Snyder adapted 300 from writer-artist Frank Miller's Dark Horse Comics miniseries of the same name and the film was praised for its’ groundbreaking blend of live action and computer-generated imagery.

He and wife Deborah Snyder formed their own production company, Cruel and Unusual Films, which recently signed a two-year overall production deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. In addition to producing the upcoming adaptation of Watchmen, the drama The Last Photograph and the fantasy-adventure Sucker Punch, Cruel and Unusual Films is producing 2010’s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.

The family-friendly fantasy film is Snyder’s first animated feature. Based on the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books by Kathryn Lasky, it tells the story of Soren, a young owl enchanted by his father’s stories of a mythic group of owl warriors who battle the evil Pure Ones to save all of owlkind. However, jealousy and tension between Soren and his brother, Kludd, cause a chain of events that lead to both owls having to make a grand escape from entrapment by Pure Ones.

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