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Cal Performances Presents About the Artists

Monday, 16, 2009, 8pm -born is one of the world’s most Mr. Lee moved to the in 1978. Zellerbach Hall revered and honored film directors. He was won After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre two (in 2006, for his Direction of from the University of Illinois, he went to New , and in 2001, for Best Foreign- York University to complete an MFA in film Language Film for Crouching Tiger, Hidden production. His short film Fine Line won Best Dragon). His films have twice won the prestigious Director and Best Film awards at the annual NYU Ang Lee & Award for Best Picture at the Film Festival. International Film Festival (in 2007, for Lust, His first feature film, Pushing Hands, was Caution, and in 2005, for Brokeback Mountain) screened at the 1992 International Film and twice won the for Best Film at Festival and won Best Film at the Asian-Pacific the Berlin International Film Festival (in 1993, for Film Festival. The film was also nominated for and in 1996, for Sense and nine Golden Horse Awards (Taiwan’s equivalent of Sensibility). His most recent film, Lust, Caution, the Academy Award). swept Asia’s Golden Horse Awards this year, with Pushing Hands was also the first film in his eight wins, including Best Film; it is one of the “Father Knows Best” trilogy, all of which starred highest grossing, most critically acclaimed films in actor . The next film in the trilogy, the history of Chinese-language cinema. The Wedding Banquet, opened following its Berlin Brokeback Mountain won two additional premiere and prize to international acclaim. The Academy Awards—Best Adapted Screenplay film was nominated for the Academy Award (Larry McMurtry and ) and Best and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign- Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla)—and was Language Film, and received six Independent nominated for five more, including Best Picture. Award nominations. Mr. Lee also won the Directors Guild of America, Mr. Lee capped the trilogy with Eat Drink Man BAFTA, Independent Spirit and Golden Globe Woman, which was selected as the opening night Awards for Best Director, among other industry feature for the Directors Fortnight section of the accolades. The film won three additional Golden 1994 Cannes International Film Festival. Named Globe Awards, including Best Picture [Drama]; Best Foreign-Language Film by the National Spirit Award for Best Feature; Board of Review, the film was nominated for the three additional BAFTA Awards, including Best Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award Film; and the Golden Lion Award, for Best Picture, for Best Foreign-Language Film, and received six at the 2005 Venice International Film Festival, Independent Spirit Award nominations. among awards all over the world. In 1995, he directed , star- Chan Kam Chuen Additionally, Mr. Lee and the film’s star ring and . The were honored with the Human film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, Rights Campaign Equality Award; and Brokeback including Best Picture, and won for Best Adapted Mountain was named Outstanding Film [Wide Screenplay (Emma Thompson, from the Jane Release] by the & Lesbian Alliance Against Austen novel). Sense and Sensibility also won Defamation’s (GLAAD) Media Awards. Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture [Drama] Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, based on and Best Screenplay; and was named Best Picture a novel by Du Lu Wang, won three additional by BAFTA, the Boston Society of Film Critics and Academy Awards—Best Cinematography (Peter the National Board of Review. Mr. Lee was cited as Pau), Best Original Score (Tan Dun) and Best Art Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, Direction/Set Decoration (Tim Yip)—and was the National Board of Review and the Boston Presented in association with the of Letters & Sciences’ On the Same Page program. nominated for six more, including Best Picture and Society of Film Critics. Best Director. Mr. Lee won the Directors Guild of Mr. Lee next directed The Ice Storm, adapted America, BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards for by James Schamus from Rick Moody’s novel Cal Performances’ 2008–2009 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank. Best Director, among other honors. and starring , Kevin Kline, Sigourney

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Weaver, and . The production company , which he produced. That film won the Golden Lion Award AutoFocus, Gregor Jordan’s Buffalo Soldiers, Todd film premiered at the 1997 Cannes International co-founded in 1991. Mr. Schamus and his part- for Best Picture at the 2007 Venice International Solondz’s Happiness, Bart Freundlich’s The Myth Film Festival (where it won the Best Screenplay ners at the company produced over 40 films dur- Film Festival. Lust, Caution recently won eight of Fingerprints, Cindy Sherman’s Office Killer, award), and was selected as the opening night fea- ing an 11-year period, in partnership with such Golden Horse Awards (Asia’s equivalent of the ’s and Todd ture for the 1997 New York Film Festival. For her filmmakers as Ang Lee, Todd Solondz and Nicole Academy Award), including Best Film and Best Haynes’s Safe. performance in the film, won a Holofcener. Through its financing and distribution Director; and was nominated for three Independent He currently serves on the board of directors BAFTA Award and was nominated for a Golden arm, Good Machine International, the company Spirit Awards, including Best Actor (Tony Leung) of Creative Capital. He was the 2006 Presidential Globe Award, for Best Supporting Actress. represented dozens more filmmakers, among them and Best Actress (Tang Wei). Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Mr. Lee’s subsequent films were Ride with the Pedro Almodóvar and the . Good Mr. Schamus executive-produced several Good Chicago, and received his Ph.D. in English from Devil (adapted by James Schamus from Daniel Machine was recently honored with a 10-year ret- Machine features that won the Grand Jury Prize UC Berkeley in 2003. Woodrell’s novel, and reteaming the director rospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New at the , including Edward Mr. Schamus was honored with the NBC with actor Tobey Maguire); Crouching Tiger, York City. Burns’s The Brothers McMullen, Tom Noonan’s Tribute at the 2002 Nantucket Hidden Dragon; the box-office hit The Hulk Mr. Schamus received Academy Award nomi- What Happened Was… and Todd Haynes’s Film Festival as well as with the Writers Guild of (starring Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly); and nations in the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Poison. Among the other films that he executive- America, East’s 2003 Richard B. Jablow Award for Brokeback Mountain. Original Song categories for his work on Ang Lee’s produced at Good Machine are ’s devoted service to the Guild. His most recent film, in release worldwide Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The blockbust- through , is Lust, Caution. In ad- er Good Machine feature, which Mr. Schamus dition to the Venice prize, the film’s other honors co-wrote and executive-produced, won four have included Independent Spirit Award nomina- Academy Awards. tions for lead actors Tony Leung and Tang Wei; Mr. Schamus has had a long collaboration as Ms. Tang also earned a BAFTA Award nomina- writer and producer with Ang Lee on 10 feature tion, as did the film itself in the Foreign-Language films, with the director’sBrokeback Mountain, star- Film category, from both the BAFTA and Golden ring and Jake Gyllenhaal, released Globe Awards. worldwide through Focus Features. The film is Focus’s all-time top-grosser, with global ticket James Schamus is Chief Executive Officer sales of over $180 million. Brokeback Mountain, of Focus Features and Professor in Columbia on which Mr. Schamus served as a producer, won, University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches among other honors, three Academy Awards; four film history and theory. He is a Golden Globe Golden Globe Awards; four BAFTA Awards; and Award-winner and multiple Academy Award the Producers Guild of America’s top prize, the nominee for his screenwriting and songwriting [Darryl F. Zanuck] Producer of the Year Award, (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and producing Theatrical Motion Pictures. (Brokeback Mountain); among his other honors, he Messrs. Lee and Schamus’s earlier films to- was awarded the prize for Best Screenplay at the gether include The Hulk (which Mr. Schamus 1997 Cannes International Film Festival for The wrote and produced); Ride with the Devil (which Ice Storm. Mr. Schamus produced and adapted); The Ice An integral contributor to the American in- Storm (which Mr. Schamus produced and adapted, dependent film business for over two decades, earning him WGA and BAFTA Award nomina- Mr. Schamus has the unique distinction of be- tions in addition to the Cannes prize); Sense and ing an award-winning screenwriter and producer Sensibility (which Mr. Schamus co-produced); Eat who is also a film executive. Focus, formed in May Drink Man Woman (which Mr. Schamus co-wrote 2002, is a motion picture production, financing and associate-produced); The Wedding Banquet and worldwide distribution company committed (which Mr. Schamus co-wrote and produced); and to bringing moviegoers the most original stories Pushing Hands (which Mr. Schamus produced). from the world’s most innovative filmmakers. The duo most recently reteamed on Focus’s Prior to the formation of Focus, Mr. Schamus current worldwide release Lust, Caution, which was co-president of the Mr. Lee directed and Mr. Schamus co-wrote and

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