Film Term Index
Film Clip Index
Home
Faculty Bios
SOA Selects
Send Feedback
Larry Engel received his B.S. from Yale College, M.S. from Pratt Institute, and M.F.A. from Columbia. He is a documentary filmmaker specializing in science and adventure. His work is seen regularly on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and Turner Broadcasting. He has won numerous awards including a Daytime Emmy for cinematography and an AAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism award for television writing. He produces, directs, writes, and shoots most of his own work. In pursuit of stories, he has found himself chasing tornadoes, flying into hurricanes, running from wildfires, rescuing mummies, and dancing with penguins. Having been to all seven continents, Mr. Engel considers Antarctica the best of the lot.
Nancy Friedland received her M.A. from New York University and MLS from Rutgers University. Nancy has been working for Columbia University Libraries since 1995. As the Film Studies Librarian, she is the primary selector for the Butler Media Collection, which was started in 1997, where she selects print and electronic resources related to film, theatre, media, and dance. She manages the Media Center and serves as liaison to the students and faculty in the Film Division. Currently Nancy serves as Executive Secretary to the Theatre Library Association is a member of the American Library Association and teaches a graduate course in humanities reference at Queens College. She is the faculty partner for The Film Language Glossary.
David McKenna earned a B.A. from the University of Texas and an M.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University. Since 1971, he has directed more than 100 productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in regional and university theatres. In addition to writing for off-off-Broadway and radio, he has been co-writing and co-editing projects for Desperate Comfort Films. He has served as a story analyst/consultant for Focus Features, HBO, 20th Century Fox, CBS-Fox Video, New Line, October Films, and numerous private clients. As an acting teacher/coach, he has worked with the NATAS Actors' Workshop, the American Academy, the Yale Dramat, NYU, and the University of South Dakota. He has narrated documentaries for Camera Planet, VH-1, WebMD-TV and Court TV. He has twice adjudicated the American College Theatre Festival and is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and the Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Richard Peña received his M.S. in film and video from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the director of the New York Film Festival. He has taught film history and theory at Harvard University, MIT, University of California (Berkeley), and City University of New York. Peña is the host of "Conversations in World Cinema" on the Sundance Channel, and, in January 2001, he was named Officier of the French Order of Arts and Letters. He is the faculty partner for The Film Language Glossary.
James Schamus, who received his Ph.D. in English from U.C. Berkeley, is a Golden Globe winning and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, producer, and film executive. His long collaboration as writer and producer for Ang Lee has resulted in nine films, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(2000), The Ice Storm(1997), The Wedding Banquet(1993), The Hulk(2003) and Brokeback Mountain(2005). As co-president of Focus Features, Schamus oversees the finance, production, and distribution of numerous films, including 2002's Oscar winner: The Pianist. Schamus has also produced or executive produced many of the most important American independent films of the past decade (among them Safe and The Brothers McMullen), including four Grand Prize winners at the Sundance Film Festival. He is also a widely published film historian and theorist. He was recently named a Nuveen Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago and was a University Lecturer at Columbia.
