Scott Cross (film director)
| Scott Cross (film director) | |
|---|---|
| Born | Cape Town, South Africa |
| Residence | New York City |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | film director, producer, actor, writer, and Vail Film Festival founder |
Scott Cross is an American film director, producer, actor, and writer, and founder of the Vail Film Festival, one of the top ten destination film festivals in the world, according to MovieMaker magazine.[1]
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[edit] Background
Scott was born in Cape Town, South Africa and raised in New York. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Anthropology. Scott has lived in Cape Town, South Africa, Los Angeles, California, New York City and Granada, Spain. He currently divides his time between New York City and Vail, Colorado.
[edit] Family
He is the son of world renowned surgeon Dr. Johan Naude, member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, former president of the South African Urological Association and a pioneering transplant surgeon who worked closely with legendary heart transplant surgeon Christian Barnard.[2][specify] Dr. Naude is a staunch advocate of racial equality, and during the apartheid era, became the first Urology department head at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, now Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, the first medical school in South Africa open to all races.[3] Dr. Naude is the only South African ever elected to honorary membership of the British Association of Urological Surgeons.[4] Scott's mother is pioneering family therapist Dr. Judith Landau, founder of Link therapy and president of the International Family Therapy Association. Dr. Landau is Senior Consultant to the International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University, and a former Fulbright Scholar.[5] Scott's grandfather is acclaimed South African author and playwright Johannes H. Naude, and his great-grandfather is Judah Landau, former head rabbi of South Africa, leading rabbinical author and scholar, and a vocal advocate for race and class equality in pre-apartheid South Africa.[6] Scott is the brother of Sean Cross, film director and Vail Film Festival co-founder.
[edit] Career
In 2003, Scott co-founded the Colorado Film Institute and the Vail Film Festival to serve as a platform to educate aspiring filmmakers, showcase unique artistic visions, and to ensure that powerful, creative independent films are seen by the movie-going public.
In 2005, Scott helped bring LA's acclaimed Hotel Cafe, one of the music industry's premier venues for singer/songwriters, to the Vail Film Festival, a partnership that continues to this day. Hotel Cafe musicians include Ingrid Michaelson, Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers, Josh Radin, Joe Purdy, Buddy, Jay Nash, Laura Jansen, Holly Conlan, Meiko, and more.
In 2006, Scott spearheaded the Vail Film Festival partnership with Film Your Issue, a national issue film contest, in partnership with the American Democracy Project (AASCU initiative), featuring 30 to 60-second films. Thirty-five semi-finalists were named by the competition, and five winners were selected through a combination of a jury including Walter Cronkite, Brian Williams, then Senator Barack Obama, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and others. The winning films from the Film Your Issue contest were screened at the Vail Film Festival.
In 2007, Scott initiated and oversaw a partnership between the Vail Film Festival and Product Red. The Vail Film Festival became the only film festival to partner with Bono and Bobby Shriver's Product Red, an initiative to raise money for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa. Together, Product Red and the Vail Film Festival launched the RED Vision Contest, a worldwide film competition created by Scott. The winning films were screened at the Vail Film Festival. The Vail Film Festival donated 25% of pass sales to the Global Fund.
By 2007 Scott and his brother Sean Cross had grown the Vail Film Festival to become one of the top ten destination film festivals in the world, according to MovieMaker Magazine.[1]
The Vail Film Festival has screened groundbreaking independent and studio films, including Before Sunset, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Snow Cake, The Wendell Baker Story, House of D, the directorial debut of David Duchovny, and recognized some of the film industry's most talented actors and filmmakers, including legendary producer Edward Pressman (Wall Street, Reversal of Fortune, Hoffa, American Psycho, Bad Lieutenant, Thank You For Smoking, Fur), comedy icon Harold Ramis, (Stripes, Caddyshack, Animal House, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day), Luke Wilson, Kevin Smith, Michelle Monaghan, Tim Daly, Jeremy Davies, Olivia Wilde, Hayden Panettiere, Jesse Eisenberg, Sophia Bush, and Adrian Grenier.
Scott co-founded Cross Hollar Films, a commercial and new media production company, in 2007 with Sean Cross and Troy Hollar. Cross Hollar Films produces a range of new media, from Webisodes to digital shorts. Scott's production credits include one of the last video interviews with renowned broadcaster Walter Cronkite.
[edit] References
- ^ a b [1]
- ^ "Making the Cut in South Africa: A Medico-political Journey" (PDF). http://www.urosa.co.za/images/MakingtheCut.pdf.
- ^ "History of the Department of Surgery, Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal" (PDF). http://ajol.info/index.php/sajs/article/viewFile/34348/6288.
- ^ [2]
- ^ Linking Human Systems
- ^ Gilman, Sander L.; Shain, Milton (1999). Jewries at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp. 266–267. ISBN 0-252-06792-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=FhXZHOmcrlYC&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad&pg=PA266.
