Sean Cross
| Sean Cross | |
|---|---|
| Born | Cape Town, South Africa |
| Residence | New York City |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | filmmaker, producer, actor, writer, and founder of Vail Film Festival. |
Sean Cross is an American filmmaker, producer, actor, writer, and founder of Vail Film Festival.
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[edit] Background
Sean was born in Cape Town, South Africa and raised in New York. He pursued undergraduate studies in Sociology at the University of Richmond and graduate studies in film at New York University. He currently divides his time between New York City and Vail, Colorado.
Sean's father is world renowned surgeon Dr. Johan Naude, former president of the South African Urological Association and a pioneering transplant surgeon who worked closely with legendary heart transplant surgeon Christian Barnard.[1] 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.[2] Dr. Naude is the only South African elected to honorary membership of the British Association of Urological Surgeons.[3] Sean'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.[4] Sean's grandfather is acclaimed South African author 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.[5] Sean is the brother of Scott Cross, and co-founder of the Colorado Film Institute and Vail Film Festival.
[edit] Career
Sean is a filmmaker and entrepreneur who has spent almost a decade working in film. In 2003, Sean co-founded the Colorado Film Institute and the Vail Film Festival with his brother Scott Cross 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 2006, Sean spearheaded the Vail Film Festival's 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.
Sean's roots in South Africa and his interest in the AIDS epidemic (His mother, Dr. Landau, is a leading expert on AIDS, and author of "AIDS, Health and Mental Health")[6] led to his involvement with Product RED. In 2007 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 worldwide film competition, the RED Vision Contest, whereby filmmakers submitted positive, inspiring films. The winning films were screened at the festival. The Vail Film Festival donated 25% of Avanti pass sales to the Global Fund.
Sean helped grow the Vail Film Festival into a major national film festival, recognized in 2007 as "One of the top ten destination film festivals in the world".[7]
The Vail Film Festival has screened groundbreaking independent and studio films, including Before Sunset, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Snow Cake, The Wendell Baker Story and recognized some of the film industry's most talented actors and filmmakers, including Edward R. Pressman, Harold Ramis, Luke Wilson, Kevin Smith, Michelle Monaghan, Tim Daly, Jeremy Davies, Olivia Wilde, Jesse Eisenberg, Sophia Bush, and Adrian Grenier.
Sean co-founded Cross Hollar in 2007 with Scott Cross and Troy Hollar, a commercial, film, and new media production company. Cross Hollar produces a range of projects, from film to new media, from webisodes to digital shorts. Sean's production credits include a video interview with renowned broadcaster Walter Cronkite.
[edit] References
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This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2009) |
- ^ http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:MmVumFskczgJ:www.urosa.co.za/images/MakingtheCut.pdf+dr.+johan+naude+christian+barnard&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
- ^ http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:XZtv0whGnmMJ:ajol.info/index.php/sajs/article/view/34348/6288+johannes+naude+surgeon+south+africa&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
- ^ http://www.netcare.co.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=249
- ^ http://www.linkinghumansystems.com/staff_jlandau.html 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.
- ^ http://www.linkinghumansystems.com/staff_jlandau.html
- ^ http://www.moviemaker.com/magazine/toc/spring_2007/ MovieMaker Magazine Issue #68, Spring 2007
