James Schamus

James Allan Schamus born September 7 1959 is an American screenwriter producer business executive film historian professor and director He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee the cofounder of the production company Good Machine and the cofounder and former CEO of motion picture production financing and worldwide distribution company Focus Features a subsidiary of NBCUniversal He is currently president of the New Yorkbased production company Symbolic Exchange and is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University where he has taught film history and theory since 1989 Schamus was born in Detroit Michigan to a Jewish familyHe is the son of Clarita Gershowitz Karlin and Julian John Schamus and was raised in Los Angeles He is married to writer Nancy Kricorian with whom he has two children His output includes writing or cowriting The Ice Storm Eat Drink Man Woman Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hulk all directed by Ang Lee and producing Brokeback Mountain and Alone in Berlin At Focus he oversaw the production and distribution of Lost in Translation Milk Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Coraline and The Kids Are All Right In addition to his tenure at Columbia University he has also taught at Yale University and at Rutgers University He is the author of Carl Theodor Dreyers Gertrud The Moving Word published by the University of Washington Press He earned his BA MA and PhD in English from the University of California Berkeley Schamus made his feature directorial debut with Indignation an adaptation of Philip Roths novel of the same name Schamus also wrote the script for the film which stars Logan Lerman Sarah Gadon and Tracy Letts and is the story of a Jewish student at an Ohio college in 1951 The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was theatrically released by Roadside Attractions on July 29 2016 He was president of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival He has also been on the jury of the New York International Childrens Film Festival and has served on the editorial boards of Film Quarterly and Cinema Journal as well as on the board of Creative Capital and the Heyman Centre for the Humanities Description above from the Wikipedia article Stephen Rosenbaum licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia