2008 Mike Medavoy
Robin Saban, Founder and President of the International Student Film Festival Hollywood (ISFFH) is pleased to announce Mike Medavoy as the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented at the 6th annual International Student Film Festival Hollywood Awards Ceremony on Sunday, November 9, 2008 at Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn in the NoHo Arts District of North Hollywood.
Dreams do come true, Mike Medavoy is living proof. He is an inspiration to the next generation of filmmakers and us all. The ISFFH Lifetime Achievement Award was established to honor a single honoree based on the recipient’s active career.
Medavoy began his career at Universal Studios in 1964. He rose from the mailroom to become a casting director. In 1965, he became an agent at General Artist Corporation and then vice-president at Creative Management Agency. Joining International Famous Agency as vice-president in charge of the motion picture department in 1971, he worked with such prestigious clients as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Gene Wilder, Jeanne Moreau, and Jean-Louis Trintignant among others. United Artists brought him in as senior vice president of production in 1974 where he was part of the team responsible for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “Rocky”,and “Annie Hall”, all of which won the Best Picture Oscars over three successive years in 1975, 1976, and 1977. Other notable pictures included “Apocalypse Now”, “Raging Bull”, “Network”, and “Coming Home”.
In 1978 Medavoy co-founded Orion Pictures. During his tenure “Platoon”, “Amadeus”, “Robocop”, “Hannah and Her Sisters”, “The Terminator”, “Dances with Wolves”,and “Silence of the Lambs” were released. In 1990, after twelve fruitful years at Orion, Medavoy became Chairman of TriStar Pictures. Under his aegis, critically acclaimed, box office successes, “Philadelphia”, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (with Carolco), “Sleepless in Seattle”, “Cliffhanger” (with Carolco), “The Fisher King”, “Legends of the Fall” and Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” debuted. Of all the films Medavoy has been involved with, sixteen have been nominated for Best Picture Oscars and seven have won Best Picture Academy Awards and numerous international festival awards.
Today, as chairman and co-founder of Phoenix Pictures, Mike Medavoy has amongst other films brought to the screen “The People vs. Larry Flynt”, “The Mirror Has Two Faces”, “U-Turn”, “Apt Pupil”, “ The Thin Red Line”, “The Sixth Day”, “Basic” and “Holes.” These films have received many nominations and won two Golden Bears at the Berlin Film Festival and five Golden Satellite Awards, a cinematography award for John Toll from the ASC and nominations from the DGA and WGA for Terrence Malick. Two of his films, “The Thin Red Line” and “The People vs. Larry Flint”, a Milos Forman movie received Academy nominations.
Recently Phoenix also released, among others, “All The King’s Men” (starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins and Mark Ruffalo, written and directed by Steven Zaillian), “Zodiac” (starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, directed by David Fincher). “Miss Potter” (starring Rene Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, directed by Chris Noonan). “Pathfinder” (starring Karl Urban, directed by Marcus Nispel)and has started production on both “Shutter Island,” a film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo Di Caprio and “Shanghai,” starring John Cusack.
In 2002, Simon & Schuster published Mr. Medavoy’s best-selling book, “You’re Only As Good As Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films and 100 For Which I Should Be Shot” – which was subsequently released in paperback in 2003. Mike is also currently working on a book regarding the impact of media on U.S. Foreign Policy together with co-author Nathan Gardel, editor of the National Political Quarterly.
Medavoy has made a mark not only within his industry, but in his community as well, earning numerous awards. He has served on many boards and is one of the original founding members of the Board of Governors of the Sundance Institute (1978) and is chairman emeritus of the American Cinematheque and the Stella Adler Actors Studio. In addition, he was also inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received a star on Hollywood Boulevard (2005).
Throughout his career Mike Medavoy has also been active in politics; he actively participated in President Clinton’s election campaigns in 1992 and 1996. In 2002, Governor Gray Davis appointed Mike to the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center’s Executive Advisory Board.
Mike was born in Shanghai, China in 1941 of Russian-Jewish parents, and lived in Chile from 1947 to 1957. At UCLA he was in the honors program and is involved with a number of organizations. He is married to Irena Medavoy, who is a founder of Team Safe-T and the Industry Task Force, as a charity executive and fundraiser. She is also a national finance chair for Senator Obama. Mike Medavoy has two sons, Brian and Nicholas, and resides in Beverly Hills, California.
Hollywood is the capital city of the entertainment world. The ISFFH offers student filmmakers from all over the world a unique opportunity to gain the recognition of film industry leaders. It is a forum for student filmmakers to showcase their independent films in Hollywood. This event at the epicenter of the film industry puts these students face to face with working Directors, Producers, and other industry professionals throughout the event, giving them the invaluable opportunity to promote themselves and their films.
After years of work in film and theater and passionate about the opportunity to offer student filmmakers well-deserved recognition for their talents, entertainment industry veteran, Robin Saban founded the International Student Film Festival Hollywood , focused solely on students in September of 2003.
This year the winner of Best Comedy will receive a paid distribution deal from Fun Little Movies giving their film a worldwide audience on mobile devices. www.funlittlemovies.com.
For more information about the ISFFH or to purchase your Festival tickets, please visit our website http://www.isffhollywood.org
The ISFFH is sponsored by American Building Supply, Wells Fargo, CRA/LA, CisCorp, Saban Enterprises, A Matter of Pixels, Creative Handbook, Production Hub, Discmakers, Turkla.com, RobinSaban.com, CaliforniaExploration.com, Marilyn Bradbury, Turkish Journal, Fun Little Movies, and NoHoArtsDistrict.com.