Episode 43: Jeremy Kagan: Movies Making Change

In this episode we visit with storied Hollywood director Jeremy Kagan, whose career has proved that yes, the power of story on the big screen, the small screen, and the community screen can be both entertaining and help change hearts and minds for the better.

Jeremy Kagan is a director/writer/producer of feature films and television. His credits include the box-office hits Heroes (1977), The Big Fix (1978) and The Chosen (1981). His The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) was the first US film to win a Gold Prize at the Moscow Film Festival. Other directing credits include Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987) (winning the ACE Award for Best Dramatic Special) and Roswell (1994), which he produced and directed and which was nominated for a Golden Globe. In 1996, his episode of Chicago Hope (1994) won him an Emmy for Outstanding Direction of a Dramatic Series. One of his segments of Picket Fences (1992) was listed by TV critics among the top 100 television episodes. His recent work includes en episode of Steven Spielberg's Emmy-winning anthology _"Taken" (2002/I) (mini)_ and numerous episodes of such hit series as The West Wing (1999) and The Guardian (2001). 

His Bobbie's Girl (2002) was the highest rated film on Showtime 2003 and his movie Crown Heights (2004), which he produced and directed, won the Humanitas Award for "affirming the dignity" of every person and was nominated for a Directors Guild Award in 2004. Mr. Kagan is a graduate of Harvard University, where he wrote his thesis on Sergei M. Eisenstein, has a Masters from NYU and was in the first group of Fellows at the American Film Institute. He is a tenured full professor at USC, where he is in charge of the directing track, and has served as the Artistic Director of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute. He is on the National Board of the Directors Guild and is Chairperson of its Special Projects Committee and author of the book "Directors Close Up" and was presented the 2004 Robert Aldrich Award for "extraordinary service to the guild.”

In this episode we visit with storied Hollywood director Jeremy Kagan, whose career has proved that yes, the power of story on the big screen, the small screen, and the community screen can be both entertaining and help change hearts and minds for the better.

Jeremy Kagan is a director/writer/producer of feature films and television. His credits include the box-office hits Heroes (1977), The Big Fix (1978) and The Chosen (1981). His The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) was the first US film to win a Gold Prize at the Moscow Film Festival. Other directing credits include Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987) (winning the ACE Award for Best Dramatic Special) and Roswell (1994), which he produced and directed and which was nominated for a Golden Globe. In 1996, his episode of Chicago Hope (1994) won him an Emmy for Outstanding Direction of a Dramatic Series. One of his segments of Picket Fences (1992) was listed by TV critics among the top 100 television episodes. His recent work includes en episode of Steven Spielberg's Emmy-winning anthology _"Taken" (2002/I) (mini)_ and numerous episodes of such hit series as The West Wing (1999) and The Guardian (2001). 

His Bobbie's Girl (2002) was the highest rated film on Showtime 2003 and his movie Crown Heights (2004), which he produced and directed, won the Humanitas Award for "affirming the dignity" of every person and was nominated for a Directors Guild Award in 2004. Mr. Kagan is a graduate of Harvard University, where he wrote his thesis on Sergei M. Eisenstein, has a Masters from NYU and was in the first group of Fellows at the American Film Institute. He is a tenured full professor at USC, where he is in charge of the directing track, and has served as the Artistic Director of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute. He is on the National Board of the Directors Guild and is Chairperson of its Special Projects Committee and author of the book "Directors Close Up" and was presented the 2004 Robert Aldrich Award for "extraordinary service to the guild.”

The Hays Code: The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. 

ACLU Freedom Files: The Freedom Files, Directed by Jeremy Kagan that premiered in 2005 with a 10-part television series featuring real clients and the attorneys who represent them, as well as well-known activists, actors and comedians Lewis Black, Margaret Cho, Richard Belzer, Harry Shearer, Judy Gold and Noah Wyle. The Premiere Season episodes include Beyond the Patriot Act, Dissent, Drug Wars, Racial Profiling, Gay & Lesbian Rights and more.  

 Change-making Media Lab: The mission of The Change Making Media Lab (CMML) is to foster positive social and environmental change by producing strategic high-impact cinema, television, multi-media visual imagery to inspire individuals, organizations, and communities into action. CMML also promotes research on effective media techniques and helping engaged community members leverage the power of the cinematic arts to achieve health, sustainability, and social justice.  

Miguel Sabido, Entertainment Education: is a producer, writer, researcher, and theorist, known for pioneering Entertainment-Education, developing the "Theory of the Tone", and producing a number of commercially successful telenovelas for Televisa in the 1970s.[1]  

Charles Perrault: Writing in seventeenth-century France during the reign of King Louis XIV, Perrault is best remembered as the creator of the modern fairy tale. His greatest legacy is his collection Histoires, ou Contes du temps passé, avec des moralitez, (1697; Histories or Tales of Past Times; also published as Fairy Tales or Histories of Past Times, with Morals,) which contains some of the most enduring and widely recognized stories in all of Western literature, including "La Belle au bois dormant" ("Sleeping Beauty in the Woods"), "Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre" ("Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper"), "Le Maître chat ou le chat botté" ("The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots"), and "Le Petit chaperon rouge" ("Little Red Riding Hood"), among others. 

Yurek Bogievic is a Polish film director, screenwriter, actor and producer. He directed, among others, Anna (1987),[1] Three of Hearts (1993) and Exit in Red (1996).

Bobby Seale: is an American political activist and author. In 1966, he co-founded the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton.[2] Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", the Party's main practice was monitoring police activities and challenging police brutality in Black communities, first in Oakland, California, and later in cities throughout the United States.[3]

Seale was one of the Chicago Eight charged by the US federal government with conspiracy charges related to anti-Vietnam War protests in Chicago, Illinois, during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. In that trial, Seale was infamously ordered by the judge, Julius Hoffman, to appear in court bound and gagged. More than a month into trial, Seale's case was severed from the other defendants, turning the "Chicago Eight" into the "Chicago Seven." After his case was severed, the government declined to retry him on the conspiracy charges. Though he was never convicted in the case, Seale was sentenced by Judge Hoffman to four years for criminal contempt of court. The contempt sentence was reversed on appeal.[4]

National Institute of Health: is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1880s and is now part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. 

Josefina Lopez, Real Women Have Curves: (Writer/Director/ Producer/Performer) is best known for authoring the play and co-authoring the 2002 SUNDANCE AWARD WINNING film Real Women Have Curves. Josefina started her writing career at 17 and has had over 100 productions of her many plays throughout the country. Josefina has been working as a professional screenwriter in Hollywood for almost 30 years with countless development deals and screenplay assignments. She has worked with many established Producers like Norman Lear (All In the Family) and Michael McDonald (American Crime) to bring Latinos to television. Born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico in 1969, Josefina Lopez was five years old when she and her family migrated to the United States and settled in the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Josefina was undocumented for thirteen years before she received Amnesty in 1987 and eventually became a U.S. Citizen in 1995.

USC, Media for Social Change : is a not-for-profit organization focused exclusively on promoting the use of media for positive social change through the provision of scholarships, education and research to present and future media content creators. MISC is based at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.

Chernobyl  is a 2019 historical drama television miniseries that revolves around the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 and the cleanup efforts that followed. The series was created and written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck. It features an ensemble cast led by Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Emily Watson and Paul Ritter. The series was produced by HBO in the United States and Sky UK in the United Kingdom.