Episode 44 Jeremy Kagan - Movies Making Change, ACT 2

In our second episode featuring Jeremy Kagan, we discuss the matter of trust in social impact art-making, and in the community writ large, particularly these days. We also talk about these issues as they relate to Jeremy's film Crown Heights, which deals with the violence and hatred that erupted between the black and the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic communities in Brooklyn in 1991.

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 

In our second episode featuring Jeremy Kagan, we discuss the matter of trust in social impact art-making, and in the community writ large, particularly these days. We also talk about these issues as they relate to Jeremy's film Crown Heights, which deals with the violence and hatred that erupted between the black and the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic communities in Brooklyn in 1991.

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.”

Crown Heights, Movie:  (Story) After the Crown Heights riots, an orthodox Rabbi and a community activist help two youths--one a Hasidic Jew, the other African-American--form a hip-hop group to heal their neighborhood. 

Gavin Cato: Riots between Crown Heights’ Jewish and black communities erupted on Aug. 19, 1991 after two black children were hit by a station wagon that was part of a motorcade for a Jewish rabbi. Gavin Cato, 7, died instantly, and his 7-year-old cousin, Angela Cato, was severely injured. 

Aaron Zigman: is an award-winning composer who has scored more than 60 major Hollywood films and influenced other musicians and songwriters. His deep classical roots combined with his background in writing and producing songs for many of music's greatest performers (Aretha Franklin, John Legend, Christina Aguilera, Phil Collins, Seal, Natalie Cole and more) Dr. Last, the Cure, 

Charlie Chaplin: was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian Era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.

David Orr. is an environmental studies and politics professor. He is a well known environmentalist and is active in many areas of environmental studies, including environmental education and ecological design. He has been a trustee of many organizations and foundations including the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.[1]

National Institutes of Health: A part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIH is the largest biomedical research agency in the world.

USC 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. The Change-Making Media Center, is a newly established addition to USC’s change making media program. 

Story Center creates spaces for listening to and sharing stories, to help build a just and healthy world. Our public and custom workshops provide individuals and organizations with skills and tools that support self-expression, creative practice, and community building.

Playback Theater: is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot

Art in Other Places grew out of a 1986 meeting held at the University of California at Los Angeles among artists and community activists from around the United States. At that point, some of them had been working for twenty or more years as artists in social institutions — senior centers, hospitals, prisons, mental health facilities, youth centers — or in low-income communities. Author William Cleveland writes of that gathering's importance to him (then director of the ArtReach Program in Sacramento, California) in building a “...small network of like-minded artists, whose work has had a major impact on cultural policy and practice in this country.”

Geese Theater for Corrections, Geese Theater Company: A continually developing portfolio of performances and projects designed to explore key issues, including attitudes, thinking and behaviour, children and families, substance misuse, employability and resettlement

Rashomon  is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller/crime film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa.[2] Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura as various people who describe how a samurai was murdered in a forest. The film is known for a plot device that involves various characters providing subjective, alternative and contradictory versions of the same incident.