Cathy Schulman
PRESIDENT’S VISIONARY AWARD
Sheila Nevins President, HBO Documentary Films Sheila Nevins, President, HBO Documentary Films, is responsible for overseeing the development and production of all documentaries for HBO, HBO2, and Cinemax. As an executive producer or producer, she has received 28 Primetime Emmy® Awards, 32 News and Documentary Emmys®, and 40 George Foster Peabody Awards. During her tenure, HBO’s critically acclaimed documentaries have gone on to win 23 Academy Awards®. Nevins has been honored with numerous prestigious career achievement awards including, the 2009 Governor’s Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, a 2008 Gotham Awards Tribute, a 2005 Emmy® Lifetime Achievement Award, and a personal Peabody in 1999. In 2000, Nevins was inducted into Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is a proud Barnard Alumna.
Gina PrinceBythewood Writer, Producer, Director Gina Prince-Bythewood began her career writing and directing the widely-acclaimed feature film Love & Basketball, winning the 2000 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and a Humanitas Prize. In 2008, she wrote and directed the celebrated adaptation of the best-selling novel, The Secret Life of Bees, which won two People’s Choice Awards and two NAACP Image Awards. Her third feature, Beyond the Lights, which New York Times film critic, Manohla Dargis called one of the ten best film of 2014, was released in November. Prince-Bythewood has written and produced for network television series such as A Different World, Felicity, South Central, and Sweet Justice before making the transition to directing. She also won a Community Service Emmy for her work with the Rap-it-Up campaign.
2015 AWARDS
2015 AWARDS
2015 Athena Film Festival Awards Academy Award®-Winning Producer Cathy Schulman, President of Mandalay Pictures, is a part of an elite group of women who head self-financed production companies. In 2015, Schulman will produce the film Whatever Makes You Happy, based on the novel by William Sutcliffe. Recently, she produced Horns, The Voices, Dark Places, based on Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel, and The Kids Are All Right, which was nominated for an Academy Award®. Prior to joining Mandalay, Schulman produced Crash, released in 2005 by Lionsgate, which received Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. A consistent advocate of worldwide social causes, Schulman produced the documentary Darfur Now in 2007. Through Bull’s Eye Entertainment, which she founded with Tom Nunan, Schulman produced The Illusionist in 2006, winning an Oscar® nomination in cinematography. Schulman is the President of Women In Film, a Board Member of Film Independent, and has served as a council member of the Producers Guild of America. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
To help remedy the striking lack of strong female characters in The movies, the Athena Film Festival has created the Athena List, an annual slate of screenplays with strong female protagonists that have yet to be made into films. Selected by a group of industry professionals, the 2015 winners are recognized during the festival Awards ceremony.
Athena List
Athena List Finalists Chisholm by Montserrat Mendez and Armistead Johnson Dickey Chapelle by Margaret Nagle Highsmith by Eliza Lee Little Pink House by Courtney Moorehead Balaker Revolution by Joanne Parrent Victoria of Murray Hill by Kate Danaher and Robert Rivenbark What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us by Jenny Halper
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Founding Sponsor:
/ Regina K. Scully, Founder & CEO
Athena Film Festival
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