Top talents from the worlds of film and television select the recipient of the Best Narrative Short prize. Learn more about the jury, which includes Nora Ephron, Ceci Kurzman, Denis Leary, Fran Lebowitz, David O. Russell, Paul Schneider, Jimmy Wales.
Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron is a journalist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and director. Her credits include Heartburn, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and Julie & Julia. She received three Oscar® nominations for screenwriting. Her books include Crazy Salad; Scribble, Scribble; Heartburn;and I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, a number one best seller. Her play Love, Loss and What I Wore, written with her sister Delia Ephron, is currently running Off-Broadway at the Westside Theater. Ephron’s latest book, I Remember Nothing, is in stores now.
Ceci Kurzman
Ceci Kurzman is the President and Founder of Nexus Management, a talent management group focused on entertainers with a specialty in contemporary music. In this role, she guides the careers of artists through strategic direction of repertoire, communications, business development, and asset building. Ceci’s career in management followed seven years as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for Epic/Sony Music, where she spearheaded global campaigns for artists including Shakira, Sade, Tori Amos, and George Michael. Prior to her term at Sony Music, Ceci was a Director of Marketing at Arista Records. She received her BA in history and East Asian studies from Harvard University.
Denis Leary
Denis Leary is a five time loser at the Emmy Awards. He has lost four times for his work on the FX drama Rescue Me and once for his work in the HBO film Recount. He is also 0 for 3 at the Golden Globes. Denis looks forward to one day not winning an Oscar®, a Tony, and the National Book Award. Not to mention the Pulitzer Prize. Denis often walks around the downtown area wearing a Boston Red Sox hat—just to antagonize his fellow New Yorkers.
Fran Lebowitz
Fran Lebowitz lives in New York City where she divides her time.
David O Russell
David O. Russell earned critical acclaim early in his career when he wrote and directed his first feature film Spanking the Monkey, which won the Sundance Audience Award and Best First Feature and First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. His second film was the acclaimed comedy Flirting with Disaster, which appeared on many top ten lists for 1996. His next feature, Three Kings, earned a nomination from the WGA for Best Screenplay and the appeared in more than 100 critics’ top 10 lists. Russell continued his relationship with Mark Wahlberg in I Heart Huckabees and The Fighter, which earned Russell an Academy Award® nomination for directing. The film won acting Oscars® for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, and was also nominated for best picture and screenplay. In 2002, Russell joined the board of the Ghetto Film School, then a brand-new, all-volunteer local summer project. Russell convinced his filmmaker friends, movie studios, and industry professionals to not only give money but also lend their time to teach classes and support the growth of young black and Latino filmmakers from the South Bronx and Harlem. Today GFS is an award-winning program model that has helped more than 500 teenagers tell their stories.
Paul Schneider
Paul Schneider attended the N.C. School of the Arts’ School of Filmmaking. He graduated with a degree in film editing. Schneider recently completed filming Christophe Honore's Les Bien Amies andZhang Yimou's The 13 Flowers of Nanjing, which was shot in Nanjing, People's Republic of China. In 1999, he and a collective of his film school classmates made George Washington. They earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination, New York Film Critics Circle Award, top honors at the Atlanta Film Festival, and others. Paul starred opposite Zooey Deschanel in David Green’s second feature, All the Real Girls, winning a Special Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Paul wrote and directed Pretty Bird, Paul Giamatti and Billy Crudup, which world premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. His other credits include Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, Thomas Bezucha’s The Family Stone, Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,Craig Gillespie’s Lars and the Real Girl, Jane Campion’s Bright Star, andNBC's Parks & Recreation.
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for founding Wikipedia.org, as well as other wiki-related organizations, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. Wales studied finance at Auburn University and the University of Alabama. He was appointed a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in 2005 and in 2006, he joined the Board of Directors of the non-profit organization Creative Commons. In 2001, Wales started online encyclopedia Wikipedia.org, and today Wikipedia and its sister projects are among the top-five most visited sites on the Web. In 2004, Wales co-founded Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company that enables groups of people to share information and opinions. Wikia, Inc., attracts more than 30 million unique visitors per month to its 10,000+ communities. In 2007, The World Economic Forum recognized Wales as one of the “Young Global Leaders.” In addition, Wales received the “Time 100 Award” in 2006 and was named one of the world’s most influential people in the “Scientists & Thinkers” category. In 2011, Wales was the recipient of Switzerland's Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize for his cultural contribution to the global community.
