February 29, 2016
Congrats to AFI Conservatory Alumni on Their Oscar-Winning Films
AFI is proud to highlight the AFI Conservatory alumni featured in the 88th Academy Awards®, which followed an unprecedented awards season run for AFI graduates. Producer Steve Golin (AFI Class of 1981) received the Best Picture Oscar® for SPOTLIGHT. The film’s credits also include cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi (AFI Class of 2002) with a special thanks to Pulitzer…
February 19, 2016
AFI Grad Michael Rezendes on the True Story of SPOTLIGHT
Before Michael Rezendes won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, he was a Screenwriting alumnus of the AFI Conservatory (Class of 1999). Played by Mark Ruffalo in the Oscar®-nominated SPOTLIGHT, he’s one of a group of Boston Globe reporters who, in 2002, exposed a shattering clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Known collectively as…
February 10, 2016
Meet Bill Gold: The Man Behind the Most Iconic Movie Posters Ever
Have a favorite vintage movie poster? Chances are, it was probably designed by Bill Gold, one of the most prolific designers ever to work in movies. Gaining early prestige working on CASABLANCA for Warner Bros., his legacy of posters spans from Hollywood’s Golden Age through New Hollywood, including a close and enduring collaboration with director Clint Eastwood. AFI…
February 5, 2016
Watch: George Miller on Making MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
At a recent Harold Lloyd Master Seminar on the AFI campus, director George Miller discussed the making of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD with Fellows of the AFI Conservatory. Now up for 10 Academy Awards® including Best Picture — and an AFI AWARDS 2015 official selection — this exhilarating fourth installment in the MAD MAX series came to the…
February 2, 2016
Watch: Highlights from Alfred Hitchcock’s AFI Life Achievement Award Tribute
Alfred Hitchcock was honored with the seventh AFI Life Achievement Award on March 7, 1979. At the time, AFI wrote "as a writer, director and producer, (Hitchcock) has served film both memorably and uniquely" and that "in his favorite genre, the suspense film, he has come to be regarded as a master almost without peer."...
January 15, 2016
Watch the AFI AWARDS 2015 Video
At the AFI AWARDS 2015 ceremony, we asked the creative ensembles behind the year's most outstanding films and television shows what they'd like you to remember most about their stories many years from now. Watch what the actors, filmmakers and television artists had to say in the video below, featuring J.J. Abrams, Ridley Scott, Steven...
January 14, 2016
Congrats to AFI’s 2016 Oscar Nominees
Four AFI Conservatory alumni have been nominated for 2016 Academy Award® — in the Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, Best Live Action Short and Best Cinematography categories. Director/writer Henry Hughes’ (AFI Class of 2014) AFI Conservatory thesis film DAY ONE received a Live Action Short nomination following an awards season winning streak that included the gold medal at…
January 8, 2016
The AFI AWARDS 2015 March of Time Video Is Here
The annual AFI AWARDS luncheon opens with the Institute’s signature March of Time montage. This unique chronicle of the evolution of the moving image weaves the year’s most outstanding films and television into the history of the medium, from 1895 to present day. Here’s this year’s March of Time video:
January 7, 2016
Remembering Legendary Cinematographers Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zsigmond
Two of cinema's greatest legends died recently: cinematographers Haskell Wexler (93) and Vilmos Zsigmond (85). Both Oscar®-winning iconoclasts of the medium, their worked spanned decades since the 1960s, lensing groundbreaking New Hollywood classics, many of which are featured on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies lists. A master of black-and-white and color, Wexler's filmography includes WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA...
December 18, 2015
The AFI Interview: SON OF SAUL Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély
László Nemes’s harrowing portrait of a Sonderkommando in the final days of Auschwitz, SON OF SAUL stunned Cannes upon its world premiere, landing the festival’s Grand Jury Prize and making the festival rounds before playing at AFI FEST 2015 presented by Audi. We spoke with cinematographer and AFI Conservatory alumnus Mátyás Erdély about how he…
December 15, 2015
Here Are the AFI AWARDS 2015 Official Selections
It’s once again time for AFI AWARDS, an annual celebration of outstanding achievements in the moving image arts that recognizes the year’s most culturally and artistically significant works of both film and television. And what a stellar year it has been. AFI AWARDS aren’t like other accolades about the art form — they acknowledge the importance of…
December 14, 2015
From the Archives: George Lucas Tells the STAR WARS Origin Story
With STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hitting theaters this week, we dug up a vintage American Film™ magazine interview with George Lucas published just before the release of the first STAR WARS film in 1977. Long before the space opera franchise would land in the hands of director J.J. Abrams, Lucas started developing STAR WARS in the early 1970s, even…
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