Bill Guttentag

Bill Guttentag is a two-time Oscar winning documentary and feature film writer-producer-director.

Career

In 1988, Bill Guttentag won an Oscar for Best Documentary with his HBO film "You Don't Have to Die," telling the story of one boy's battle against cancer. Guttentag would receive three more Oscar nominations before winning another Oscar for his 2003 documentary Twin Towers.

In 2007, Guttentag directed two films – Live!, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, starring Eva Mendes, Andre Braugher David Krumholtz, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jay Hernandez; and Nanking, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, a documentary about the Rape of Nanking during World War II.

Nanking was shortlisted for an Academy Award, won awards at Sundance Film Festival and other film festivals, earned Guttentag a Writers Guild of America Award nomination, and went on to become the highest grossing theatrical documentary in Chinese history.^[1] Nanking also won an Emmy Award and a George Foster Peabody award in 2009.^[2]

Live! had its American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and its international premiere at the Deauville Film Festival and was be distributed in the US by The Weinstein Company. Its international distribution included Lions Gate Entertainment (UK) and Pretty pictures (France).

Guttentag created and executive produced the NBC series Crime & Punishment, which ran from 2002-2004. The show, a reality television spin-off of the Law & Order franchise, followed District Attorneys in San Diego County, California.

Guttentag's first novel, Boulevard, was published by Pegasus Books/W.W. Norton in 2010 and the paperback version was published in May, 2011. The French edition of the book will be published in 2013 by Éditions Gallimard.

Gutentag also directed Soundtrack for a Revolution, a film about music and the Civil Rights Movement. The film features performances by John Legend, Joss Stone, The Roots, Blind Boys of Alabama, Richie Havens, Mary Mary, Anthony Hamilton and Wyclef Jean.^[3] Soundtrack for a Revolution had its international premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and its US premiere at the Tribeca Film festival. The film was released theatrically by Area 23a, and later aired on PBS. Guttentag was nominated for WGA and Producer's Guild Awards for the film, which also won awards at US and international film festivals, and was short-listed for an Academy Award.

Guttentag's film, Knife Fight, which he directed and also wrote (with political consultant Chris Lehane), stars Rob Lowe, Jamie Chung, Julie Bowen, Carrie-Anne Moss, Eric McCormack, Jennifer Morrison, and Saffron Burrows.^[4] The film is about a Democratic political consultant and was released by IFC in January 2013. The film premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, and also had special screenings at the 2012 Democratic National Convention and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Guttentag's films have been selected for the Sundance Film Festival three times and have played and won awards at numerous American and international film festivals. They have also received a number of special screenings internationally and in the US, including at the White House.

Guttentag is the co-author, (with Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani) of the non-fiction book "Masters of Disaster: The Ten Commandments of Damage Control," which was published in December 2012 by Palgrave/Macmillan.

Since 2001, Guttentag has taught a class on the film and television business at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

Selected filmography

Eva Mendes and Guttentag at the preview showing of Live! in Paris (January 2008)

• Knife Fight (2013)
• Live! (2007)
• Nanking (2007)
• Soundtrack for a Revolution (2009)
• Crime & Punishment (2002)
• Twin Towers (2003)
• The Cocaine War: Lost in Bolivia (1992)
• Assassinated: the Last Days of Kennedy and King (1998)
• You Don't Have to Die (1988)

References

External links

• Bill Guttentag at the Internet Movie Database