Jeremy Kagan

Mr. Kagan is an internationally recognized director, writer, and producer of feature films and television and a well-known teacher. He is founder of the Change Making Media Lab at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California where he is a tenured full professor. Many of his feature and television films have been about social and political issues like the box-office hits Heroes about returning veterans, The Chosen about tolerance, Katherine, The Making of an American Revolutionary about dissent, The Color of Justice about racism, and Bobbie’s Girl about lesbian relationships. Mr. Kagan won an Emmy for Dramatic Series Directing and directed episodes of West Wing and Spielberg’s Taken. His movie Crown Heights won the Humanitas Award in 2004 for “affirming the dignity of every person.” This film also received an NACCP Award and the Directors Guild Nomination for best family film. In 2007, he produced and directed the 10 part series Freedom Files, broadcast on Court and Link TV as well as the net. The series is about threats to civil liberties covering issues from the Supreme Court, and the Patriot Act, to Dissent, Gay and Lesbian Rights, and racial profiling. He has made films for The Doe Fund, which is the most successful program in America helping the homeless, and for The Bioneers, which organizes leaders in ecology and social justice. He has served as the Artistic Director of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and is on the National Board of the Directors Guild and Chairperson of its Special Projects.  His book Directors Close Up is published by Scarecrow Press. He is a Graduate Fellow of the American Film Institute, and has an M.F.A. from NYU and a B.A. from Harvard University. He has taught master seminars on filmmaking in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China, Hamburg, Jerusalem, Hanoi, France, and Ireland.