Playwright's Lab Guest Speaker Jim Stark

Stark’s first involvement with film came when he helped Jim Jarmusch finance, produce, and sell the low budget independent hit <em>Stranger Than Paradise </em>(winner of the Camera D’Or in Cannes and the U.S. National Society of Film Critics’ award as Best Picture of the year). He went on to work on three more feature films for Jim Jarmusch <em>Down by Law</em> (coproducer), <em>Mystery Train</em> (producer), <em>Night on Earth</em> (executive producer), as well as producing two short Coffee and Cigarettes films. Stark’s other producing credits include such critically acclaimed and prize-winning films as Alex Rockwell’s<em> In the Soup</em> (winner of the Grand Prize, Sundance Film Festival), Gregg Araki’s<em> The Living End</em>, Christopher Munch’s <em>Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day</em> (winner of the Best Cinematography Prize, Sundance Film Festival), Adrienne Shelly’s <em>I'll Take You There</em> (Best Director, U.S. Comedy Arts Festival), Sergei Bodrov’s <em>The Quickie </em>(Best Actor, Moscow Film Festival), and Kevin Asher Green’s <em>Homework </em>(Best Picture, Slamdance Film Festival) and Vladan Nikolic’s thriller <em>love</em> which had its premiere in the Venice Film Festival. In 2008, he coproduced <em>Country Wedding</em>, the first film directed by internationally renowned editor Valdis Oskarsdottir which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, in 2009 he coproduced <em>Here &amp; There</em>, a first feature by Serbian director Darko Lungalov that (among many other prizes) won the award for Best Narrative NY Feature Film at the Tribeca Film Festval and in 2010 he was one of the producers of Vladan Nikolic’s multi-platform “experiment” <em>Zenith</em>, which premiered in New York’s IFC Cinemas in October, 2010. In addition to his producing activities, he cowrote and produced Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s <em>Cold Fever</em> (which won the top prizes at the Edinburgh and Troia Film Festivals) and<em> Factocum</em>, which he adapted as coscreenwriter with director Bent Hamer from the Charles Bukowski novel (international premiere: Directors Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival). In 2010, Stark executive produced Gerard Hurley’s film <em>The Pier</em> (financed by the Irish Film Board and now in post-production) and is developing the script <em>The Package</em> for a new film to be directed by Vladan Nikolic.

Playwright's Lab at Hollins in collaboration with Mill Mountain Theatre offers&nbsp;this guest speakers series. All the talks are free and open to the public, hosted on the Waldron Stage of Mill Mountain Theatre, 20 Church Avenue, S.E., downtown Roanoke. (<a href="http://www.millmountain.org">http://www.millmountain.org</a>).