James Schamus is an award-winning screenwriter (The Ice Storm), producer (Brokeback Mountain), and former CEO of Focus Features (Dallas Buyers Club, Lost in Translation, Milk, The Pianist). His feature directorial debut, an adaptation of Philip Roth’s Indignation, starring Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, and Tracy Letts, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival, and was released by Roadside Attractions. His New York based production company, Symbolic Exchange, produced Kitty Green’s acclaimed feature documentary Casting JonBenet, which had its world premiere at Sundance and launched on Netflix in 2016, and Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn which premiered in Cannes 2017. Schamus is also Professor of Professional Practice in Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory.