Jason Apuzzo

Jason Apuzzo is a director and Folio Eddie Award-winning writer. His most recent project is UFO Diary, which had its festival premiere at Hollywood's TCL Chinese Theatres on August 14th, 2016 at the HollyShorts Film Festival. A USC Cinema School graduate, Jason was mentored by director Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back). Jason is the winner of a 2015 Folio Eddie Award for excellence in magazine writing, and has been published at American Cinematographer, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times and AOL-Moviefone. Jason has also appeared on CBS' Inside Edition, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room, Headline News' Showbiz Tonight and other networks to discuss film. Jason's WWII sci-fi film UFO Diary was the Opening Film of the VFX Showcase at the 2016 HollyShorts Film Festival at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood. UFO Diary has also been featured in American Cinematographer magazine and The Huffington Post, and has over 10,000 fans on Facebook. UFO Diary also screens at the Dragon Con Independent Film Festival in Atlanta in September 2016. Dragon Con is the largest sci-fi and fantasy convention in the world, with 70,000 attendees. Jason received his MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His advisor at USC was Tom Holman, inventor of the THX sound system. Jason's USC thesis short debuted on-line in 2002 and became (at the time) the most-watched student film ever. Jason also holds a Ph.D. in Germanic Literature from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University. At Stanford, Jason's thesis was on novelist Thomas Mann, who was Germany's chief voice of humane social democracy against the tyranny of the Nazis. Jason's Ph.D. thesis covered Mann's monumental cycle of Joseph-novels, which depicted the ancient Biblical tale of Joseph in Egypt. At Yale, Jason studied under literary critic Harold Bloom. Jason also has a special interest in science fiction, and has interviewed such diverse luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Russell, Ray Harryhausen, Stan Lee, George Takei, Julie Adams, Noah Wylie and Shia LaBeouf. Jason also writes frequently at The Huffington Post on human rights issues as they relate to cinema, and has interviewed a wide range of international documentarians working under oppressive regimes. Jason was a prolific filmmaker while attending Palos Verdes High School - where he founded the largest student filmmaking club in southern California. He is married to actress and writer Govindini Murty. As of 2016 he has several film projects and a novel in development.