Matt Friedman

Matt is an award-winning film editor and long-standing AFI Faculty member, teaching 2nd year editing. He was born in rural east Tennessee to a coal mining family living in the foothills of the Appalachains. His love of the film industry began at age 8, when his parents gave him a Super 8 camera. He quickly went to work making films of blowing up model cars with Coleman White Fuel. After graduating from Oak Ridge High School with an emphasis in Extinct Ancient Languages, Matt headed for Chicago to attend Northwestern University. Due to a series of accidental registration errors, he ended up with enough credits for a degree in Economics as well as Film. None of his college film work involved blowing up model cars, however. He finished his Econ degree at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia, where he was offered AU$100 and a Sydney snow globe by a group of Australian students if he would vote for Clinton in '92 via absentee ballot. Matt then moved to a spacious two bedroom apartment in scenic North Hollywood to begin his film career in earnest. Arriving just in time for the Northridge Earthquake and the fires and mudslides of '93, he was very lucky to begin working for a series of extremely supportive and wonderful editors, including (but not limited to!) Peter Teschner, Emma Hickox, Jill Bilcock, and Sheldon Kahn. In recent years, Matt has enjoyed cutting a variety of different types of films and television pilots, including a films in Spanish and Chinese, even though he doesn't speak the languages. He now lives in the Hollywood Hills with his wonderful husband Chris and their son. Unfortunately, due to fire codes in the Hollywood Hills, Matt has been unable to blow up any model cars with Coleman White Fuel, though he looks forward to getting back to his roots in the near future.