Dede Allen's career in feature motion pictures spans more than five decades. She started in the Sound Department at Columbia Pictures in Hollywood in 1943. She then worked as a feature film editor in New York for most of her career, returning to Hollywood as an executive in the Creative Department at Warner Bros. for seven years. In 1999, she returned to her first love, film editing, in which she is currently engaged. In 1976, she received an Oscar Nomination for editing Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon and in 1982 for Reds, directed by Warren Beatty. She won acclaim for her unique style of editing in Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn. Among her many credits are Little Big Man, The Hustler, Slapshot, Serpico, The Breakfast Club, The Addams Family, and Wonder Boys. Allen was instrumental in winning recognition for film editing as an art as well as a craft. She was the first person to win a credit position for the film editor in the opening credits of a film. She was also the first to obtain "points" for the film editor in profit distribution. Allen received a British Academy Award in 1976, a Women in Film Crystal Award in 1982 and a Doctor of Fine Arts Honorary Degree from the American Film Institute in 1990.

From the time Stanley Kubrick offered her the job as costume designer on A Clockwork Orange, Milena Canonero has been working non-stop with some of the most respected directors in Hollywood. She has designed costumes for films by Warren Beatty, Francis Coppola, Roman Polanski and Louis Malle, among others. These films have included Bulworth, The Godfather Part III, Midnight Express, and The Shining. Her early career was based solely in Europe until production designer Richard Sylbert brought her to America to work on The Cotton Club, building her bridge to a career in the United States. Canonero has won Academy Awards for Barry Lyndon and Chariots of Fire, and was nominated for her work in Out of Africa, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Dick Tracy, and most recently Titus. She has also had the distinct honor of designing many costumes for the Vienna State Opera. Canonero's uncanny sense of style and focus on the purpose of the costume allows them to become fashion statements. This unique style has led top designers to model clothing lines after her costumes. There is a lot to learn from her style and skill and there are many costume designers today whom Canonero has taught. Her most recent projects are In the Boom Boom Room, starring Patricia Arquette and Ellen Barkin and The Affair of the Necklace, starring Hilary Swank.

The saga of independent filmmaker Roger Corman ranks as one of the most amazing motion picture success stories. Having produced more than 550 films and directed fifty others, his influence on American film goes far beyond his own energetic, creative low-budget movies. He is one of Hollywood's most gifted and masterful film makers. Noted for his keen ability to spot young talents, his most lasting legacy will undoubtedly be the legion of producers, directors, writers, and actors he has fostered, among them: Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese, Sally Kirkland, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Gale Ann Hurd, Sylvester Stalone and James Cameron. Corman's recent releases include the critically acclaimed Reflections in the Dark, starring Mimi Rogers and Billy Zane and Paul Anderson's Shopping. For Showtime's "Roger Corman Presents," he showcased such films as Alien Avengers, starring George Wendt, Black Scorpion II starring Joan Severence and Vampirella starring Roger Daltry.

One of the most famous actresses of the twentieth century, Faye Dunaway has made a career of big screen dramatic hits. By the age of twenty-one she was performing onstage at the Lincoln Center, and in that same year she earned international fame and an Oscar nomination for her performance in Bonnie and Clyde with Warren Beatty. Dunaway has performed in more than 70 films including Chinatown, the original and remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, Mommie Dearest, for which she was again Oscar nominated, Barfly, and Network, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Actress. She has played opposite Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, and is now directing as well as performing. Her directorial debut film The Yellow Bird, produced in participation with The Los Angeles Film School where she inaugurated the Visiting Artist program, screened at Cannes in 2001. She is currently developing a feature which she will direct.

Now in her 16th year in public office, State Assembly member Jackie Goldberg continues to tackle difficult issues and provide strong leadership in the office she holds. Goldberg was first elected as a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, where she served for eight years, serving as President of the Board from 1989-1991. After leaving the school board, Goldberg was elected to the Los Angeles City Council and spent six years there before being elected to the State Assembly where she now chairs the Select Committee on Entertainment and the Arts. A longtime champion of civil rights, empowerment and equity of services, Goldberg continues to take on the issues that matter to people.

Born in the Bronx, New York, Amy Heckerling studied film and television at New York University and received her Master's Degree at the American Film Institute. Her first breakthrough came when she directed the youth hit Fast Times at Ridgemont High, igniting the careers of Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards and Judge Reinhold. Heckerling wrote and directed Clueless, for which she received a Best Screenplay Award from the National Society of Critics and a nomination from the Writer's Guild of America. The film made a star of Alicia Silverstone and launched the Clueless television series, on which Heckerling was executive producer. She went on to write and direct Look Who's Talking, winner of the People's Choice Awards for Best Comedy, Look Who's Talking Too, and she produced A Night at the Roxbury with Lorne Michaels. Heckerling has her own production company, Heckerling/Caplan, with her producing partner, Twink Caplan. Most recently, Heckerling/ Caplan produced Loser for Columbia Pictures starring Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari. In 1998, Heckerling received the Franklin J. Schaffner medal from the American Film Institute, and in 1999, she received the Crystal Award from Women in Film.

A native of Poland, Janusz Kaminski came to the United States in 1981. He attended Columbia College in Chicago, earning his B.A. there in 1987. From Columbia College, he went on to the American Film Institute as a cinematography fellow. Today, Kaminski is one of the most successful cinematographers working in Hollywood. He has photographed seven films for Steven Spielberg including A.I., Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Schindler's List, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, as well as the upcoming Memoirs of a Geisha, and Minority Report. Working on these films has garnered him two Academy Awards: for Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, as well as a nomination for Amistad. Kaminski's first directorial feature was Lost Souls, starring Winona Ryder and Ben Chaplin.

For her debut feature film Boys Don't Cry, Kimberly Peirce won the National Board of Review's Best Debut Director honors as well as Best New Filmmaker from the Boston Society of Film Critics. The film was honored with International Critics prizes for Best Film at both the London and Stockholm Film Festivals. Additionally, the film received the Satyajit Ray Foundation Award for Best First Feature at the London Film Festival. The two stars of the film, Hilary Swank and Chloe Sevigny, received numerous honors for their honest portrayals of Brandon Teena and his lover Lana Tisdel, including the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Hilary. Inspired by Brandon Teena's story, Kimberly Peirce co-wrote the script for Boys Don't Cry with Andy Bienen as a graduate thesis while at Columbia University's film school. The script was further developed at the Sundance Labs. Peirce and Bienen are currently working on a new untitled project which will be a murder/mystery based on a true story; Peirce will direct and co-produce the project with Jersey Films. Additionally, she has recently signed a two-year first-look deal with New Line Cinema.

Alan Rudolph has made a successful career while remaining a true independent writer and director. Rudolph has been repeatedly recognized with awards from his peers including being nominated twice for Independent Spirit Awards. The first nomination came in 1989 for Best Screenplay for The Moderns. In 1995, Rudolph received nomination for both Best Screenplay and Best Direction for Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. With Choose Me, he won the Toronto Film Festival in 1984. Some of his other films include Afterglow, Breakfast of Champions with Bruce Willis and Nick Nolte, Trixie, also starring Nolte and Dermot Mulroney, and Investigating Sex, starring Neve Campbell.

Since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, Thomas Schatz has written four distinguished books on Hollywood films and filmmaking. Among these titles are Hollywood Genres, The Genius of the System, and Boom and Bust, The American Cinema in the 1940's. Schatz has also published articles and essays that have appeared in Wide Angle, Film Comment, The Nation, The New York Times and Premiere to name but a few. He is Chair of the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. There he teaches courses from media history, narrative theory, genre, and textual analysis, as well as institutional studies of media production companies. Schatz is considered one of America's pre-eminent professors of cinema.

Robert Shapiro began his show business career in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency, advancing quickly to Managing Director in charge of the agency's London office and Senior Vice-President and Head of their International Motion Picture Department. Shapiro left William Morris to become President of Warner Bros. Worldwide Theatrical Production Division. During his six years at Warner Bros, more than 50 films were produced including: The In-Laws, National Lampoon's Vacation, Chariots of Fire, Private Benjamin, and the Superman films. Since leaving Warner Bros., Shapiro has become a successful producer of both feature films and television, forming Robert Shapiro Productions. Shapiro produced Tim Burton's Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Disney's My Favorite Martian, Black Beauty, and There Goes My Baby; and he Executive Produced Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun.

Paul graduated from the University of Leiden with a degree in math and physics. He entered the Royal Netherlands Navy, where he began his film career by making documentaries for the Navy and later for TV. It was Verhoeven's second film, Turks Fruit, with its combination of raw sexuality and a poignant story line, that gained him great popularity in the Netherlands. When his films, especially Soldaat van Oranje and De Vierde Man, received international recognition, Verhoeven moved to the US. His first US film was Flesh & Blood, in 1985, but it was Robocop and especially Total Recall that made him a big box office success. Verhoeven has co-scripted two of his films: Soldaat van Oranje and Flesh & Blood. His other films include: Hollow Man, Starship Troopers, Showgirls, and Basic Instinct.

Richard Sylbert is one of the most esteemed production designers in Hollywood history. Sylbert helped bring many visually memorable films to life, including The Manchurian Candidate, Splendor in the Grass, Rosemary's Baby, The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge, Catch-22, Tequila Sunrise and most famously, Chinatown. He won two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction for Dick Tracy and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and was Oscar-nominated for Chinatown, Reds, Shampoo, and The Cotton Club. Sylbert's most recent projects are In the Boom Boom Room, starring Patricia Arquette and Ellen Barkin, Unconditional Love, starring Dan Akroyd and Kathy Bates, and Who Shot Victor Fox, starring Kathy Bates and Rupert Everett. In 1991, he received the Honorary Degree of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute. His wonderfully rich and thoughtful production design continues to influence filmmakers today. From the smoky noir landscapes of Chinatown to the technicolor worlds of Dick Tracy, Richard Sylbert has left his indelible imprint on American cinema.