Jeff Feuerzeig was born on 1964 and is an American film director and screenwriter best known for The Devil and Daniel Johnston, his profile of cult musician and outsider artist Daniel Johnston, for which he was awarded the Directing prize for Documentary at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and which was released theatrically in March 2006 by Sony Pictures Classics.
12 Facts About Jeff Feuerzeig
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Jeff Feuerzeig came of age just in time to receive the full impact of the punk rock wave and its attendant do-it-yourself aesthetic, an influence that dominates his approach and subject matter to the present.
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Jeff Feuerzeig graduated with honors from Trenton State College in 1986 and immediately enrolled in New York University's six-month Intensive Filmmaking Program, where he studied under Thierry Pathe.
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Jeff Feuerzeig has spent 25 years directing commercials for a wide assortment of corporate clients, including IBM, Delta Air Lines and Budweiser.
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Over a five-year period beginning in 2000, Jeff Feuerzeig created an innovative and sympathetic portrait of West Virginia-born cult singer-songwriter and outsider artist Daniel Johnston, whose early-20s onset of manic-depression and schizophrenia enabled him to create a nakedly confessional body of work unfiltered by the limitations of his contemporaries.
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Jeff Feuerzeig is currently represented by Ridley Scott Associates for commercial and television work.
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Jeff Feuerzeig contacted Albert, who for years had turned down the other documentary filmmakers that approached her.
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Jeff Feuerzeig persuaded her of his seriousness about telling her story, and after showing her his film The Devil and Daniel Johnston, gained her cooperation.
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Jeff Feuerzeig went on to receive a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay at the 69th Writers Guild of America Awards.
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In 2009, Jeff Feuerzeig began production on a proposed feature documentary about artist Shepard Fairey, the lawsuit brought against him by the Associated Press and his Fair Use defense in creating the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster during the 2008 presidential election.
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Jeff Feuerzeig is slated to direct The Bleeder, a biopic of boxer Chuck Wepner, whose life story inspired the Sylvester Stallone film Rocky.
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Jeff Feuerzeig co-wrote the script with Jerry Stahl, and the film is set to star Liev Schreiber as Wepner.