David O. Russell - Ghetto Film School

Ghetto Film School

In 2002, Russell met Andrew Unger while receiving an honorary degree at Amherst College. Unger introduced Russell to Joe Hall, president of Ghetto Film School. After viewing some of the student work, Russell immediately joined the board of Ghetto Film School, located in The Bronx, New York. Along with fellow board members, Russell brought filmmaker friends, movie studios, and industry professionals to donate money and lend their time to teach classes and support the growth of young black and Latino filmmakers from the South Bronx and Harlem. One of the connections Russell has brought to the school include Rachael Horovitz, who currently serves as the board chairman. In a recent interview, president Joe Hall went on record saying, "Without David there is no Ghetto Film School."

Today Ghetto Film School is an award-winning model helping over 500 teens per year tell their stories through several programs, including The Cinema School which the group opened in 2009 as "the first film high school in the country."

Read more about this topic:  David O. Russell

Famous quotes containing the words ghetto, film and/or school:

    We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle- class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.
    Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)

    To read a newspaper for the first time is like coming into a film that has been on for an hour. Newspapers are like serials. To understand them you have to take knowledge to them; the knowledge that serves best is the knowledge provided by the newspaper itself.
    —V.S. (Vidiadhar Surajprasad)

    A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)