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Professor of Film & Television Production, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

Jeremy Kagan is an internationally recognized director/writer/producer with eleven feature film credits including the box-office hit Heroes, the political thriller The Big Fix, The Chosen (two time Grand Prize winner), and The Journey of Natty Gann (first U.S. film to win a Gold Prize at the Moscow Film Festival). His most recent dramatic feature SHOT is about gun violence in America www.shotmovie.org. Among his fifteen television movies are Katherine: the Making of an American Revolutionary, HBO's Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 ( ACE Award for Best Dramatic Special), Roswell: The UFO Cover-Up (a Golden Globe nominee), Color of Justice about racism, Bobbie's Girl about a lesbian couple and Crown Heights which won the Humanitas Award for "affirming the dignity of every person." He also won an Emmy for Dramatic Series Directing and has directed over thirty various dramatic episodes including West Wing. Professor Kagan produced and directed the 10 part series Freedom Files and directed the pilot for the hit series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Via his Change Making Media Lab, www.cmml-usc.org, he has made dramatic, documentary and animated films for The Doe Fund which works with the homeless, for TreePeople and Bioneers; and CMML has won awards for videos on women's health, ADHD and sustainability. Professor Kagan served as the Artistic Director of Robert Redford's Sundance Lab and has been on the National Board of the Directors Guild where he is Chairperson of its Special Projects which serves the 17,000 members with educational, cultural and technological information. His books Directors Close Up, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are published by Scarecrow Press and he has written an interactive eTextbook called Keys to Directing - www.kesytodirecting.com. He is a Graduate Fellow of the American Film Institute, and has an MFA from NYU and a BA from Harvard University. He has taught master seminars on filmmaking across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The Television Academy, The Writers Guild, and The Directors Guild.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of Film & Television Production, University of Southern California