Newsroom

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Bill Guttentag will visit Oregon State University on Thursday, Feb. 5, as part of the Visiting Writers Series. Guttentag will show clips from his work and discuss storytelling for the screen, the business of film and future trends in the film industry.

Guttentag will give a talk, followed by a question-and-answer session at 7:30 p.m. The title of his talk is “Keeping it Real – Reflections from Capturing the Real in Film and Television.” In addition, there will be a 5:30 p.m. screening of his documentary film, “Nanking,” on the same date.

Both events are free and open to the public. The lecture and film screening will take place at the C&E Auditorium of OSU’s LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26th St., Corvallis.

Guttentag wrote and directed “Nanking,” which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film documents the Japanese military’s infamous “rape of Nanking” in 1937, which included the massacre of 200,000 civilians and the rape of at least 20,000 women. The story is told by actors reading the testimony of Westerners who remained in China’s then-capital when it fell to the invaders.

“Nanking” has won awards at a number of American and international film festivals (including Sundance). Guttentag was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for the film. “Nanking” also was released in China and became the highest grossing theatrical documentary in Chinese history.

In 2003, Guttentag won an Oscar for the documentary “Twin Towers.” It was his second Academy Award; the first was for “You Don’t Have to Die,” a film he made for HBO. He has also received three additional Oscar nominations, as well as two Emmy Awards. His films have been selected for the Sundance Film Festival three times and have played and won awards at numerous American and international film festivals.

Guttentag created and executive produced the NBC series “Crime & Punishment,” which ran for three seasons (2002-2004). The series was part of the Law & Order family of shows, and was created with Dick Wolf, who was also an executive producer.

He has recently completed a novel, “Boulevard,” which will be published by Pegasus Books/W.W. Norton next winter.

Guttentag is in post-production on “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” a film about music and the civil rights movement, which features updated renditions of classic civil rights songs. Musicians performing in the film include John Legend, Joss Stone, The Roots and Wyclef Jean.

He teaches a class on film and television business at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

The Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the English Department, the Valley Library, and the Office of the Provost.