Peter Newman

Peter Newman has established himself as one of the motion picture industry's leading producers of theatrical films. Having produced more than 30 films, New York-based Peter Newman Productions has worked with some of the world's most renowned filmmakers including Robert Altman, Paul Auster, Jonathan Demme, Horton Foote, John Sayles, and Wayne Wang. The company has received a total of 21 Independent Spirit Award nominations - the leading honor in American Independent Film. Noah Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale," which Newman produced, won the Best Writing and Directing Awards at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which stars Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, was a co-production with Wes Anderson's American Empirical Pictures. It was nominated for six Spirit Awards, including Best Picture; three Golden Globes®, including Best Film - Musical or Comedy; and an Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay. A former sportscaster, Newman began his road toward producing when he served as executive producer and host of the PBS special, "Muhammed Ali: One More Miracle." He went on to produce documentary profiles of ballet dancers Gelsey Kirkland and Natalia Makarova before turning to feature filmmaking in 1982 with Robert Altman's "Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." The film, which starred Cher, Sandy Dennis, Karen Black, and Kathy Bates, was the grand prize winner of the Chicago International Film Festival. Newman then moved into features full-time, serving either as producer or executive producer on numerous films including two-time Academy Award-winner Horton Foote's "1918" and "On Valentine's Day," Spalding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia," Harry Hook's re-make of "Lord of the Flies," Altman's "O.C. & Stiggs," Jay Russell's "End of the Line," Anthony Drazan's "Zebrahead" - the Sundance Filmmakers Trophy winner which he co-executive produced with Oliver Stone - and John Sayles' "The Secret of Roan Inish." In 1989, Newman produced Nancy Savoca's "Dogfight," a Warner Brothers release starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. He then went on to produce Savoca's "Household Saints" for Fine Line Features starring Taylor and Tracy Ullman before collaborating with Savoca again on "The 24 Hour Woman." With future partner Greg Johnson, Newman produced "Smoke," directed by Wayne Wang and written by Paul Auster, and starring Harvey Keitel and William Hurt. "Smoke" was the winner of three major awards at the 1995 Berlin Film Festival, and was voted best film at the 1995 Locarno International "Blue in the Face," the extemporaneously created companion piece to "Smoke," as well as on the sci-fi comedy "Space Truckers," which premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. Among Newman's other producing credits are: Sara Kernochan's "All I Wanna Do," starring Kirsten Dunst and Rachel Leigh Cooke . Newman was a featured speaker at the Sundance Institute's Producers Conference in 1991 and 2005; as well as having appeared on numerous film festival panels, including Cannes and New York. Additionally, he has lectured on the film business at Yale, Columbia, and New York University. Currently, Newman is a professor at New York University in the Graduate Film program at Tisch, as well as the Graduate MBA program at Stern. In August of this year, he was appointed the Head of the joint MFA/MBA Graduate program at NYU. It is the first program of its kind in the country. Peter Newman Productions, Inc. has more than twelve feature film projects in active development. Currently, he is preparing films based on the lives of Janis Joplin, Bill Veeck, and Strom Thurmond. Newman is a member of the Academy OF Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Producer's Guild of America, and the British Academy of Television and Video Arts. He lives in New York City with his wife Antonia and their three children. Newman is a graduate of Northwestern University.