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Anthony Pemberton

Associate Professor, School of Communication and Media

Email:
pembertona@montclair.edu
Phone:
973-655-7200
Degrees:
BFA, State University of New York at Purchase
MFA, Bard College
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Profile

Director/Producer

Daily Variety cited Tony Pemberton as One of Ten Directors to Watch when his first feature film Beyond the Ocean premiered in the Dramatic Competition in the Sundance Film Festival. It was nominated for a Grand Jury award, and received the Princess Grace Foundation Statue Award. “Beyond” weaves together a character’s life that is split in time by her own immigration and memory and was made independently in Russia, Austria, and America by Go East Film, Intrinsic Value, & Ursula Wolschlager.

Pemberton has previously shown films at The Anthology Film Archives, the Kino Museum in Moscow, The Whitney American Museum, as well as major festivals in America and Europe. His projects have been awarded funding from The Princess Grace Foundation Monaco, the Jerome Foundation, Arts Matters New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and Arts Link. He is a graduate from the State University of New York at Purchase with a BFA in film in 1990, as well as the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts: Bard College with an MFA in film in 1993. He is also the Director of the Filmmaking Program at Montclair State University.

Filmography:

Buddha’s Little Finger (2015 Narrative Feature in progress),German/Russian/Canadian Co-Production. Adaptation of Victor Pelevin’s Novel of the same name. Director/Writer.
Funded by Berlin Medien Board, MDM Leipzig, Telefilm Canada, SODEC Quebec Fund, and the Russian Federation Film Fund. Produced by Rohfilm Gmbh, and Amerique Montreal.

The Truth Can Now Be Told: The DEVO Documentary (2015 In Progress) Director/Producer in collaboration with Warner Brothers, DEVO, EMI, Rhino Films, and Spud Films.

The Children Met Lenin in Spring (2008) Documentary – Director/Producer

Film Portraits: Real Women (2004) Award for best new branded channel.

Beyond the Ocean (2002) 87 min. Feature Film. (Distribution: Search Party Films/Netflix)
Sundance Film Festival 2000 (Dramatic Competition), the Munich Film Festival, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2000, Moscow Film Festival 2000, Sao Paulo Film Festival 2000, Bratislava Film Festival Competition 2000,Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival 2000 (International Discovery), Philadelphia World Cinema 2001, Jeonju International (Korea) 2001, Dublin Film Festival 2001, Brasilia Film Festival 2001, Northampton Film Festival (Kodak Vision Award), and more….

The Mark of Cain (2002) Feature Documentary – as Supervising Producer/Co-Producer
Description of a Struggle (1995) 23 min. Staring Parker Posey(Scream III, & Dazed and Confused). 1995 Humboldt International Film Festival Winner.
Paradise Is, (1991)19 min Jonas Mekas Award, Humboldt Film Fest. ‘92
Mel Kendrick (1988) 13 min. Distributed by Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY.
Chucky Killed Himself: He Couldn't Swim (1986)

Poison (1991) by Todd Haynes – as Actor “Young Genet”

Honors, Grants & Awards:
MDM Leipzig Film Fund Production Funds. 2008, Medianboard Production Funds 2008
Russian Federation Film Fund / Kalatozov Film Fund 2008, MEDIA Grant European Union - Development Grant for Buddha’s Little Finger 2007, Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg Film Fund – Development Grant 2006, New Jersey State Council of the Arts Fellowship February 2004
Geraldine R. Dodge Fellowship 2004, KODAK VISION AWARD 2001
VARIETY’S “TEN DIRECTOR’S TO WATCH” 2000, Nominated for a Grand Jury Award (Screening in Competition) Sundance Film Festival 2000, Princess Grace Foundation Statue Award 2000
Jerome Foundation, New York City Media Grant 1995.
ART MATTERS GRANT 1996., ARTS LINK GRANTS 1997 & 1995.
PRINCESS GRACE FOUNDATION FILM GRANT 1994.

See his site: www.goeastfilm.com
New project: http://www.rohfilm.de/projects.html
Current Article:
http://filmmakermagazine.com/53266-tony-pemberton-talks-russia-film-and-devo/

Specialization

FILMMAKING, EDITING, MEMORY AND RECALL, NARRATIVE AND NON-FICTION

Resume/CV

Office Hours

Spring

Tuesday
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Friday
2:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Links

Research Projects

Film: Buddha's Little Finger

In Moscow 1991, communist hardliners try to oust Gorbachov from power. For PYOTR VOYD a struggling poet, this means nothing, life is the same as always: hard and unforgiving. He has no money, no prospects and no hope, therefore he believes in nothing, not politics, not poetry, definitely not revolution, evolution or democracy. Only one thing is certain: when he is with ANNA, he is happy.

Pyotr’s life is thrown into a whirlwind of odd and unconnected
situations or so it appears at first. He is first recruited by a gangster crew, led by VOLODIN, looking for the elusive “Mongolian” and his secret weapon, and then experiences strange blackouts, waking up tied to a hospital bed being interrogated and drugged by government psychiatrists and finally transported to 1919 post-revolution Russia where he befriends the legendary commander CHAPAYEV and his crack machine gunner, ANNA. Soon Pyotr is on the run simultaneously in the Moscow of gangster capitalism of 1991 and in Ural Mountains of the precarious post-revolutionary 1919. Two revolutions can’t exist in one man’s head at the same time for very long!

Co-Production between Germany and Canada with a 2.5mil Euro Budget.

ARE WE NOT MEN? THE DEVO DOCUMENTARY

THE FUTURE IS NOW! This is the first-ever documentary about one of the most influential bands of the 20th century. The true inside story of DEVO, told in their own voices, chock-full of never-before-seen clips, interviews, and testimonials. This is the D-E-V-O film fans have been waiting for.
ABOVE: David Bowie with DEVO, backstage in NYC, 1977ABOVE: David Bowie with DEVO, backstage in NYC, 1977

"Of all the bands who came from the underground and actually made it in the mainstream, Devo is the most challenging and subversive of all." —Kurt Cobain