University Calendar

Lauren Versel is a founding member of Lucky Monkey Pictures and has more than 25 years of experience in film, television, and theater as a writer, director, editor, producer and financier.

She earned a BFA from the University of Maryland and was a Directing Fellow at The American Film Institute in Los Angeles.  She has worked extensively in all aspects of the industry. As a screenwriter of 25 screenplays, she has collaborated with many noted producers, directors and actors, including Barry Levinson, John Frankenheimer, David Brown, and Bill Murray. As a television producer and editor, she has delivered many hours of documentary, news and narrative television for CBS, PBS, NBC, MTV, and HBO. She also wrote, directed, and produced the off-Broadway play, The Barbie Project.

Her 2013 film is Richard LaGravenese's (Beautiful Creatures, P.S. I Love You, The Fisher King, The Bridges of Madison County) adaptation of The Last Five Years based on the musical by the Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.

This film-screening series, sponsored by the Film Institute at Montclair State, is a weekly program for MSU students and the public. The program features contemporary filmmakers who come to speak about their work and profession in an open forum that invites audience members to ask questions and hear personalized inside stories. Admission is free.