Biography
Ross Katz is a hyphenate filmmaker, known mostly for the two films for which he received Academy Award nominations (In the Bedroom, Lost in Translation, Producer). With no experience, and unable to afford more than a year of film school, Katz set off for Los Angeles and landed his first job as unpaid grip on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. After working as the assistant to the director of the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Katz was hired as a runner and PA for the late, great Sydney Pollack. During his three years at the company, his boss, mentor, and legendary producer Lindsay Doran taught him how to really read and understand the process of developing and rendering a screenplay worthy of being made into a film. After working with Ms. Doran on Sense & Sensibility, Katz took the opposite direction many take, and went East to New York City to work with the mythical independent film company Good Machine. Its founders Ted Hope, David Linde and James Schamus, along with the brillian Anthony Bregman, Anne Carey, Mary Jane Skalski, Glen Basner, Kelly Miler in addition to far too many names to list, Katz received the independent version of a top Ivy League education. The filmmakers he worked with included Todd Solondz (Happiness), Bill Condon, Bart Freundlich and a host of others. Asa closeted gay man, Katz nervously bought a ticket to see Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet at the Beverly Center in LA. He had never dreamed that just a few years later, Katz would work with Lee on The Ice Storm, and that Lee would even later attend he world premiere of Katz's debut as a writer and director. While at Good Machine, Katz produced his first three films: Trick, In the Bedroom, and The Laramie Project. In 2003, he went off on his own and lived the insane, yet once-in-a-lifetime experience of producing Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. Almost immediately after, he Produced, with Ms. Coppola, Marie Antoinette. In 2009, Ross Katz made his debut as a Director and Co-Screenwriter of HBO's Taking Chance, starring Kevin Bacon. The film was deeply personal, and garnered him the DGA Best Director and WGA Best Screenplay for the film. Though often an assumption is made in the industry that Producers who begin to direct and or write, merely wanted to Produce as a stepping stone to reach those goals. Today, in 2024, Katz loves all three disciplines equally. Producing has never been 'second choice.' There are only certain stories he wishes to explore as a writer or director. One of the greatest joys movie Producing for Katz is doing everything imaginable to aid a Director in telling their story or working with a writer to realize their vision. Currently based in the Yucatan and New York, current projects include Producing a UK series to be shot in early 2025, Producing an independent film in a genre that will be a first for him, creating a one man show designed for theatre and ultimately film, and working with an indie legend producer and a new young writer, on the next film he will direct.
4 wins and 13 nominations
