Ira Wohl
Ira Wohl is an American documentary filmmaker.[1] He is most noted for his 1979 film Best Boy, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 52nd Academy Awards.[2]
Born and raised in New York City, Wohl attended Forest Hills High School.[3] He had his first job in film working as an editor on Orson Welles's unfinished film Don Quixote.[3] He then made a number of short films, worked on the television series Big Blue Marble and worked with John Lennon on two music videos, before making Best Boy.[3]
Best Boy premiered at the 1979 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was one of just two documentary films (alongside Michael Moore's Roger & Me in 1989) ever to win the festival's People's Choice Award before a separate People's Choice Award was instituted for the festival's documentary stream.[4] He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980.
Wohl later returned to school in the early 1990s, studying social work at the University of Southern California.[3] He has since been a faculty member in the graduate social work program at the University of California, Los Angeles.[3]
In 1997, he released the sequel film Best Man: 'Best Boy' and All of Us Twenty Years Later.[2] In 2006, he released another followup film, Best Sister.[3]
References
- ↑ "The Compassionate Man Behind 'Best Boy'; Ira Wohl of 'Best Boy'". The New York Times, March 16, 1980.
- 1 2 "The Documentary As Family Memoir: A Surprise Sequel". The New York Times, January 11, 1998.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Ira Wohl To Screen His Academy Award-winning Film “Best Boy” May 17th At The CoSA Theater". Coronado Eagle and Journal, April 27, 2015.
- ↑ "TIFF 2015: 40 facts for the fest's 40th year". Toronto Sun, August 16, 2015.