Have you ever filled out an online survey? Do you wonder why you receive ads for products that you happened to research the day before? Be afraid. Be very afraid. Data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable asset, and it is being weaponized to wage cultural and political wars. We’re in a battle for control over our most intimate personal details. The Great Hack uncovers the dark world of data exploitation through the compelling personal journeys of players on different sides of the explosive Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data breach that rocked the world.

Academy Award nominees Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim AB '96 (The Square, Control Room, Startup.com) return to the Sundance Film Festival with this deeply layered, ethically complex, disturbing and riveting documentary. The Great Hack compels us to question the genesis of the information we consume daily and challenges us to think about what we give up when we tap that phone or keyboard and share ourselves in the digital age.

Jehane Noujaim is an Academy Award–nominated director and one of two nonfiction directors to win the Directors Guild of America Award twice. Her Academy Award–nominated film, The Square (2013), won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and at the Toronto International Film Festival. Noujaim’s work has also been nominated for awards by the International Documentary Association and Film Independent Spirit.

Karim Amer is an Academy Award–nominated filmmaker, best known for producing the documentary The Square(Al midan), which was nominated for an Academy Award and received three Emmy Awards. Amer also teamed up with Angelina Jolie and Jehane Noujaim to executive produce the Academy Award–nominated animated feature, The Breadwinner in 2017.

Screening details here.

Late Night is an upcoming comedy film, directed by Nisha Ganatra, from a screenplay by Mindy Kaling. It stars Emma Thompson, Kaling, John Lithgow AB '67, Ar.D. '05., Hugh Dancy, Reid Scott, and Paul Walter Hauser. It will have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2019.

Late Night centers on a late-night talk show host (Thompson) who is at risk of losing her long-running show right when she hires her first female writer (Kaling), who revitalizes her show and her life. 

Details about each screening can be found here.

If you're attending this year's Austin Film Festival and would like to get connected with other Harvardwood members who will be there, get in touch! Email harvardwood@harvardwood.org with the subject line "AFF 2018" and the contact info where you'd like to be reached. Then we'll put together the list of folks willing to share their contact info and connect all of you together.

The 2018-19 Harvardwood Writers Program in Boston will begin meeting weekly in early October, and we're accepting applications from interested writers now through Sept. 25th.

New participants will be asked to submit a short writing sample, a bio or resume, and a paragraph stating what you'd like to work on with the group this year. Only Harvardwood members are eligible to apply and participate, so if you're not a current member, join Harvardwood or renew your membership before accessing the application link. The participation fee is $80/writer.

If you're interested in joining the Boston Screenwriting Group, make sure you're a current Harvardwood member, log in to our website, and fill out this brief form.

DC-area residents, we need YOUR assistance! Harvardwood is eager to bring more events to our DC members, but in order to do so, we need access to free or affordable venues.

If you live in or familiar with the DC area and can hook us up with such a space, please email us. Examples of good spaces are: the conference room of a law firm; small theaters or screening rooms; the private room at a restaurant, bar, wine bar, etc.; classrooms at a community college or local school; the community room of a public library; art galleries... get creative, we're open!

We are now accepting submissions to the 2018 Harvardwood Writers Competition!

Industry professionals, with support from the Harvardwood Board of Directors, will evaluate all scripts entered to determine the winner and two runners up from each category. Results will be announced in late 2019.

Your donation to this fund will enable Harvard students participating in the Harvardwood Summer Internship Program to travel to/from events hosted by the program throughout the summer. Many students interning in Los Angeles do not have access to a car, and the travel funds go strictly toward ridesharing or public transportation expenses to attend HSIP events.

If you're involved in a film that will be screened at Tribeca this year, let us know so we can share screening info with the Harvardwood community! We're here to support our members and their endeavors in the arts, media, and entertainment—whether it's by serving as a fiscal NPO sponsor in the early stages of a project or by promoting your concerts, exhibits, or screenings via the Harvardwood Heads To... calendar.

Company: SurvivorNet Inc.
Location:New York, NY
Type of Position: Full-time
Minimum Education Level: Bachelor's
Minimum Experience Level: 1-2 years

Job Description: We are looking for a highly motivated person to join our team as an Executive Assistant and Researcher. This is a fantastic opportunity for someone who wants a foot in the door of the media world. There will be significant exposure to all aspects of video production, brand building, and digital media. We are creating an innovative new source for health information. This is an opportunity to become part of an exciting effort to revolutionize content in the health space. We are solving a very specific problem for millions of people and we have a viable business plan. Our founding team has an excellent track creating digital video, award winning TV programs, and brands seen by millions of people.

Writer & Producer, Kung Fu Panda 1, 2, & 3, Trolls

By Adrian Horton AB '17

To hear him tell it, Jonathan Aibel AB '91 always had a creative bent, though it took him nearly a quarter century to learn what a spec script was. Growing up in Demarest, New Jersey, right outside Manhattan, Aibel participated in theatre in high school, then continued indulging his creative side while at Harvard. The psychology major unofficially minored in music theory and a cappella (he was a four year member of the Din & Tonics), before penning the Hasting Pudding Theatricals show with a friend in his senior year.

By Henry Johnson AB '18

Michael Colton '97 is a humorist and screenwriter, most recently of A Futile and Stupid Gesture, which tells the story of National Lampoon’s founding. The film will be released on Netflix on January 26 following a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. With writing partner John Aboud ’95, Colton also scripted Penguins of Madagascar and The Comebacks, as well as episodes of Childrens Hospital and Newsreaders. He has appeared as a commentator on several VH1 shows, including Best Week Ever and I Love the ‘90s.

Q. When did you realize you wanted to go into comedy?

A. Like almost every comedy writer I know, I wrote a humor column in my high school newspaper. (Our faculty adviser, paranoid about lawsuits, insisted the column be called “Just Kidding,” which is a horrible name for a column.) I fell in love with crafting jokes and getting a reaction from people. But it was a long time before I thought I could be a screenwriter. I interned at newspapers all through college and wrote for the Washington Post for a couple years after graduation. It was a fantastic job and I was lucky to have it. And I will always be a newspaper addict (print subscriber for life!). But I realized that what I loved about journalism was the writing aspect, not the reporting. I wasn’t a great investigator and didn’t care about landing scoops. I wanted to tell stories and make people laugh. So being a screenwriter was ultimately a better fit.

Scrambling to think of the perfect gift idea for the artist, writer, filmmaker, musician in your life? Look no further! Now you can purchase Harvardwood gift certificates for a year (or more) of Harvardwood membership, event tickets (e.g., admission to three masterclasses in 2018), the Writers Competition application fee, or the new Script Review Service, to name a few examples. Ready to give the gift of Harvardwood this year? Contact us to tell us what "item" you want to gift, or we can also help you put together the ultimate Harvardwood gift package!

Mark your calendars now: our 2017 Holiday Silent Auction goes live on Friday, Dec. 15th and will end on Monday, Dec. 18th! Bids will be accepted online AND by text. When the auction page goes live at the end of this week, you'll get all the instructions on how to place bids on your computer or mobile device.

Shop for everyone on your gift list this holiday at smile.amazon.com/ch/03-0483549 and Amazon donates to Harvardwood. Thank you, and have a wonderful and happy holiday season!

By Michael Robin AB '08

Roshan Sethi MD ’13 is a writer and physician whose show The Resident, a medical drama about the darker side of modern medicine, will premiere on Fox in January. Roshan’s feature Call Jane recently attached Elizabeth Moss to star. After completing undergrad at Yale and medical school at Harvard, Roshan began a residency at Harvard in Radiation Oncology, all while balancing a burgeoning career as a writer. Here, we talk with him about his path, his process, and his experiences working with writing partner Hayley Schore.

Q. When did you start writing? When did you begin to consider yourself "a writer”?

A. I started writing as a teenager. Mainly epic fantasy. That was my favorite genre. I read Game of Thrones way before it was fashionable.

Q. What drove you to attend medical school? Did you always know you wanted to be a physician?

A. I did. At a young age, I worked in my mother’s clinic as a receptionist. My twin brother and I sat at the front desk dressed in the same clothes, and led patients back to the examining rooms. I was always in awe of my mother, a general practitioner, who saw children and adults and could handle anything.

Agent, Producer, Studio Executive (CAA, The Aviator, MGM, Universal)

By Dayna Wilkinson

When people want to hear your opinion, you don’t sugarcoat it or manipulate them.  You tell them the unvarnished truth in a way they can absorb and embrace.

When Sandy Climan was growing up in the Bronx, no one would have thought Variety would later call him “the consummate Hollywood insider.” He was the kid who went to math camp, won science competitions and graduated first in his class from the renowned Bronx High School of Science.  

“I grew up in a lower middle class, white-and-blue collar neighborhood,” Sandy says.  “I hardly ever left the Bronx and, of course, there was no internet then. I went to the movies all the time and watched television incessantly, including great PBS programming like Masterpiece Theatre, Greek dramas and Athol Fugard plays. The only way for me to travel and explore other cultures was through books, television and movies, and they informed me about worlds I had never seen.” 

What's the new Harvardwood Script Review service?

The aim of the Harvardwood Script Review service is to give you specific and thorough notes to polish your script further and get it into the best shape possible before you send it out to screenplay competitions, agents, managers, producers, and other industry execs. You'll get a pair of expert, friendly (but critical!) eyes to show you how your script could be improved in future rewrites.

By Emily Zauzmer AB '18

Ryan Halprin AB ’12 serves as a Vice President at Lin Pictures, where his responsibilities include co-producing the LEGO movies and developing live action features. A neurobiology concentrator at Harvard, he found his passion in the college’s theater community as an actor turned director. He started as an intern at Lin Pictures in the summer after his junior year and rose through the ranks after college. Here, he discusses his career path, his advice for students hoping to follow in his footsteps, and his work on The LEGO Ninjago Movie, which comes out this month.

Q. How did you go from concentrating in neurobiology at Harvard to pursuing a career in entertainment? Does your science background inform your career path at all?

A. There’s a lot of overlap for me—the two fields get at the same big questions: why do we do what we do? Why are humans so weird? If we study behavior, can we understand it? Help people live better? What does that even mean? When I started college I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I had that curiosity, and the psychology class I took inadvertently revealed that the answers to all these questions are getting unearthed by neuroscience. I wanted in on that action. I thought I could get at the microbiology of love, or fear, even comedy. The more I dug in though, the more I found that so much of what is studied today is organisms with a few thousand brain cells, because humans have 80 billion neurons and there are a lot questions we have to answer before getting to the sexy ones. The practice of it was slow, not very creative, and seldom collaborative.

Orchestra Conductor, The Great Music Series & State of Art 

By Dayna Wilkinson

“I’m already in the hot seat as a twenty-eight year old conductor, but I feel incredible joy at the insanely high level of playing and extreme responsiveness of a professional orchestra.”

“Both my parents are professional musicians,” says Yuga Cohler AB '11. “My mother’s a violinist and my father’s a clarinetist so I took up those instruments—it didn’t go well.” Fortunately, those were minor bumps in the road for Yuga, who started studying piano and music theory at age three. By age twelve, his primary instruments were oboe and piano.

“Shortly after starting on the oboe, I went to a music camp called Greenwood,” he says.  “That’s when I first discovered people my age who took music seriously.  It became a social thing—people I liked were also playing music, which made me like doing it more. By the time I was in my teens, I realized music was really great.” 

Yuga was interested in many different musical genres. “I really got into Eminem, then the underground hip hop scene. Also J-pop, Top 40 and musical theater for a while. Plus I listened to tons of classical records from my dad’s collection.”