Andrew Cohen (filmmaker)

Andrew Cohen
Born	(1965-03-16) 16 March 1965 (age 59) New York, New York
Occupations	Film director film producer journalist
Website	www.acfilmsinc.com

Andrew "Andy" Cohen (born March 16, 1965) is a three-time Emmy nominated independent filmmaker^[1][2][3] and journalist whose film To Kill a Tiger was nominated for a 2024 Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.^[4]

The founder of AC Films Inc, Cohen has directed, written, and produced feature-length and short-form films.

Cohen's work as a producer includes To Kill a Tiger (2024, nominated Academy Award for Best Documentary), Ai Weiwei's Human Flow (2017, short-listed Academy Award for Best Documentary),^[5][6] Hooligan Sparrow (2016, short-listed Academy Award for Best Documentary),^{[7][8][9][10]} Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012, short-listed Academy Award for Best Documentary),^[11][12][13] and The World Before Her (2012, Best Documentary Feature, Tribeca Film Festival).

Early life

Born and raised in Manhattan, Cohen attended Trinity School in New York City until the 9th grade, after which he pursued an alternative education.

In 1986, he landed a job in the sound department at Dino De Laurentiis' non-union studio in North Carolina. After the boom operator broke his leg, Cohen operated the boom for the Freddie Fields produced, Bruce Beresford directed film Crimes of the Heart (1986) starring Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, and Sam Shepard.^[14]

Career

He produced and co-wrote his first film from 1989-1996, Gaylen Ross' Dealers Among Dealers,^[15][16] about the New York City diamond business. Cohen would later co-write and produce Ross' 2008 documentary Killing Kasztner on the life and assassination of Rezso Kasztner.^[17][18]

From 2010 to 2013, Cohen directed and wrote a nine-part series of short films on China's leading contemporary artists in collaboration with Art Asia Pacific for which he is a contributing editor.^[19]

Cohen wrote, directed and produced the documentary Ximei (2019 Movies that Matter Activist Award),^[20][21] which premiered at the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva.^[22] Produced by Ai Weiwei, the film is centered around Liu Ximei, a Chinese peasant woman infected with AIDS during China's Black Blood Economy in the 1990s. Production of Ximei^[23] lasted seven years, due to interference from Chinese officials; Cohen's phone and internet messages were spied on and parts of footage were regularly confiscated.^[24]

Cohen participated in Global Geneva's first 'Youth Writes' (Young Journalists and Writers Initiative) workshop in Versoix, Switzerland, in March 2019, helping high school students better understand the role of documentary film reporting.^[25]

He wrote, directed and produced Beijing Spring (2021, Amnesty International / FIFA jury Award) which chronicles China's first Democracy movement and protest demonstration for artistic freedom following China's brutal Cultural Revolution.^[26][27]

Crossing over from documentary to fiction, Cohen produced his first narrative feature, Little Death (2024), starring David Schwimmer, directed by Jack Begert, written by Dani Goffstein and Jack Begert, produced alongside Psycho Films and Darren Aronofsky's Protozoa Pictures. Little Death premiered at the 40th Sundance Film Festival in 2024, winning the Next Innovator Award.^[28][29]

His work has been screened at festivals around the world, including the Venice Film Festival,^[30] Telluride Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Cannes Festival and has been streamed on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+.

Filmography

• Dealers Among Dealers (1996) – producer
• Killing Kasztner (2008) – writer, producer
• Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) – executive producer
• The World Before Her (2012) – executive producer
• Hooligan Sparrow (2016) – executive producer
• Human Flow (2017) – executive producer
• Ximei (2019) – writer, director, producer
• Beijing Spring (2020) – writer, director, producer
• To Kill a Tiger (2022) – executive producer, creative consultant
• Jackie the Wolf (2023) – producer, executive producer
• Little Death (2024) – producer
• The Apprentice (2024) – producer
• Mediha (2024) – executive producer
• Rough & Polished (2025) – writer, director, producer
• Tacheles (2025) – writer, director, producer
• Ai Weiwei's Turandot (2025) – producer
• Village Gate (2026) – writer, director, producer

References

1. "Andy Cohen". IMDb. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
2. "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry". Motto Pictures. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
3. "Chinese Documentary 'Hooligan Sparrow' Makes Oscar Shortlist |". chinafilminsider.com. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
4. "Oscar nominations 2024: The full list of nominees". BBC. Retrieved 2024-01-23.
5. Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Ai Weiwei's film 'Human Flow' makes Oscar shortlist | DW | 08.12.2017". DW.COM. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
6. "Refugee Crisis Doc 'Human Flow' Acquired by Amazon (Exclusive". The Hollywood Reporter). 16 June 2017.
7. Gleiberman, Owen (2016-07-22). "Film Review: 'Hooligan Sparrow'". Variety. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
8. "Credits | Hooligan Sparrow | POV | PBS". 2016-01-10.
9. "Nanfu Wang: 2018 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient". Chicken & Egg Pictures. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
10. "POV Documentary 'Hooligan Sparrow' Wins a Peabody Award". POV's Documentary Blog. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
11. "AI Weiwei: Never Sorry".
12. "Motto Pictures » AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY".
13. "Emmy Awards 2022: Award winners and highlights". NBC News. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
14. "Crimes of the Heart - Cast & Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 2024-01-30.
15. "Dealers Among Dealers | POV | PBS".
16. "Credits | Dealers Among Dealers | POV | PBS". 1995-01-11.
17. Holden, Stephen (2009-10-22). "Rudolf Kastner, Who Was (or Wasn't?) a Holocaust Hero". The New York Times.
18. "Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt with Nazis -- Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. 20 October 2009.
19. "INVISIBLE PRESENCE". Retrieved 2024-01-29 – via YouTube.
20. "XIMEI".
21. "La Via della Seta ha un baco, i diritti umani". L'HuffPost. March 28, 2019.
22. "Film". fifdh.info.
23. "Ximei, la activista que desafía al gigante - Proceso". Archived from the original on 2019-04-28.
24. "Ximei documentary premieres at Geneva Human Rights Film Festival". euronews. March 19, 2019.
25. "China and the Golden Veins of Henan: A film-maker's view | Global Geneva".
26. "'Beijing Spring' documents China's forgotten struggle for freedom". September 25, 2017.
27. Rodek, Hanns-Georg (8 August 2019). "AI Weiwei: Warum ich Berlin und Deutschland verlasse. Eine Abrechnung". Die Welt.
28. Begert, Jack, Little Death (Drama), Psycho Films, Protozoa Pictures, AC Films, retrieved 2022-09-26
29. "Sundance Film Festival unveils 2024 line-up; Steven Soderbergh returns, Christopher Reeve doc to open". December 6, 2023.
30. "AI Weiwei Refugee Crisis Film Human Flow to be Screened at Venice".

External links

• Official website
• Andrew Cohen at IMDb
• Newswire Article: Human Flow
• ScreenDaily Write Up - Venice Film Festival
• Freedom: Short Film