James Schamus (UC Berkeley ’82 BA, ’87 MA, ’03 Ph.D) is an award-winning screenwriter (The Ice Storm), producer (Brokeback Mountain), and former CEO of Focus Features (Dallas Buyers Club, Lost in Translation, Milk, The Pianist). His feature directorial debut, the critically-acclaimed adaptation of Philip Roth's Indignation, premiered at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals, and was released by Roadside Attractions.
Schamus is currently collaborating with composer Huang Ruo on an opera for The Met; is Consulting Producer and writer on The Boroughs, the next tv series from the Duffer Brothers, of Stranger Things fame; and has completed in Mexico a new comedy he wrote and produced for Netflix, El yerno, which will be released on May 1. He created, executive produced, and was showrunner on the hit Mexican limited series for Netflix, Somos. Works from his New York-based production company, Symbolic Exchange, include Kitty Green’s The Assistant, starring Julia Garner; Andrew Ahn’s Driveways, starring Hong Chau and the late Brian Dennehy; Rhys Ernst’s award-winning trans comedy Adam, starring Margaret Qualley; Minhal Baig’s acclaimed We Grown Now, which was released by Sony Classics; and Mike Ott’s McVeigh, starring Alfie Allen and Tracy Letts, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released by by Decal. This past year Symbolic produced Andrew Ahn’s reimagining of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet, starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Joan Chen, Kelly Marie Tran, and Youn Yuh-jung, which James co-wrote and produced, as he did with the original by Ang Lee. It premiered at Sundance and was released internationally by Universal.
He is in his fourth decade as Professor of Professional Practice in Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory. His academic writings include The Moving Word from the University of Washington Press, and essays on Ingmar Bergman, early cinema history, and film theory. He currently serves on the Writers Guild’s AI task force.