With over 70 diverse motion pictures to his credit, native New Yorker and motion picture producer Edward R. Pressman has forged a career of international renown, marked by originality and eclecticism. While there is no one type or genre of film to which Pressman is most drawn, throughout his career he has brought numerous emerging filmmakers together with projects that have put them firmly on the map. Indeed, if one word were needed to describe both Pressman and the many directors with whom he has collaborated, that word would be “maverick.”

In September 2001, Pressman launched a major initiative by forming, with John Schmidt, a new company called ContentFilm, a fully-financed production and distribution company based in New York. Mr. Pressman also enjoys a collaboration with his long time friend Terrence Malick under their joint production company, Sunflower Productions.

While Pressman was born in New York, as one of the industry’s most prolific independent producers he once found that it was easier to live in Los Angeles, where he kept a home for a number of years. But in 1995 a quintessentially New York project brought Pressman and his family back to New York for good. Starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, and Danny Aiello, Harold Becker’s “City Hall” was shot entirely on location in New York and was steeped in the politics and mores of the city that Pressman has since called home.

Pressman’s specialty as a producer is discovering new talent and bringing new experiences to motion picture audiences. He is particularly known for fostering the careers of many young and inspired filmmakers. Pressman provided Oliver Stone with his major directorial debut with “The Hand,” and then produced his Academy Award-winning “Wall Street” and “Talk Radio.” He was also responsible for giving artist/musician David Byrne his premier moment behind the camera with “True Stories.” Director Brian De Palma showed off his early mastery of suspense in the Pressman productions “Sisters,” and “Phantom of the Paradise,” and Terrence Malick’s visual genius was first brought to the screen in Pressman’s “Badlands.” Pressman gave Alex Proyas his directorial debut with "The Crow" and he also gave Sylvester Stallone his first opportunity to direct with “Paradise Alley.”

On the international front, Pressman provided Rainer Werner Fassbinder with his first English language film, “Despair,” and the Taviani Brothers with theirs, “Good Morning Babylon.” He was also crucial in bringing Wolfgang Petersen’s highly-acclaimed “Das Boot” to the big screen. "Das Boot" went on to become one of the highest grossing foreign films in U.S. history, which was re-released in a special Directors’ Cut edition by Columbia Pictures in Spring 1997. Other overseas productions which Pressman help to foster include David Hare’s “Paris By Night” and Bo Widerberg’s “Victoria.”

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Pressman has produced many other films that have garnered critical acclaim and recognition. “Reversal of Fortune,” based on attorney Alan Dershowitz’s account of the Claus von Bulow affair, was honored with the Best Actor Oscar for star Jeremy Irons. Directed by Barbet Schroeder and also starring Glenn Close and Ron Silver, the film was selected by many critics as one of the ten best of the year and was nominated for three Academy Awards. Oliver Stone's modern day morality tale "Wall Street," brilliantly captured the era of greed and Michael Douglas' performance as Gordon Gekko won him the Best Actor Oscar for 1987. Both Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant,” a provocative morality tale of corruption and redemption starring Harvey Keitel, who won the IFP Spirit Award for best actor, and David Mamet’s “Homicide,” a multi-layered cop story about divided loyalties starring Joe Mantegna and William H. Macy, appeared on many critics’ lists of the year’s ten best films. “To Sleep With Anger,” Charles Burnett’s powerful and poetic drama of an African-American family starring Danny Glover, received the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay, among other honors.

The year 2000 saw the release of the screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial novel “American Psycho,” starring Christian Bale and directed by Mary Harron. The film made Bale a star and brought a tremendous amount of attention to the exciting way that Harron had handled Ellis’ largely misunderstood novel. But what is perhaps more telling about Pressman than the accolades the film received was the fact that the movie was made in the first place. Pressman bought the film rights to “American Psycho” over seven years before the film was made and stuck with the project through numerous re-writes, several potential directors and occasional cloudbursts of controversy. In retrospect, the film debuted during a window in our culture just after the point at which our booming economy was ripe for satire and just before the national debate over violence in the media might have made the release of such a film nearly unthinkable.

Other Pressman films that opened to critical acclaim include: “Two Girls and a Guy,” starring Robert Downey Jr., Heather Graham and Natasha Gregson Wagner under the direction of James Toback, which was released by Fox Searchlight in April 1998; “The Winter Guest,” a Pressman/Lipper Production marking Alan Rickman’s directorial debut and starring Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law, which was released by Fine Line Features in December 1997 and won the Grand Prix at the Chicago Film Festival; and “The Blackout,” directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Matthew Modine, Dennis Hopper, Beatrice Dalle and Claudia Schiffer, which was featured as a midnight screening at the 50th Cannes Film Festival. Two films from Edward R. Pressman Film Corp. premiered at the 1998 Venice Film Festival: “Endurance,” a production with Terrence Malick and directed by Leslie Woodhead, which inspired the formation of Sunflower Productions (released by Disney in 1999 and not to be confused with the previously listed Shackleton project), and Abel Ferrara’s “New Rose Hotel,” starring Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe and Asia Argento, released that year by Lions Gate. Most recently, Mr. Pressman produced “Owning Mahony” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, and John Hurt. The film was directed by British Filmmaker Richard Kwietniowski.

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Some of Edward R. Pressman’s producing credits also include; John Milius’ “Conan the Barbarian”starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; Danny DeVito’s “Hoffa,” starring Jack Nicholson; Alex Proyas' "The Crow" starring Brandon Lee Fred Schepisi’s “Plenty,” starring Meryl Streep; Kathryn Bigelow’s “Blue Steel" starring Jamie Lee Curtis; Mark Frost’s “Storyville,” Sam Raimi’s “Crimewave,” Bob Swaim’s “Half Moon Street" starring Sigourney Weaver; Alex Cox’s “Walker" starring Ed Harris; Chris Monger’s “Waiting For The Light,” starring Shirley MacLaine; John Frankenheimer’s “Year Of The Gun,” starring Sharon Stone and “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” starring Marlon Brando; Jim Toback’s “Black and White”; Danny Cannon's "Judge Dredd," starring Sylvester Stallone; Peter MacDonald’s “Legionnaire,” starring Jean Claude Van Damme; Bharat Nalluri’s “The Crow: Salvation,” starring Eric Mabius and Kirsten Dunst; Nicholas Kazan’s “Dream Lover” with James Spader; John Byrum’s “Heartbeat" starring Nick Nolte; Joan Tewkesbury’s “Old Boyfriends" starring John Belushi; Steve De Jarnatt's "Cherry 2000" starring Melanie Griffith; and three Paul Williams films; “Out Of It,” starring Jon Voight, “The Revolutionary,” and “Dealing.”

American Film magazine named Pressman the Best Producer of the 1980s in a poll reflecting the opinions of 54 American film critics. In February 2001, Edward R. Pressman and his body of work were honored with a 25-film career retrospective at the BAMcinematek at New York’s renowned Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 1991, he received the John Cassavetes Award from the Independent Feature Project/West for his outstanding body of work and his contributions to independent filmmaking.

Pressman’s international influence was heralded when the French Cinematheque presented a 1989 retrospective of his films and awarded him the esteemed Chevalier Des Arts et Lettres medal in recognition of his contributions to cinema and his friendship with France. The National Film Theatre in London recognized Pressman’s achievements, as well, with a major ten-day event. New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1988 honored the influence of Pressman’s films with a two-week retrospective of his work. He has also received tributes from the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Pressman attended New York’s Fieldston School, then went on to graduate with honors from Stanford University with a B.A. in Philosophy. He pursued graduate studies at the London School of Economics.

Pressman is married to Annie McEnroe, whom he met while she was starring in Oliver Stone’s “The Hand.” She has also appeared in “True Stories” and “Beetlejuice.” They have one son. Pressman serves on the Board of Trustees of the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, and on the Board of Directors of New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center.

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