Name: Tom Bernard

Tom Bernard is currently the co-President and co-founder (with Michael Barker and Marcie Bloom) of Sony Pictures Classics. Founded in January of 1992, the company runs autonomously from parent company Sony Picture Entertainment and acquires, produces and distributes independent films from America and around the world. In 1981, Bernard was responsible for founding United Artists Classics, the first studio specialized film division bringing for the first time such classic films to American audiences such as The Last Metro, Diva, and Fassbinder's Lola. Later, he co-founded with Michael Barker, Orion Classics which went on to become one of the leading specialized film divisions in the 80s.

He has worked with many of the world's finest independent filmmakers including Akira Kurosawa, John Boorman, Louis Malle, David Mamet, James Ivory, Zhang Yimou, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Allison Anders, Agniezska Holland, John Sayles, Errol Morris, Alan Rudolph, Hal Hartley, Pedro Almodovar, Mike Figgis, Woody Allen, Francis Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Lily Tomlin, Richard Linklater, Merchant Ivory, Neil LaBute, Sally Potter, Gary Oldman and Ang Lee. He has released some of the best and most successful independent films from the past two decades. Recent years saw the release of the Academy Award winning Pollock and Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001) which grossed over $125 million dollars domestically becoming the highest grossing foreign language film in history. The film also received 10 Academy Award nominations, winning four (Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Score).

Awards and honors consistently bestowed on his team and their films include 17 Academy Awards, 67 Oscar nominations and 8 opening night presentations at the New York Film Festival. According to Variety, this team has distributed more of the top sixty foreign language films than any other team or company since 1960, seven of which have won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Recent honors include France's distinguished Chevalier Order of Arts and Letters, The Gotham Industry Lifetime Achievement Award from the IFP (Independent Feature Project), the Findie Award at the IFP/West Spirit Awards, the GLAAD Media Award, and a recent retrospective at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. At the Sony Global Management assembly, Bernard, along with his partners, received the distinguished Special Recognition Award two years in a row for their continued success and achievement.

Sony Pictures Classics has also played a significant role in preserving film's heritage. Together with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and the Merchant Ivory Foundation, they have restored and released nine classics by master filmmaker Satyajit Ray. With Academy Award winning producer Arthur Cohn, they preserved and reissued legendary filmmaker Vitorio de Sica's Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1970).

Bernard is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Sundance Advisory Board, the Tribeca Film Festival Advisory Board and the Monmouth University Communication Board. He also has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland at College Park

(sources: imdb.com)

Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - Harry

Sony Pictures Classics
Tom Bernard at IMDB.com

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