Washington Square Films has signed director/DP Joshua Z Weinstein for his first U.S. commercial representation. He directed the feature film Menashe which was released theatrically by A24, received a 97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.
Weinstein’s work delivers gritty realism infused with a sense of humor and pathos. He has a unique eye for portraying multidimensional characters and narratives that can be seen in docu-style and narrative branded pieces for such clients as Lyft, Tylenol, Facebook and Bai.
“Washington Square Films is a staple of New York City and some of my favorite filmmakers have come through their doors,” noted Weinstein. “It’s an honor to work with a team that cares so much about cinema and storytellers.”
A filmmaker inspired by the exploration of culture and people from all walks of life, Weinstein has worked closely with celebrities like Ben Stiller to help tuberculosis victims in the slums of Delhi. Weinstein’s film projects have been shown at Sundance, Berlin and Camerimage. Pictures of the Year (POY) awarded Weinstein’s work with The New York Times first place for “Multimedia Project of the Year.” He is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Communication Film department, an alumnus of the CPB/PBS Producers Academy at WGBH, an IFP Filmmaker Labs fellow, and a two-time recipient of the NEA-funded Southern Circuits Arts Tour.
Washington Square Films managing director/director of sales and marketing Jonathan Schwartz said, “We all loved Menashe. When we saw the short form work and found out he was a Mets fan we knew he had to be at Washington Square.”
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More