THIS EVENT BEGINS AT 1pm and will be comprised of a 135 minute table read followed by a 30 minute Q&A.
The Ojai Film Festival is pleased to announce that Immigrants, a richly detailed story of family struggle and survival from World War II-era Nazi Germany to the melting pot of New York, has been named the Best Screenplay and will be presented as a Zoom-style actors’ read as part of the 2020 festival in November.
Immigrants is the work of the very successful writing team of David Diamond and David Weissman, who have accumulated multiple-produced credits over their decades-long collaboration (Family Man, Evolution, Old Dogs, When in Rome) and have earned an industry-wide reputation for delivering emotionally resonant and truthful storytelling. The live table read will be directed by Valerie Alexander and offers “an affirming story about the power and importance of family, especially in the darkest and most threatening of times”. Its historical setting and subject is resonant in this country today as we, as a nation, continue to grapple with issues of immigration and the way we view “the other”. The intimate narrative and insightful character study of Immigrants makes it timeless.
BIO: David Diamond & David Weissman (Screenplay authors)
David Diamond and David Weissman's partnership is rooted in a friendship that dates back to their high school days together in Philadelphia. They parted company for college while Diamond majored in Cinema Studies at NYU and Weissman studied Chinese history, first at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and then at the University of Michigan. Weissman received two Masters Degrees in the subject, one from the University of Wisconsin and the second from Brown University, before setting aside academic aspirations to join Diamond, who had settled in Los Angeles, to pursue a writing career.
The partners sold their first spec script, The Whiz Kid, to 20th Century Fox in 1994. They followed with a series of original ideas for comedies, including their first produced credit in 2000, Universal Pictures’ The Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni. A collaboration with Ivan Reitman came next with Diamond and Weissman writing the Dreamworks Pictures sci-fi comedy Evolution.
In 2005, Diamond and Weissman collaborated with Wedding Crashers producer Andrew Panay on a series of feature comedies yielding two additional produced credits, Old Dogs, starring John Travolta and Robin Williams (2009), and the romantic comedy When In Rome, starring Kristin Bell and Josh Duhamel (2010).
Now in the fourth decade of their friendship, and the third decade of their writing partnership, Diamond and Weissman continue to explore concept and character driven stories that add up to more than the sum of their parts. While the landscape has changed dramatically over the course of their twenty-five year career, Diamond and Weissman continue to seek out stories that are entertaining, true in spirit, and ultimately uplifting.
Diamond and Weissman are also the writers of Bulletproof: Writing Scripts That Don’t Get Shot Down (MWP, 2019), a mentoring text for aspiring screenwriters. They live in Los Angeles with their wives and children.
THIS EVENT BEGINS AT 1pm and will be comprised of a 135 minute table read followed by a 30 minute Q&A.
The Ojai Film Festival is pleased to announce that Immigrants, a richly detailed story of family struggle and survival from World War II-era Nazi Germany to the melting pot of New York, has been named the Best Screenplay and will be presented as a Zoom-style actors’ read as part of the 2020 festival in November.
Immigrants is the work of the very successful writing team of David Diamond and David Weissman, who have accumulated multiple-produced credits over their decades-long collaboration (Family Man, Evolution, Old Dogs, When in Rome) and have earned an industry-wide reputation for delivering emotionally resonant and truthful storytelling. The live table read will be directed by Valerie Alexander and offers “an affirming story about the power and importance of family, especially in the darkest and most threatening of times”. Its historical setting and subject is resonant in this country today as we, as a nation, continue to grapple with issues of immigration and the way we view “the other”. The intimate narrative and insightful character study of Immigrants makes it timeless.
BIO: David Diamond & David Weissman (Screenplay authors)
David Diamond and David Weissman's partnership is rooted in a friendship that dates back to their high school days together in Philadelphia. They parted company for college while Diamond majored in Cinema Studies at NYU and Weissman studied Chinese history, first at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and then at the University of Michigan. Weissman received two Masters Degrees in the subject, one from the University of Wisconsin and the second from Brown University, before setting aside academic aspirations to join Diamond, who had settled in Los Angeles, to pursue a writing career.
The partners sold their first spec script, The Whiz Kid, to 20th Century Fox in 1994. They followed with a series of original ideas for comedies, including their first produced credit in 2000, Universal Pictures’ The Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni. A collaboration with Ivan Reitman came next with Diamond and Weissman writing the Dreamworks Pictures sci-fi comedy Evolution.
In 2005, Diamond and Weissman collaborated with Wedding Crashers producer Andrew Panay on a series of feature comedies yielding two additional produced credits, Old Dogs, starring John Travolta and Robin Williams (2009), and the romantic comedy When In Rome, starring Kristin Bell and Josh Duhamel (2010).
Now in the fourth decade of their friendship, and the third decade of their writing partnership, Diamond and Weissman continue to explore concept and character driven stories that add up to more than the sum of their parts. While the landscape has changed dramatically over the course of their twenty-five year career, Diamond and Weissman continue to seek out stories that are entertaining, true in spirit, and ultimately uplifting.
Diamond and Weissman are also the writers of Bulletproof: Writing Scripts That Don’t Get Shot Down (MWP, 2019), a mentoring text for aspiring screenwriters. They live in Los Angeles with their wives and children.