The American Cinema Foundation was started in 1994. ACF’s co-founder and founding director was Cathy Siegel Weiss, an entertainment attorney active in philanthropic circles. Her prior professional background included serving as counsel for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and assistant general counsel for Golden West Broadcasters.

Lionel Chetwynd. Laughing, in the lower left corner: Sandra Tsing Loh.

ACF’s co-founder and current board chairman is Lionel Chetwynd, who was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for “The Adventures of Duddy Kravitz” with Richard Dreyfuss. Chetwynd was commissioned by the Kennedy Center to write and co-produce a documentary on John Kennedy’s life. He became one of Hollywood’s rare specialists in political and military history, directing “The Hanoi Hilton” and writing hit TV films like “To Heal a Nation” (about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial), “Kissinger and Nixon”, “Color of Justice” and many others, including “P.T. Barnum” and “Varian’s War”.

ACF Executive Director Gary McVey is a former New Yorker, a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Gary took over the helm of the ACF in 1997, bringing the specialized world of documentary and foreign films together with one of Hollywood's pioneering "talking shops" for public policy, and introducing programs that re-examine moments and movements in film and television history, including the nearly sixty year history of public television.

Gary was an executive at Filmex, the original and legendary Los Angeles film festival, and became one of the founding directors of its successor, AFI FEST, the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival in 1987. Under his leadership the festival held its first annual Latino, Independent, and Hong Kong film weeks, and focused on the great change sweeping socialist Europe in those years. AFI FEST revived long-popular L.A. traditions like the all-night movie marathon (1995's "All Night: Left Wing vs. Right Wing" was a particular success). Video and information technology transformed the festival circuit in the nineties, with AFI playing a major role, and the festival was often the occasion of public introduction of new ideas.

Gary has served on film juries and panels in Ireland, Russia, Germany, Azerbaijan, Spain, and the Czech Republic.

Other ACF Board members include Matthew Duda, senior vice president of Showtime Networks, who has been one of its officers since its founding in the early 80s, and is involved in acquisitions and strategy; and Rob Long, humorist and author, producer of the longtime US TV hit “Cheers” and one of American television’s most well regarded writers since the early nineties; Frank Price, producer of films like “The Tuskeegee Airmen”, with Cuba Gooding Jr. Mr. Price is the former head of Universal Studios and of Columbia Pictures; Bob Gale, who wrote “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, Steven Spielberg’s “1941” and the “Back to the Future” trilogy; and Tom Selleck, one of Hollywood’s most popular actors. Mr. Selleck has also co-produced a series of classic western films for television and starred as General Eisenhower in Lionel Chetwynd’s “Ike: Countdown to D-Day”.

ACF introduced local audiences to Los Angeles journalist Cathy Seipp. She moderated and co-presented many pioneering public events with ACF for the on-line community and also about television. Her work on “The Dennis Miller Show” and on the websites of National Review On-Line and the Independent Women’s Forum made her known to a national audience that cherished her politically incorrect writing. She was a constant, welcome presence at our public events. One of the very first people to see Internet society as a “blogosphere”, Cathy was also one of the first print journalists to see what a transformative effect blogs would have on politics, media and society. Cathy died in 2007.

Photo: Rob Long at the mike; Cathy Seipp front and center; in the background Andrew Breitbart (in blue jeans) next to Jill Stewart.

The American Cinema Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan arts organization. It was created to nurture and reward television and feature-film projects that address fundamental social values in a positive manner, that support and strengthen the concepts of the common good and the common culture, and promote democratic pluralism and inclusion. Executive Director, Gary McVey

 

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