A 1997 grad of Scarsdale High School has just released his first feature film. Michael Masarof both wrote and directed the film, First Love, which played for a week in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinelounge Hollywood and is also streaming online on Amazon Prime.

Twenty years ago, I was catching my breath after a whirlwind trip through central and southern Africa. I had been traveling with my boss, Senator Russ Feingold, whose expertise on African affairs eventually led to his appointment as a special envoy to the Great Lakes in the Obama Administration. Senator Feingold had agreed to join then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke on a mission to bolster the prospects for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It was, Aaron Sorkin assumed, an attempted murder. Scott Rudin, godlike stage and screen producer, had asked him to turn To Kill a Mockingbird into a play. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is how Scott’s finally going to kill me. This is a suicide mission.’”

The 2019-2020 movie awards season got underway on Monday night, December 2, with the presentation of the Gotham Awards for independent film. Presented by the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), these prizes are decided by juries of industry peers and have honored Oscar winners like “Sideways” (2004), “Capote” (2005), “The Hurt Locker” (2009), “Spotlight” (2015) and “Moonlight” (2016). So who took top honors this year? Scroll down for the complete list in all 10 categories, updated live as they were announced.

As art aficionados, celebrities, and fashion folk head to Miami Beach this week for Art Basel, here’s L’Officiel USA’s guide to what to see and where to be seen. 

The list includes work from SAA alumni Nicole Eisenman (SHS '83).

Are social networks driving us into partisan factions at the expense of the common good? We look at social media and democracy.

With guest Jonathan Haidt (SHS '81), social psychologist, professor of ethical leadership, New York University’s Stern School of Business. Co-author of “The Coddling of the American Mind.”

As the pay TV industry continues to see sharply lower business and revenues -- including TV networks -- new company Engine Media, Inc. is launching with a focus on esports, gaming and live news content, led by former NBC cable TV network executive Tom Rogers.

Frieze Los Angeles has revealed that more than seventy galleries will participate in its 2020 edition, which is taking place at Paramount Pictures Studios from February 14 to February 16. It is also introducing a new feature section devoted to emerging LA galleries, Focus LA, which will be curated by Rita Gonzalez, the curator and head of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 

“Dialogue and reason may seem like the default, but historically, they are in fact a rarity,” said Alex Fogelson, events coordinator for Carnegie Mellon’s Humanist League, setting the stage for last Tuesday’s Sagan Fest talk in McConomy Auditorium.

Professor Jonathan D. Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University, was invited to give a talk titled “Finding Truth in a Polarized Age” at the event.

Read it here.