Sundance Film Festival Launches Film School Grads' Careers

Joel and Ethan Coen

This dynamic duo has been well known in the independent film community since winning the Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic category in 1985 for the film, "Blood Simple." The wunderkind brothers both graduated from Simon's Rock College. In 1979, the school became a part of Bard College and is now known as Bard College at Simon's Rock. Ethan Coen also went on to attend Princeton University. Riding the success of their Sundance win, the brothers went on to write, direct and produce such memorable films as "Raising Arizona," "Fargo," "The Big Lebowski" and "No Country for Old Men."

Steven Soderbergh

The son of a college professor, Steven spent his high school years taking film animation classes at his father's university, Louisiana State, where he was able to use secondhand equipment to make several short films. His feature film directorial debut, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" took the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival in 1990. The film was a huge critical success and launched his career, as well as the careers of his actors. Steven has gone on to the direct box office hits "Erin Brockovich," "Traffic", the "Ocean's Eleven" franchise and "Contagion." He's also credited with producing a wide range of other films such as "Michael Clayton" and "We Need to Talk About Kevin."

Robert Rodriguez

After attending the film program at The University of Texas – Austin, Robert sold his body to science to secure funding for his first feature-length film, "El Mariachi." After debuting at the Sundance Film Festival in 1993, Robert signed a lucrative distribution deal with a major studio which allowed him to go onto make many of his other, well-known films: "Sin City," the "Spy Kids" franchise, "Desperado" and an installment of "Grindhouse."

Edward Burns

Transferring from The State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany in his junior year to study filmmaking at Hunter College in Manhattan, Ed spent his last two years in school writing scripts for short films. After personally handing Robert Redford a copy of "The Brothers McMullen," the film went on to win the Grand Jury Prize in 1995. Ed went on to direct "She's The One," the sequel to "The Brothers McMullen" and recently, "Newlyweds." Ed has found greater success in front of the camera, starring in movies such as "Saving Private Ryan," "The Holiday" and "Man on a Ledge."

Morgan Spurlock

Rejected five times by the University of Southern California (USC), Morgan eventually decided to move to the East Coast, graduating from the New York University (NYU) Film Department in 1993. His best known film, "Super Size Me," premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2004, where Morgan was the recipient of the Documentary Directing Award. Since, he's continued his first person documentary style with "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?" and "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold."