(Academy Award-nominated filmmaker explores life in 1960's...)
Academy Award-nominated filmmaker explores life in 1960's Mississippi and the momentous impact of "Booker" Wright, a black man who voiced opinions on race relations on network TV, and the subsequent ensuing fallout.
Raymond De Felitta is famous as an American independent film director. He is probably best known for the award-winning film Two-Family House.
Background
Ethnicity:
Raymond's father was Italian American and his mother was of Polish Jewish descent.
De Felitta was born on June 30, 1964, in New York, United States to the family of Frank De Felitta, a novelist and screenwriter. Raymond has an older sister.
Education
Raymond De Felitta attended Bard College. After graduation in 1985, he enrolled in the American Film Institute.
In 1986, after Bard College, Raymond became assistant to the producer of Killer in the Mirror, a movie made for television. When he finished the American Film Institute, he was already nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for the thesis work Bronx Cheers. Besides, in the 1990s Ray worked as an actor. He was a piano player in Mad at the Moon, lab security in New Rose Hotel, and Mr. Brazer in Joe the King.
De Felitta's debut feature, Café Society, premiered in Directors Fortnight at Cannes in 1996. His first documentary, Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris, premiered to wide acclaim at Sundance in 2007, and his second documentary, Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story, premiered at Tribeca in 2012, was the subject of a full one-hour episode of Dateline NBC. In 2014 De Felitta directed Rob The Mob. In 2016 he directed Madoff, the four-hour ABC miniseries about financier Bernard Madoff starring Richard Dreyfuss, for which he was nominated for a Directors Guild Of America award for Best Director of a Mini-Series.
In 2018 Ray De Felitta directed the baseball-themed drama Bottom Of The Ninth, starring Sofia Vergara and Joe Mangienello. He is currently preparing to direct his own screenplay The Artist In Residence.
Raymond De Felitta’s films have been honored at international film festivals. His short film Bronx Cheers was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991. City Island and Two Family House both won Audience Awards, at the Tribeca Film Festival (2009) and Sundance Film Festival (2000) respectively.
Besides, Raymond De Felitta was nominated for an Oscar for Bronx Cheers.