Stephen Cone
Stephen Cone (born August 10, 1980) is an American filmmaker who has received recent early career retrospectives on the Criterion Channel, MUBI and at the Museum of the Moving Image, as well at Berlin's Unknown Pleasures Festival and Manchester's Bigger Than Life. . Early life. Cone was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in South Carolina. He moved to Chicago in 2004 and, in his words, taught himself to make movies "by making movies." Career. In 2006, Cone wrote, produced, and directed his first short film "Church Story" with actors Isabel Liss, Bill McGough, and Arian Moayed . In 2007, Cone followed with the short film "Young Wives". His medium-length film, a metaphysical drama called "The Christians", was completed in 2008 and featured performances by J. Kingsford Goode, Bill McGough, Arian Moayed, Sadie Rogers, Laurel Schroeder, Krissy Shields, and Robert Belushi, oldest son of actor Jim Belushi. Cone's next feature film, the full-length "In Memoriam", released in 2011, follows a group of college students reenacting the last hours of two dead peers who fell to their deaths attempting to make love. "In Memoriam" was praised by film critic Roger Ebert as "a touching film." Cone  later reflected on the effect Ebert's review had, writing: Cone's third theatrical film, the coming-of-age drama "The Wise Kids", also released in 2011, was a critical success. It also garnered praise from Roger Ebert, "Variety"'s Robert Koehler, and Stephen Holden of "The New York Times". The film was a Critics' Pick for "The New York Times" and won the Grand Jury Prizes for U.S. Feature and Best Screenplay at Outfest. It was subsequently released on cable/VOD and DVD by Wolfe Video. In 2013, Cone released his fourth theatrical film "Black Box". While not as  widely seen as "The Wise Kids" due to an initial lack of distribution, the film garnered praise from "Newcity"'s Ray Pride and Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune", who gave the film 3½ out of 4 stars and called it "a worthy follow-up to Cone's previous film." "Black Box" was later acquired by Devolver Digital Films for a late 2014 cable/VOD release. Cone completed two unreleased experimental features in 2014, "The Mystery of Life" and "This Afternoon", and in 2015 completed the coming-of-age drama "Henry Gamble's Birthday Party". Henry Gamble was featured in  The New York Times "Anatomy of a Scene" series, screened within BAMcinemaFest and BFI Flare, and was the winner of the Silver Q Hugo Award at the 2015 Chicago International Film Festival. It is currently available to screen on Hulu. His latest film "Princess Cyd" appeared on Vanity Fair's Ten Best Films of the 2010s after appearing on multiple Best of 2017 lists including IndieWire, Vulture, Vanity Fair, Vox and NPR and screening at dozens of festivals worldwide including the BFI London Film Festival, BAMcinemaFest, Frameline and Maryland Film Festival. It was acquired for distribution by Wolfe Releasing and  is also currently streaming on Hulu.