Jeffrey Friedman is one of the most popular and richest Film Director who was born on August 24, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, United States. They wrote, directed, and co-produced Howl (2010), starring James Franco as the poet Allen Ginsberg, featuring Jon Hamm, David Strathairn, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, Alessandro Nivola, Treat Williams, and Bob Balaban. Howl, which was executive produced by Gus Van Sant, premiered on opening night at the Sundance Film Festival, followed by the Berlin and London International Film Festivals. It was released theatrically and on home video by Oscilloscope Laboratories in the US and internationally by The Match Factory. Howl received a 2011 Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review.
In 2000, they directed and produced Paragraph 175, a film that explores the untold history of homosexuals during the Nazi regime in Europe. Narrated by Rupert Everett and filmed in Germany, France and Spain, it had its US premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2000, where it was awarded the documentary Grand Jury Prize for directing, followed by a European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, where it won a FIPRESCI award (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique).
Friedman has been making films with Rob Epstein since 1987, when they formed the production company Telling Pictures in San Francisco, California. Friedman and Epstein’s first film together was Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, Common Threads recounts the first decade of AIDS in America through stories of five individuals featured in the Quilt. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Common Threads in 1990 as well as a Peabody Award. Common Threads was preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in conjunction with Milestone Films and Outfest, in 2019.
