War, Justice, and Democracy in the Films of Steven Spielberg: Minorirty Report

ADMISSION:
Admission is free. Reservations required. 

RSVP 

DESCRIPTION:
Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, this sci-fi thriller stars Tom Cruise as a Washington, D.C., detective who works for “Precrime,” a special unit of the police department that arrests murderers before they have committed the actual crime. When Anderton discovers that he has been identified as the future killer of a man he's never met, he is forced to become a fugitive from his own colleagues as he tries to uncover the mystery of the victim-to-be's identity. Directed by Steven Spielberg, who hired a team of futurists to devise the film's numerous technologically advanced gadgets, Minority Report co-stars Colin Farrell, Max von Sydow, and Neal McDonough.

The provocative blockbuster will be followed by a Q&A with screenwriter Scott Frank, who is also a screenwriter for Dead Again, Out of Sight, and Logan, and creator of The Queens Gambit, in conversation with USC School of Cinematic Arts lecturer Luis Gabriel Moreno-Ocampo and professor Ted Braun. 

This event is part of a series of seven screenings and conversations hosted by Moreno-Ocampo and Braun examining how the films of Steven Spielberg have articulated and shaped global narratives of war, justice, and democracy in the 21st century.

About the panelists: 

Screen credits for Scott Frank (screenwriter) include some of the better-known films of the last decade, such as Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report and Steven Soderburgh’s Out of Sight. Other well-known screenplays include Malice; Dead Again, directed by Kenneth Branagh; and Jody Foster’s directorial debut, Little Man Tate. Other writing credits include The Lookout, which Frank also directed, and The Queen’s Gambit, which he created and produced.

Luis Gabriel Moreno-Ocampo (USC School of Cinematic Arts) was the founding chief prosecutor of the new and permanent International Criminal Court from 2003–12. There are seven documentaries presenting parts of his work at the ICC, including Darfur Now and Kony 2012. Previously, he had a critical role during the transition to democracy in Argentina. He was deputy prosecutor in the trial against the military junta, a case depicted in the Amazon production, Argentina 1985, a 2023 Academy Award nominee for Best International Feature Film, and 2023 Golden Globe winner. Currently, he lectures at the USC School of Cinematic Arts on films and war, crimes, and justice. Previously he was a visiting professor at Stanford and Harvard University Law School. In November 2022, Oxford University Press published his book, War and Justice in the 21st Century, describing his nine years of practice as the ICC’s chief prosecutor. He is presently involved in private practice assisting Armenian people suffering a genocide in 2023. 

Ted Braun (USC School of Cinematic Arts) teaches screenwriting and is the Joseph Campbell Endowed Chair in Cinematic Ethics. Braun’s feature documentary, ¡Viva Maestro!, about conductor Gustavo Dudamel, premiered theatrically in 2022, was nominated for the WGA award for Best Feature Documentary, and is currently streaming on MAX. Set against unfolding violence and social unrest in Dudamel’s home of Venezuela, the film is an exploration of art in a time of political crisis. It’s his second film with Participant, which co-financed his feature debut Darfur Now. Darfur Now was named one of 2007’s top five documentaries by the National Board of Review and won the International Documentary Association’s Emerging Filmmaker Award and the NAACP Image Award. His docu-thriller Betting On Zero received a WGA nomination for Best Feature Documentary of 2017, and a special jury mention for investigative work at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. In 2018, Variety named Braun one of the world’s Top Ten Teachers in Film and TV. 

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Presented by the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Outside the Box (Office), and USC Visions and Voices.