Bingham Ray (1 October 1954 – 23 January 2012) was an American

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, i ...

executive.

Career

He was a co-founder of indie film distributor

October Films October Films was a major U.S. independent film production company and distributor founded in 1991 by Bingham Ray and Jeff Lipsky as a means of distributing the 1990 film '' Life Is Sweet''. A series of mergers and acquisitions began when Un ...

and president of

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...

from 2001 to 2004. At the time of his death, he was executive director of the

San Francisco Film Society SFFILM, formerly known as The San Francisco Film Society, is a nonprofit arts organization located in San Francisco, California, that presents year-round programs and events in film exhibition, media education, and filmmaker services. The Execut ...

Legacy

As noted by the

Independent Feature Project Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...

Gotham Independent Film Awards The Gotham Awards () are American film awards, presented annually to the makers of independent films at a ceremony in New York City, the city first nicknamed "Gotham" by native son Washington Irving, in an issue of ''Salmagundi'', published on ...

, "New to the Gotham Awards this year

012 012 may refer to: * Tyrrell 012, a Formula One racing car * The dialing code for Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassie ...

is the Bingham Ray Award, an award bestowed upon an emerging filmmaker whose work exemplifies a distinctive creative vision and stylistic adventurousness that stands apart from the mainstream and warrants championing. The goal is to bring additional attention to new artists whose work could be seen as conceivably joining the ranks of filmmakers championed by industry veteran Bingham Ray, who died in January." *Oden Roberts, Director and Writer, " A Fighting Season" was awarded the SFFS KRF grant by Bingham in December 2011. *

Benh Zeitlin Benjamin Harold Zeitlin (; born October 14, 1982) is an American filmmaker, best known for writing and directing the 2012 film '' Beasts of the Southern Wild'', for which he received two Academy Award nominations. Early life Zeitlin was born in ...

, director and co-writer of ''

Beasts of the Southern Wild ''Beasts of the Southern Wild'' is a 2012 American fantasy-drama film directed, co-written, and co-scored by Benh Zeitlin. It was adapted by Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar from Alibar's one-act play ''Juicy and Delicious''. The film stars Quvenzhané ...

'', was the inaugural recipient of the Bingham Ray Award. The 39th

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022. History First held on 30 August 1974, th ...

in 2013 was dedicated to him. The 2012 film "Stand Up Guys" starring Christopher Walken and Al Pacino is dedicated to him. The 2015 feature documentary ''The First Film'' which proves the world's very first film was made in England by

Louis Le Prince Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (28 August 1841 – disappeared 16 September 1890, declared dead 16 September 1897) was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequ ...

is also dedicated to Bingham Ray.

References

External links

* 1954 births 2012 deaths American film studio executives People from Scarsdale, New York Businesspeople from San Francisco Cinema of the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American businesspeople American independent film production company founders {{US-film-bio-stub