Jim grew up in, New Castle, a small town north of
Pittsburgh in a blue-collar Italian family which might explain why his
favorite film is Bicycle Thieves. He met Max Von Sydow in Ann Arbor and
regrets not asking him for a cameo in his dream project: a sequel to
Three Days of the Condor starring Ed Norton. While receiving an MA in Film from University of
Michigan, he won a Hopwood Award for screenwriting and his script
Dysfunction Junction was a quarter-finalist in the 2011 Nicholl
Fellowship.
Jim fell in love with movies as an adult and confesses to having seen
Annie Hall before Star Wars. He produced Hard Scrambled,
starring Kurtwood Smith and Richard Edson, which premiered at Cinequest
and won Best Drama Feature at Garden State Film Festival. His films
have played at fests around the world including Ann Arbor, Australia
(Night of Horror), Mexico (Macabro) and Brazil (Cinefantasy). He wrote
for Creative Screenwriting in its early years and he interviewed
filmmakers like Allison Anders, Paul Schrader and John Sayles. He and
Creative Screenwriting founder Erik Bauer teamed on an unproduced web
series based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft and were producing partners
on the indie drama, Hard Scrambled. Erik produced Jim's latest
directorial effort, Last Girl, a thriller which satisfies their love of
genre movies and higher-minded films. As a story analyst, he works with
Oscar-nominated and A-List filmmakers. He writes material for a few
professional comedians and wrote a poker comedy column for the national
magazine, All In.
