Ira Wohl is an American documentary filmmaker.[1] He is most noted for his 1979 film Best Boy, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 52nd Academy Awards.[2]

Born and raised in New York City, Wohl attended Forest Hills High School.[3] He had his first job in film working as an apprentice editor on Orson Welles's unfinished film Don Quixote in Madrid, Spain[3] He then made a number of short films, worked on the television series Big Blue Marble, worked with John Lennon on a music video, then made Best Boy.[3]

Best Boy premiered at the 1979 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the festival's only prize-People's Choice Award before a separate People's Choice Award was instituted for the festival's documentary stream.[4] He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980.

Wohl later returned to school at the University of Southern California (USC)in the early 1990s, studying clinical social work [3] He has been a psychotherapist for the students of the University of California, Los Angeles(UCLA) for more than twenty years.[3]

In 1997, he released the sequel film Best Man: 'Best Boy' and All of Us Twenty Years Later.[2] In 2006, he released another follow-up film, titled Best Sister.[3]

References

  1. ^ "The Compassionate Man Behind 'Best Boy'; Ira Wohl of 'Best Boy'". The New York Times, March 16, 1980.
  2. ^ a b "The Documentary As Family Memoir: A Surprise Sequel". The New York Times, January 11, 1998.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Ira Wohl To Screen His Academy Award-winning Film “Best Boy” May 17th At The CoSA Theater". Coronado Eagle and Journal, April 27, 2015.
  4. ^ "TIFF 2015: 40 facts for the fest's 40th year". Toronto Sun, August 16, 2015.

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