SEPTEMBER’S SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKERS: DAN JINKS and BRUCE COHEN
Academy Award Winning Producers & Founders of The Jinks/Cohen Company

Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen won the BEST PICTURE Academy Award for producing the critically-acclaimed and box office blockbuster hit, American Beauty. Produced for DreamWorks Pictures, directed by Sam Mendes, and starring Kevin Spaceyand Annette Bening, the film won five Oscars, Golden Globe, BAFTA, Chicago Film Critics, Broadcast Film Critics, London Film Critics, Producers Guild and National Board of Review awards. took in a total of five Oscars. This was the first movie produced through the Jinks/Cohen Company.

The Jinks/Cohen Company has gone on to be the production company that most studios like to do business with. They have a first-look deal at Paramount Pictures and projects in development at Columbia, Dreamworks, New Regency, Universal and Warner Bros. Through their deal with Warner Bros. Television, their first television series, the hourlong drama TRAVELER, will air on ABC this mid-season.

The Jinks/Cohen Company's other credits include: Down With Love, for Twentieth Century Fox, starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor and directed by Peyton Reed; Big Fish, for Columbia Pictures, directed by Tim Burton and starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, and Billy Crudup. Big Fish was nominated as Best Picture for both the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs; and The Forgotten, for Revolution Pictures, starring Julianne Moore.

Dan Jinks previously ran producer Martin Bregman’s company for five years. During that time, he produced he hit comedy Nothing to Lose, starring Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins, and written and directed by Steve Oedekerk. Jinks is also the executive producer of The Bone Collector, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He also ran producer Aaron Russo’s company for three years. A graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Jinks began his career working in the theatre in New York.

Bruce Cohen has also produced the blockbuster hit The Flintstones, and the prequel The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. He produced Mousehunt, and was executive producer of To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar! Prior to that he was co-producer of Alive, directed by Frank Marshall. A graduate of Yale University, Cohen began his film career as the DGA trainee on Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, and went on to serve as the first assistant director on Marshall's Arachnophobia and the associate producer/first assistant director on Spielberg's Hook.