Visual & Media Arts Faculty

Jonathan Wacks

Professor and Chair (2010)
B.A. Essex University, M.F.A. University of California, Los Angeles

Jonathan Wacks has directed a number of films including Powwow Highway, produced by Beatle, George Harrison. This film was winner of the Sundance Film Festival Filmmaker's Trophy, nominated for 4 Independent Spirit Awards, and winner of awards for best picture, director, and actor at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.  

Wacks' first film, Crossroads/South Africa, won a Student Academy Award in the documentary category. He then produced the acclaimed cult-hit Repo Man, starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton, and directed, Mystery Date, starring Ethan Hawke and Terri Polo, Ed and His Dead Mother, starring Steve Buscemi and Ned Beatty, and an array of TV productions including 21 Jump Street, with Johnny Depp, Sirens and Going To Extremes.  Prior to his career as a director, Wacks served as VP of  Production  at the Samuel Goldwyn Company. He is a former Chairman of the Board of the Independent Feature Project/West (IFP/West) and has served on the selection committee of the Writers' Program at the Sundance Institute.  His work has been seen at numerous international film festivals including Sundance, Montreal, Tokyo, Florence, London, Leipzig, Leeds, Cape Town, Deauville, New York, Munich, and Berlin.  He has written a number of screenplays including, Recoil based on the Jim Thompson novel, No Cure for Love, Another Year in Africa, Coldsleep Lullaby, and Stuck.  Wacks was formerly Head of the Film Department at the Vancouver Film School and Professor and Chair of the Moving Image Arts Department at the College of Santa Fe and Director of Garson Studios.  He is a member of the Directors Guild of America.