Jerome Gary is a renowned filmmaker, teacher, and industry leader. As the Chairman of Visionaire Media and the MENA Media Fund, he has been instrumental in investing in media projects across the Middle East and North Africa. In association with the US Department of State, the fund has supported over twenty projects, resulting in the production of one feature film and eight pilots, with five series and three seasons already in the works.
Gary's extensive film credits include the Academy Award-nominated "Pumping Iron", as well as "Stripper", "Old Boyfriends", "The Gathering", "Life After Death", "Generation Iron", and "Confessions From A War". In television, he has worked on shows such as "The Russians" (TNT),"Laughs" (HBO),"Rebel Highway" (Showtime),"On the Road in America" (three seasons, Sundance and MBCI),"American Caravan", "Arab Muslim Women" (Series, MBC1),and "Trading Places".
Throughout his career, Gary has held various leadership positions, including President of Production at Cinema 5 (1978-1980),President of Visionaire Communications (1981-1986),and Strategic Director for USC's Institute for Creative Technologies (2000-2006). He has received over $32 million in federal grants for media and public diplomacy projects and has worked extensively in the Middle East since 2004.
Gary has also been an active educator, serving as a senior lecturer in screenwriting and directing at the American Film Institute Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies for thirteen years. He has taught at the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television, the Los Angeles Film School, Esalen Institute, Yale University, Dartmouth, the University of Hawaii, and in numerous foreign countries.
In recent years, Gary has led media capacity-building programs in Afghanistan, teaching storytelling and screenwriting to over 1,200 students, filmmakers, and teachers in masterclasses across the Middle East and North Africa. He has also taught storytelling to traumatized children in Kandahar and Kabul.
Gary has produced various projects, including the two-day symposium "iDiplomacy" on citizen diplomacy, sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Gallup. He has been a spokesperson for the Media Committee at the DOHA forum and has published papers on "Trauma and Fractured Narrative" in Beirut, Cairo, Rabat, and at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.
Gary holds a degree in History of the Arts and Letters from Yale University and is a member of the WGA and DGA. He is married to film director Mary Lambert and has a son, Jordan.
