John Pierson

With financing, representation, deal making and marketing advice, John Pierson helped launch a number of first time American independent filmmakers including Spike Lee, Michael Moore, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith, Rose Troche and Guin Turner all of whom became title characters in his best-selling 1996 book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes. The book begat four seasons and 66 episodes of the acclaimed IFCtv series Split Screen from 1997-2001 which was recently revived on FilmStruck and will soon be streaming again on Criterion Channel. In between, he ran the world's most remote movie theater in Fiji, taught for nearly a decade in the film department at UT/Austin and produced a stunt filled action comedy feature in Mandarin for China which outgrossed all his indies added together in its first week.

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