Gyula Gazdag is a screenwriter and director of film, theater, and television, and is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. He has served as the Artistic Director of the Sundance Filmmakers Lab since 1997. He was a creative advisor at the Maurits Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam for more than a decade and has worked with new talent at the Script Station of the Berlinale Talents (2006-2025) and at Sarajevo Talents (2014-2023). 

His feature films include A Hungarian Fairy Tale (Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival, one of the year’s 10 best films selected by the Village Voice, Best Feature Film by the Hungarian Film Critics, screened in 20 film festivals worldwide, including Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes), Stand Off (Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastián International Film Festival), Lost Illusions (Best Screenplay Award at the Hungarian Film Week), Swap, Singing On The Treadmill, and The Whistling Cobblestone (Best First Feature by the Hungarian Film Critics). 

Gazdag has also directed documentaries, including A Poet On The Lower East Side, Hungarian Chronicles, Package Tour, The Banquet, The Resolution (cited as one of the best 100 documentaries of all time on the International Documentary Association’s list), The Selection, and The Long Distance Runner. 

Most of his films have been banned for periods in Communist Hungary, and have been denied foreign exhibition, some of them have been banned again in 2012. For the stage, Gazdag has directed Candide, The Bald Soprano, The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Tempest, Tom Jones and The Hothouse, among other plays. Gazdag was named one of the ten best film teachers in America by Daily Variety in 2010. He is one of the two recipients of the inaugural Robert Redford Luminary Award at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.