Martha Pinson
Directing
Biography
Martha Pinson is a filmmaker based in New York. The feature film she directed, "Tomorrow," recently won Best Narrative Feature at 3 USA festivals: SCAD Savannah, Napa Valley, and Seneca FF, NY. In 2011, she directed the short, "It's Not Saturday," for VisionFest'11's filmmaker challenge. It premiered at the Hoboken Film Festival in NJ. In 2010. She directed a 4-camera video of "The Man in Room 306,"off-Broadway production and ten short plays in dramatic readings at the Drama Bookshop, NY. In 2008-09, she wrote and directed the pilot episode for "Rescue Meal," about firehouse chefs. In 2006, she directed "King Alive," a short film in which Craig Edwards performs Martin Luther King excerpts. In 2005, she directed Sheila Evan's "Billie Holiday Cabaret" in Provincetown, MA, to a standing ovation. In 2002, she completed her award-winning short, "Don't Nobody Love the Game More than Me," which aired nationally on the PBS' "Independent Lens." It screened in over 20 festivals and was awarded Best Short by the Westchester and Toronto Online Festivals. In 1999-2000, she produced and directed Bob Rogers' 10-character comedy, "Small Potatoes," in its successful six-week Off Broadway run on Theater Row. In 1998, she directed "Acts of Faith" by Stephen E. Mantin at Chain Lightning in New York, to excellent reviews. She was a second unit director on "Just the Ticket," starring Andy Garcia. Martha has written numerous original and adapted screenplays, including "Body Count 1968" - an award winning coming-of-age drama, an adaptation of Stendhal's "The Red and the Black" and a stage adaptation of the same, "Climbing Ladders in the Moonlight." She adapted novelist Sonja Greenlee's novel of the Daytona Beach underworld in 1976, "The Last Resort." She and Ms. Greenlee also collaborated on the award-winning "The Loophole," a comedy about exotic dancers who perform Shakespeare. Martha has been directing consultant to Richard Wenk, Darren Starr, and Tom Cavanagh, and Script Supervisor for major directors including Martin Scorsese ("Hugo," "Boardwalk Empire" pilot, "Shutter Island," "The Departed," "The Aviator," "New York Stories," and more), Sidney Lumet ("Prince of the City," "Night Falls on Manhattan," "Daniel," "Deathtrap" and others), Milos Forman ("Ragtime"), Oliver Stone ("Wall Street"), Iain Softley, Andrew Niccol, and Brian De Palma.
Known For

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
Shutter Island

To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop curries favor with the mob kingpin, a career criminal rises through the police ranks. But both sides soon discover there's a mole among them.
The Departed

Jack Ryan, as a young covert CIA analyst, uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.
Hugo

A biopic depicting the life of filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate, while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The Aviator

After witnessing a mysterious woman brutally slay a homemaker, prostitute Liz Blake finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation. While the police thinks she is the murderer, the real killer is intent on silencing her only witness.
Dressed to Kill

Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.
Bringing Out the Dead

When the daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, he is horrified to discover that the abductors' demand is that he break through to a young woman, suffering from PTSD, who knows a secret six digit code number.
Don't Say a Word

A thriller set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.
A Most Violent Year

After serving a prison term for her boyfriend, a streetwise, middle-aged moll named Gloria stands up against the mobs, which is complicated by a six-year-old urchin with a will of his own, whom she reluctantly takes under her wing after his family has been gunned down.
Gloria

Three tales of love, ambition, and neurosis unfold in the city that never sleeps. In "Life Lessons" (Martin Scorsese), a tormented painter channels heartbreak into his art. In "Life Without Zoë" (Francis Ford Coppola), a precocious 12-year-old navigates privilege and loneliness in a Manhattan hotel. And in "Oedipus Wrecks" (Woody Allen), a man’s domineering mother literally becomes a looming presence over New York.
New York Stories

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows his friend, film director Martin Scorsese, and his cast and crew, through various locations during the shooting of his film The Departed, released in 2006.
Notes on an American Film Director at Work

A Broadway playwright puts murder in his plan to take credit for a student's script.
Deathtrap

A newly elected District attorney finds himself in the middle of a police corruption investigation that may involve his father and his partner.
Night Falls on Manhattan

Brooklyn teenager Jeffrey Willis, thoroughly unhappy with his modest homestead, embraces the other-world aspects of his summer job at the posh Flamingo Club. He spurns his father in favor of the patronage of smooth-talking Phil Brody and is seduced by the ample bikini charms of club member Carla Samson. But thanks to a couple of late-summer hard lessons, the teen eventually realizes that family should always come first.
The Flamingo Kid

Pete St. John is a powerful and successful political consultant, with clients spread around the country. When his long-time friend and client Ohio senator Sam Hastings decides to quit politics, he is rapidly drafted to help with the campaign of the man destined to succeed him, unknown and mysterious businessman Jerome Cade...
Power

Animator Robert Clampett presents a history of "Termite Terrace," the little shack on the Warner Brothers studio lot which in the 1930's and 1940's housed the animation unit which gave birth to Porky Pig, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. Includes color and black-and-white home-movie-type footage shot at the time showing such animation greats as Clampett, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. Also featured are nine complete Warner cartoons.
Bugs Bunny Superstar

A broadway playwright is burning the candle at both ends. He is dealing with pressure from a production nearing premiere, a wife who is leaving him, and 5 children 4 of which belong to her.
Author! Author!

Injured by an IED in Afghanistan, Tesla has returned home to London, but it doesn't feel like home anymore. Suffering from PTSD, with no friends or family, he is alone with his regrets and a very bleak horizon. That is, until the universe conspires to help him with an unlikely friendship. The charming and larger than life Sky bounds into Tesla's world, quickly proving that friendship can be a great healer. Joy, enthusiasm and hope prove infectious and soon Tesla, not only finds meaning but also, a job and a girlfriend. However, Sky is hiding a secret and it's catching up with him fast.