YOUNG LION PRODUCTIONS

Aaron Woolfolk was born and raised in Oakland, California. He received degrees in both Ethnic Studies and Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley. After teaching English in rural Japan, he received his M.F.A. in Film from Columbia University. For his first film, the short Rage!, Woolfolk won a Directors Guild of America award. His short films Eki and Kuroi Hitsuji won several awards, screened in international film festivals, and played on cable television. Woolfolk was the recipient of an ABC Talent Development Grant, and was later a Walt Disney Studios/ABC Entertainment Writing Fellow. With his feature debut The Harimaya Bridge, which he wrote and directed, Woolfolk became the first African American to make a feature film in Japan, and one of the few non-Asians to direct a movie in the Japanese entertainment industry. The San Francisco Examiner named it "one of the best films of the year," while The Los Angeles Times called it "powerful" and "a unique, complex, consciousness-raising accomplishment." In addition to theatrical releases in Japan and the United States and several festival appearances, The Harimaya Bridge was invited to screen at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Woolfolk's first play, Bronzeville, which he co-wrote, premiered in Los Angeles to a sold-out extended engagement and was an Ovation Award nominee in the category Best Playwriting for an Original Play. Woolfolk recently directed and co-wrote the award-winning short film Nico's Sampaguita. His next feature film projects will be the American southern dramedy Summer SOULstice and the Japan-set comedy The Christmas Lights of Tosa. He is also writing his first novel.

 

 

 

Zachary Price

Production Executive

 

 

Zachary Price has worked in story development and production in theater, film, and television. He has had his own work produced in theater organizations such as H.E.R.E. Arts Center, 651 Arts, Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, New School University, and New Professional Theater. Price was a Playwriting Fellow for The Dramatists Guild, held an Edward F. Albee Foundation Residency, and worked in film and story development at Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. He is an Associate Producer on the feature film documentary The Odyssey Project, based on a social justice theater project at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Price earned his Ph.D. in Theater Studies from UC Santa Barbara, an M.F.A in Playwriting from the New School University, and a B.S. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he teaches courses in the departments of African American Studies and Theater Studies. While working at UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, he co-authored the center’s first ever Hollywood Diversity Report. He has presented his scholarly work at the American Society for Theatre Research, the Association for Theater in Higher Education, the University of Connecticut, the University of California at  Berkeley, UCLA, and Northwestern University. He was a recipient of the University of California President’s Dissertation Fellowship. Price has published scholarly articles in Theatre Topics, Journal of Asian American Studies, and Callaloo.