Boaz Yakin (born June 20, 1966 is an American screenwriter and film director based in New York City. Yakin studied filmmaking at City College of New York and New York University. He’s the writer of such screenplays as Fresh and A Price Above Rubies, and he is the director of the film Remember the Titans.
Yakin was born in New York City to an Israeli couple who met in Paris while studying mime with Marcel Marceau. He attended a yeshiva, and later, the Bronx High School of Science, where he was classmates in 1983 with actor Jon Cryer.
Yakin studied filmmaking at New York’s City College. He moved on to New York University, and made his first deal for a screenplay at the age of 19.
After finishing school, Yakin worked in the film business helping to develop projects for several companies, and saw his first screenplay reach the screen in 1989, when The Punisher, a vehicle for Dolph Lundgren, was released. Yakin’s next screenplay was The Rookie, starring Clint Eastwood… read more
Boaz Yakin (born June 20, 1966 is an American screenwriter and film director based in New York City. Yakin studied filmmaking at City College of New York and New York University. He’s the writer of such screenplays as Fresh and A Price Above Rubies, and he is the director of the film Remember the Titans.
Yakin was born in New York City to an Israeli couple who met in Paris while studying mime with Marcel Marceau. He attended a yeshiva, and later, the Bronx High School of Science, where he was classmates in 1983 with actor Jon Cryer.
Yakin studied filmmaking at New York’s City College. He moved on to New York University, and made his first deal for a screenplay at the age of 19.
After finishing school, Yakin worked in the film business helping to develop projects for several companies, and saw his first screenplay reach the screen in 1989, when The Punisher, a vehicle for Dolph Lundgren, was released. Yakin’s next screenplay was The Rookie, starring Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen. Wanting to take on more personal material, Yakin drew from his experiences growing up in New York’s inner city for his next screenplay, Fresh. Yakin opted to direct his screenplay for Fresh himself, and the film won critical acclaim, earning the Filmmaker’s Trophy at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.
Yakin went back to his youth for inspiration on his next project; while his parents were non-practicing Jews, they enrolled their son in an Orthodox private school when he was five, and his experience with the Chassidic community informed his screenplay for A Price Above Rubies. Yakin rebounded with his next assignment, which was his first film that he directed but did not write; Remember the Titans was a major box-office success, and moved him to the upper tier of bankable Hollywood talents.
His Holocaust drama Death in Love debuted in January 2008. Yakin describes it as a movie about the failure of the family and inability to change your past.
He was a member of the US Dramatic Jury at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
In 2010, he will direct Sympathy for the Devil, with Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Duhamel in the cast.
Yakin is married to Israeli music video director Alma Har’el. —Wikipedia
