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EMAIL
esavada@mac.com
OFFICIAL WEBSITE
http://www.nitrateonline.com
LOCATION
Bethesda, MD
BIO
Raised in Harrison NY, Elias Savada joined The American Film Institute immediately after his graduation from Cornell University in 1972, working on their ongoing project to catalog feature length motion pictures produced and released in the United States. In 1977 he began a five year stint as senior researcher at the Law Firm of E. Fulton Brylawski and J. Michael Cleary, a top copyright law firm. He returned to the AFI from 1983 to 1991, where he compiled a massive database of silent films released in the United States prior to 1911. The information he compiled was published in 1995 as the two-volume, 1,800-page, work-in-progress The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Film Beginnings, 1893-1910, listing over 17,000 films.Meanwhile, in 1977 Savada founded the Motion Picture information Service (MPIS), which originally assisted the United States Information Agency with repertory film programming for overseas cultural festivals, particularly the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Cinemateca Portuguesa in Lisbon.
In the ensuing years, he has arranged for the transportation of more than 2,000 films to the Cinemateca, the Filmoteca Espaņola in Madrid, the San Sebastian (Spain) Film Festival, the Pordenone (Italy) Silent Film Festival, and other archives and events around the world. In September 2002 he served on the New Directors Jury at the 50th edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival.
In the mid-1980s he began to perform copyright research under his MPIS banner and now writes over 600 reports each year covering thousands of movies, television programs, songs, recordings, books, plays, etc., having serviced more than 670 clients, including law firms, motion picture and television production companies, home video firms, and individuals. Using a vast knowledge of cinema history and keen intuitive skills, he has been able to expand on a basic copyright report to include information not available in the Copyright Office files. Since 1991 he has been working out of his residence in Bethesda, Maryland. In 1975 he and co-author David J. Skal had their biography Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood's Master of the Macabre published by Doubleday. His interest in the director of Freaks (1932) and Dracula (1931), date from screenings of the films in a "flicks for kicks" course in college. It was nearly a quarter-century later that interviews he recorded in 1972 with associates and friends of Browning would be incorporated into the biography. The book, translated and published in Spain and Japan, has been optioned for feature production. Savada's interest in film mirrors his father's professional infatuation with 78 rpm records. Morton Savada, owner of Records Revisited in New York, is an expert in his field of this long-discontinued vinyl record format.
Savada's obsession to detail has now been extended to his own family genealogy. For more than a dozen years he has been tracking down cousins and has documented 11,000 relatives. He was co-chair of the 23rd IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy held in Washington DC in July 2003.
FAVORITES
Top Eleven of 2004:
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Finding Neverland
3. The Incredibles
4. Hotel Rwanda
5. Vera Drake
6. Shaun of the Dead
7. Napoleon Dynamite
8. Ray
9. Million Dollar Baby
10. Sideways
11. Fahrenheit 9/11
Worst Films of 2004 (in order suffered):
Against the Ropes
The Big Bounce
Eurotrip
Starsky & Hutch
Broken Lizard's Club Dread
Twisted
The Whole Ten Yards
Envy
Around the World in 80 Days
Sleepover
Catwoman
Thunderbirds
Little Black Book
Exorcist: The Beginning
First Daughter
Raise Your Voice
Birth
Surviving Christmas
Christmas with the Kranks
Alexander
Top Ten of 2003:
1 In America
2 American Splendor
3 The Station Agent
4 Lost in Translation
5 Finding Nemo
6 Blue Car
7 Shattered Glass
8 Capturing the Friedmans
9 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
10 Kill Bill: Volume 1
Worst 10 of 2003:
1 In the Cut
2 Gigli
3 Dumb and Dumberer
4 Grind
5 Duplex
6 Ghosts From the Abyss
7 Alex & Emma
8 Matchstick Men
9 Hollywood Homicide
10 Either Matrix sequel
Top Ten of 2002:
1. Bloody Sunday
2. Bowling for Columbine
3. About Schmidt
4. Adaptation
5. The Importance of Being Earnest
6. Lord of the Rings, The: The Two Towers
7. Chicago
8. The Pianist
9. Antwone Fisher
10. Spirited Away
Worst 20 (alphabetical order) of 2002:
Bad Company
Dans Ma Peau
feardotcom
Formula 51
Full Frontal
Half Past Dead
I Spy
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
Master of Disguise
Mr. Deeds
National Lampoon's Van Wilder
Orange County
Possession
Pumpkin
Resident Evil
Rollerball
The Salton Sea
The Time Machine
The Truth About Charlie
Welcome to Collinwood
Top Ten of 2001:
1. Memento
2. The Man Who Wasn't There
3. In the Bedroom
4. The Deep End
5. Shrek
6. Hearts in Atlantis
7. Amelie
8. Monster's Ball
9. Series 7: The Contenders
10. Panic
Other Favorites of 2001:
Apocalypse Now Redux
A Beautiful Mind
Black Hawk Down
Dark Blue World
The Dish
Donnie Darko
Ghost World
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Lord of the Rings
Moulin Rouge
Mulholland Dr.
Songcatcher
Top Fifteen of 2000:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Erin Brockovich
Best in Show
Finding Forrester
Room for Romeo Brass
Time Code
The Tao of Steve
Traffic
Nurse Betty
Chuck & Buck
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
Almost Famous
Two Family House
Wonderland
Joe Gould's Secret
Top Five Foreign Films of 2000:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Aimee and Jaguar
Adrenaline Drive
The Color of Paradise
Shower
Favorites of 1999: American Beauty, Being John Malkovich, Election, October Sky, Affliction, Galaxy Quest, Twin Falls Idaho
Favorites of 1998: Shakespeare in Love, Truman Show, Waking Ned Devine, Gods and Monsters, The Imposters, Life Is Beautiful, Rush Hour, Zero Effect, Wag the Dog
Top 25 Overlooked Films (1990-1999)
1 Pi
2 Cookie's Fortune
3 Dick
4 Election
5 Flirting With Disaster
6 October Sky
7 Run Lola Run
8 Waiting For Guffman
9 The Spanish Prisoner
10 Waking Ned Devine
11 Fly Away Home
12 Go
13 Citizen Ruth
14 Grosse Pointe Blank
15 Muriel's Wedding
16 The Impostors
17 The Secret Garden (1993)
18 Smilla's Sense of Snow
19 Ulee's Gold
20 Cold Comfort Farm
21 Drop Dead Gorgeous
22 The Iron Giant
23 Sneakers
24 Twin Falls, Idaho
25 The Minus Man
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