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David Laub
As a teenager growing up in Ardsley, a small town in Weschester, New York, David Laub discovered a passion for film. He admired Kubrick and Scorsese, and sometimes went to great lengths to watch all of their films. “I watched Goodfellas when I was really young. I snuck it out of the video store because my parents wouldn’t let me see it when it first got released. So at the video store I switched the Goodfellas video into a different box.”
He also loved Pulp Fiction and enjoyed its unique and innovative approach to style and narrative. But it was Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 film Boogie Nights that he considers to be a watershed moment in his enthusiasm for cinema. “I knew I loved film at that point, but there was just something about it. I didn’t realize that a film could achieve so much; it was so ambitious and funny, but also sad. It instantly became one of my favorite films and Anderson is still my favorite contemporary filmmaker.”
One of David’s proudest high school moments was when he and a friend founded the Ardsley High School Film Club. It took them three years to get it established, but by the end of junior year he and his fellow club members started watching the classics as well as contemporary films. The Ardsley High School Film Club still exists to this day and is a part of David’s legacy.
After high school, David knew that he wanted to study film. His first choice was Wesleyan because he had heard great things about the film studies program headed by Jeanine Basinger. “I liked the location and the film program seemed amazing. It felt as if it would be a great fit for me for what I wanted to do.” After four years, David graduated with a double major in Film Studies and English. The Film Studies Department also awarded him honors on his senior thesis screenplay, and he was a co-winner of that year’s Leavell Prize for Outstanding Student in the Film Major.
Following college, David started an internship at the now defunct THINKFilm. Within a few weeks, he was hired for four months to promote The Gospel of John, a three-hour, word-for-word dramatization of the Gospel of John. The film had opened well in the South and Midwest, and THINKFilm wanted to capitalize on the buzz for the soon to be released The Passion of the Christ. So David’s job was to call churches and religious organizations to encourage them to see the film. “It’s a great job for a Jewish kid right out of school,” David recalled with a grin. “I had some of the most bizarre and fascinating conversations.”
THINKFilm then hired David full-time to assist Mark Urman, the Head of U.S. Distribution at the company. Because THINKFilm was a small outfit, David was able to participate in and learn all aspects of the film business. “It was a great practical education learning how publicity works, how marketing works, what kinds of ads work, how to open a movie, and how to do acquisitions, which really interested me. It was a terrific experience.” David would eventually be promoted to Acquisitions Manager and would travel to such festivals as Sundance, Toronto, South By Southwest, and Cannes to acquire films. He was a part of the team that acquired the award-winning independent films Half Nelson, Taxi to the Dark Side, and Avenue Montaigne, among others. Besides acquiring finished films, he was responsible for reading screenplays and bringing in projects at various stages of production for possible financing and distribution.
By spring 2008, however, it was evident that THINKFilm was not doing well financially, and there was a good chance that the New York office would close. As luck would have it, that same spring Jeanine Basinger contacted David with a proposal to return to Wesleyan as a full-time graduate student and help program the film series. For David it was an offer he could not refuse. “It’s been an incredible experience to further study film with Jeanine Basinger and to work in the amazing department she has created. In addition to learning so much more about the medium of film, I have learned a great deal about film programming and exhibition, which has been extremely valuable.”
David is currently finishing his studies at Wesleyan and will graduate next year with a Masters degree in Film Studies. As for the future, he would love to work in the film industry in a capacity where he can create and support films that he is passionate about, and he also hopes to teach film one day.
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