Sundance Film Festival to screen film written by ASU professor


December 14, 2018

The Sundance Film Festival announced its selection of films for 2019, and one of the feature films includes a screenwriting credit for Greg Bernstein, associate professor in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre in ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

Bernstein and his wife, Sara Bernstein, wrote the screenplay for “Official Secrets,” which will have its world premiere at the festival in late January. Photo of Greg Bernstein Greg Bernstein. Download Full Image

Official Secrets” tells the true story of British intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun, who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the U.N. Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The movie is directed by Gavin Hood, who is also listed as writer, and stars Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode and Rhys Ifans.

"I am so fortunate and thankful to have a film with such a great cast premiering at Sundance,” Bernstein said. “Most importantly, the film will enable people to learn about a remarkable woman, Katharine Gun, and the very courageous action she took in an attempt to stop the Iraq War from ever happening."

In addition to Bernstein, two other Sun Devils will have projects screening at Sundance. ASU alums and ASU Film Spark  board members Michael Helfant and Alex Witherill are producers for two selected films. Helfant is a producer for “Them That Follow,” and Witherill is an executive producer for “Give Me Liberty.”

The 2019 Sundance Film Festival received a record-breaking 14,259 submissions from 152 countries. The 112 feature-length films selected represent 33 counties. The festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, all in Utah, from Jan. 24 to Feb. 3, 2019.

Sarah A. McCarty

Marketing and communications coordinator, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts

480-727-4433

ASU professor recognized with Distinguished Scholarship Honors

Stewart Fotheringham to receive award from the American Association of Geographers


December 14, 2018

Less than a month after being named Regents’ Professor, the highest honor bestowed to faculty at Arizona State University, Stewart Fotheringham has another honor to add to his list of acclaims. The American Association of Geographers has announced their 2019 honors, including special recognition for Fotheringham with the Distinguished Scholarship Honors.

A professor of spatial science and geographic information science (GIS) at ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Fotheringham is considered among the world’s foremost experts in the field. Among his extensive list of contributions includes the creation of geographically weighted regression, considered one of the most important breakthroughs in GIS, which allows for analysis of some of society’s most pressing problems. Stewart Fotheringham is a Regents' Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. Download Full Image

According to the AAG, Fotheringham was selected for the 2019 AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honors “for his pioneering and novel methodological innovations in spatial analysis, consistent and continuous commitment to the dissemination of new techniques and empirical findings, deep and enduring impact on theoretical and applied literature in geography and his achievements in scholarly and professional domains across the academy.”

Beyond this most recent award and earning his Regents’ Professor distinction, Fotheringham was inducted into Academia Europaea and named the director of ASU’s Spatial Analysis Research Center in 2017, in addition to his positions as a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the U.K. Academy of Social Sciences.

"It's a tremendous honor to be recognized by the American Association of Geographers, especially as the association represents such an extremely broad spectrum of scholars and subject matter," Fotheringham said.

Fotheringham says the future remains bright for GIS and spatial analyis.

"With the advent of huge volumes of spatial data being made available, there has never been such a demand for geographers who can make sense of these data in order for us to make more informed decisions,” he said. “The bottleneck is no longer in spatial data collection; it is in spatial data analysis.”

Fotheringham will receive his award during the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting in April.

Megan Martin

Manager, Marketing and Communication, School of Human Evolution and Social Change

480-965-5538