Arthur Cohn
About
Biography
Filmography
Notes
While Arthur Cohn was the producer of the Academy Award-winning foreign films "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" (1971), "Black and White in Color" (1976) and "La Diagonale du fou/Dangerous Moves" (1984) and accepted the award, according to the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the actual award is presented to the title and country of origin and not to one individual.
In 1992, Cohn received a Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University.
Biography
This five-time Oscar-winning distinguished Swiss-born international producer has played an important role in distributing a wide range of foreign and documentary films in the USA. Cohn's first notable success was the Oscar-winning documentary "Le ciel et la boue/The Sky Above, the Mud Below" (1961). Later, he teamed with Vittorio de Sica, handling most of the master director's final films, including the Oscar-winning study of two Jewish families who cannot escape their destiny in the second World War, the highly-acclaimed "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" (1971).
Cohn continued his string of Best Foreign Film Oscars with "Black and White in Color" (1976), a satirical anti-war story set in Africa's Ivory Coast, and "La Diagonale du Fou/Dangerous Moves" (1984), a drama, shot in Switzerland and set in the high-tension world of international championship chess. He also made notable returns to the realm of documentary with "The Final Solution" (1983), termed by Elie Wiesel as the most impressive film-document about the Holocaust. and with Barbara Kopple's landmark saga of a six-year labor dispute at a Minnesota meat-packing plant, "American Dream" (1990).
More recently, he produced the family drama "Two Bits" (1995), starring Al Pacino, and the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear winner "Central Station/Central do Brasil" (1998).
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Production Companies (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Producer (Special)
Life Events
1961
First major producing credit, the Oscar-winning documentary "Le ciel et la boue/The Sky Above, the Mud Below"
1967
Produced Vittorio de Sica's "Woman Times Seven"
1971
Produced de Sica's "The Garden of the Finzi-Continas", which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar and the Golden Bear of the International Film Festival of Berlin
1973
Last collaboration with de Sica, "Una Breve Vacanza/A Brief Vacation"; film received the European Film Prize as best film of the year
1976
Earned second Best Foreign Film Academy Award for "Black and White in Color", directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud
1984
Received Best Foreign Film Oscar for "Dangerous Moves", starring Liv Ullman and Michel Piccoli
1990
Served as producer on Barbara Kopple's Academy Award-winning documentary "American Dream"
1992
Awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame on November 17
1995
Produced "Two Bits", starring Al Pacino
1998
Was producer of "Central Station/Central do Brasil"; shown at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival
1999
Produced the Oscar-winning documentary "One Day in September"
Bibliography
Notes
While Arthur Cohn was the producer of the Academy Award-winning foreign films "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" (1971), "Black and White in Color" (1976) and "La Diagonale du fou/Dangerous Moves" (1984) and accepted the award, according to the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the actual award is presented to the title and country of origin and not to one individual.
In 1992, Cohn received a Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University.
In 1995, he was awarded the title Commander of the Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, the highest distinction given in France to a non-French citizen.
The international film festivals of Hong Kong, Chicago, Los Angeles, Munich, Cairo, Jerusalem, Manila and Frankfurt have all held weeklong retrospectives of Cohn's films.
