Stephen Ujlaki

Stephen George Bela Vladimir Ujlaki was born on 16 June 1943, in Washington, D.C., to Marina de Staël and György Újlaki. His mother, born Baroness Marina Vladimirovna Staël von Holstein (Russian: Марина Владимировна Шталь фон Гольштейн), and her two younger siblings, the future painter Nicolas de Staël and Olga, were exiled from St. Petersburg and soon orphaned following the Russian Revolution.^[1] His father György, a hyperpolyglot, emigrated from Budapest to the United States during the White Terror and later served in intelligence as a translator during World War II.^[2]

Ujlaki grew up in Rochester, New York,^[3][4] and graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1965 with a Bachelor of Arts in French and English History and Literature.^[5] While at Harvard, he participated in Timothy Leary's LSD experiments on multiple occasions as part of the Harvard Psilocybin Project.^[5] He subsequently trained at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris, the French national film school later reorganized as La Fémis.^[2][6]

While studying at IDHEC, Ujlaki landed an informal internship with director Jean-Luc Godard.^[2][6] He produced Wheel of Ashes (1968), a feature directed by Peter Emanuel Goldman and starring Pierre Clémenti,^[7][8] which premiered in competition at the 29th Venice International Film Festival in 1968,^[9] and was later presented at the inaugural Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.^[10] In the wake of the student uprisings of May 1968, Ujlaki was arrested and held at La Santé Prison before being deported from France.^[2] He relocated to Stockholm, where he attended rehearsals of Ingmar Bergman's production of Woyzeck.^[11][2] While working part-time as a dockworker, he directed Tunnelbana (1969), a 15-minute documentary about the Stockholm subway sponsored by the Swedish Film Institute.^[2][12]

Returning to the United States, Ujlaki taught film for one term at Brandeis University^[2] before being hired at the age of twenty-eight by president Leon Botstein to start the film program at the now-defunct Franconia College.^[13] During this period he made a series of documentaries on prison reform, anti-war activism, and the environment.^[14] These included Patriotism, Inc. (1971), an anti-Vietnam War film about patriotic indoctrination of youth through Revolutionary War reenactment,^[15] and Three Thousand Years and Life (1973), filmed inside Walpole State Prison during the prisoner takeover.^[16][17][18] Its companion film, With Intent to Harm (1973), shot inside four Massachusetts state prisons, was called "the best prison documentary ever made" by ABC News.^[19] With Hands and Hearts (1975), a dramatized history of the Kentucky Shakers narrated by Helen Hayes, was called "the best local historical documentary in some time" by the critic Howard Rosenberg.^[20] A Watersnake in Coney Valley (1974), a 15-minute animated satire on Nixon, his advisors, and the impeachment process, premiered in competition at the 10th Chicago International Film Festival in 1974,^[21] and was later distributed to universities and community libraries by Carousel Films.^[22][23][24] Ujlaki also organized a documentary film symposium at Brandeis that became the model for the later Doc Film Institute at SFSU.^[2][25]

Ujlaki began his Hollywood career as a writer before being hired as an executive at Mace Neufeld Productions in 1981.^[2] He later joined HBO, where he served as Vice President of Development and Production (1983–88).^[26] He subsequently became Head of European Feature and Television Production for The Stone Group (1988–1991), a production company founded by Michael Douglas.^[2][6]

He has produced more than thirty feature films, television films, and documentaries.^[27] His feature credits include Courage Mountain, The Hot Spot, Loch Ness, Ripley Under Ground, and The Cry of the Owl.

He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[28]

Ujlaki has three children from his first marriage to Silvia Formenti.^[5] He lives in France with his second wife, artist Jackie Clark Mancuso.^[6]