Jonathan Nossiter

Renaissance man Jonathan Nossiter's film "Sunday" wowed them at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, winning him the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, which he shared with James Lasdun. This son of NEW YORK TIMES reporter Bernard Nossiter came by his proficiency in five languages honestly, growing up in England, France, Italy and India, among other places. He studied painting at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris but caught the film bug at Dartmouth where he eventually graduated. In order to learn how to direct actors, he worked in the theater as an assistant director in both NYC and London before becoming Adrian Lyne's assistant and right-hand man on "Fatal Attraction" (1987). Along the way, Nossiter also developed a love of wines that rivals his love of movies and has worked as a sommelier in some very fashionable NYC restaurants.
Author and performer Quentin Crisp ended up on the cutting-room floor for "Fatal Attraction", but Nossiter made him the centerpiece of his first directorial effort, the documentary "Resident Alien: Quentin Crisp in America" (1990). Well received but hardly a moneymaker, the movie plugged into the theme of exile, something the well-traveled Nossiter knew plenty about and would return to in "Sunday". Along with writer James Lasdun, Nossiter fashioned a Lasdun story into his debut feature, changing the location from London to Queens, New York, which had always appealed to his international mongrel sense as a place that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Though the success of "Sunday" may cause Nossiter to give up his career as sommelier, nothing could undermine his abiding love of wine.