Ryan Fleck - Movie Director

Half Nelson is an American drama film that was released in 2006 and which was written by Anna Boden in cooperation with the director of the movie, Ryan Fleck. The cast included names such as Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie and Shareeka Epps. The movie started becoming widely known as soon as it was scored by Juno Award. The movie is based on a film of 19 minutes that had been previously made by Boden and Fleck two years earlier and which was called Gowanus, Brooklyn. The story follows an inner city middle school teacher who becomes the close friend of one of his students. Shortly he discovers that his student was a drug addict. The Half Nelson movie was also premiered in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. This page however is dedicated to the director of the movie.

The Half Nelson director, Ryan Fleck was born in Berkley California, the same place where he was raised in. He went to the New York University where he studied and graduated the Tisch School of Arts in the film department. There he met Anna Boden and soon they started dating but also collaborating making movies. Their collaboration gave birth to movies such as Have You Seen This Man? and Young Rebels as well as Gowanus, Brooklyn. The latter was meant as a sample feature aiming to attract potential financiers for what was to become the movie Half Nelson. The Half Nelson director won a prize in 2004 for Gowanus, Brooklyn which led to him and Boden being invited to receive professional feedback on Half Nelson screenplay.

Gather adequate financing has however been a struggle and this had gone on for years. At last, the movie was filmed and released in August 2006. Fleck has also co-written and co-directed Sugar, a movie from 2008 and It’s Kind of a Funny Story in 2010.