CNU Hosts
A conversation with Director/Producer Mark CowenNews Release - April 5, 2002
contact:
Denise Waters
University Relations
dwaters@cnu.edu
(757) 594-7331
Christopher Newport University welcomes director-producer Mark Cowen for the screening of the documentary film “We Stand Alone Together,” followed by a conversation with Cowen, on Thursday, April 25, 2002 at 7 p.m. in the Gaines Theatre, CNU Student Center. “We Stand Alone Together” was commissioned in 1999 by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and HBO in conjunction with the release of the mini-series, “Band of Brothers.”
For three years, Cowen documented the lives of WWII veterans of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division of the US Army. Cowen and his crew traveled to 30 U.S. and ten European cities, as well as to annual Easy Co. reunions, creating an “on-camera oral history” of Easy Co. All told, Cowen shot almost 200 hours of interviews with 44 veterans and family members. The documentary footage will become part of the permanent archive collections at the National D-Day museum in New Orleans and the National WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“We Stand Alone Together” is directed by Mark Cowen; written by William Richter; executive producers, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg; co-executive producers, Gary Goetzman and Tony To; produced by Mark Cowen and William Richter; music composed by Jeff Pfeifer and Rob Pfeifer.
Cowen, a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, has produced, written and directed more than 200 television and film projects in the past 18 years for clients such as Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX and HBO. He recently returned from 40 days at sea in the Persian Gulf living aboard the aircraft carrier, USS John C. Stennis, as a part of the upcoming television series, “Military Diaries Project.”
Cowen is presently in the early development stage of producing and directing a documentary with Tom Hanks on the lives of the 12 astronauts who walked on the moon, tentatively scheduled to be released in the summer of 2004.