Bill Oliver graduated from Princeton University and received an MFA in Directing from AFI. He got his start in the film business as the assistant to James Schamus (CEO of Focus Features) and worked as a story analyst for Paramount, Hallmark, and Sony Pictures prior to attending AFI. His short films have played in festivals worldwide including the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and have won several awards. Oliver’s most recent film, Guilt, is based on a short story that aired on This American Life and is the first-prize short film winner of the Christopher Wetzel Award from the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. Lulu, the screenplay Bill co-wrote with Peter Nickowitz, was selected for Film Independent’s 2003 Screenwriters Lab and optioned by Neve Campbell’s First Snow Productions. The Obit Writer is his first feature as a director and is being produced by Susan A. Stover (High Art, The Business of Strangers, Laurel Canyon).