Steven Soderbergh

Born: 14 January 1963 Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia Best Known As: Oscar-winning director of Traffic Soderbergh won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival for his 1989 film sex, lies and videotape. The movie was a critical sensation and is often credited with launching the independent film boom of the 1990s. After a series of further low-budget films, Soderberg hit the mainstream by making the big-budget 1998 action film Out of Sight with Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney. In the year 2001 he was nominated twice for an Academy Award as best director, for the drug drama Traffic (with Benicio Del Toro and Michael Douglas) and the biopic Erin Brockovich (starring Julia Roberts). He won the Oscar for Traffic. In 2001 he directed Clooney, Roberts, Brad Pitt and Don Cheadle in a remake of the Frank Sinatra movie Ocean's Eleven, then began work a smaller project on digital video, Full Frontal (released in 2002). Soderbergh was his own cinematographer for Traffic, crediting himself under the name Peter Andrews.