John Osborne

Producer and Writer

John is a producer, writer, and filmmaker. He is currently producing The New Wine Spy, an international feature length comedy about wine and spies. During this time of covid, he has been exploring film locations in the Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino Counties in Northern California. This will be his first collaboration with producer/director Lino Pujia, and sommelier, journalist, and actor, Charlie Arturaola.

For the past three years, he has been working on a feature length documentary titled, Seabiscuit’s Legacy (http://seabiscuitslegacy.com). This film is in development, and it’s about the training of the legendary race horse, Seabiscuit, and the emotional connections between horses and humans. In 2019, he helped produce American Totem, a film about Americans and their attitudes toward guns. It was directed by Sue Hilderbrand. John worked on two other productions in 2019. Timecrafters: Treasure of Pirate’s Cove, dir. by Rick Spalla, was filmed in Mendocino, California, and is available on Amazon. River of Ghosts, dir. by Hong Juei Tan, also filmed in Mendocino, California, is in the distribution process.

He also represented 5 film productions at the 2019 Canees Film Festival.

In 2021, with Producer/Director Edward Oleshack, John was a producer for the film, Gestalt, submitted to, but not accepted in The Venice International Film Festival. Also in 2021, John was an Associate Producer on the film, King of Cool, a documentay about Dean Martin, directed by Tom Donahue. 

Film Credits – (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10853136/)

John is the Associate Programmer for the American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs). Traveling to Europe every year, he assists Teddy Grouya, the Festival Director, in procuring films for their program in Palm Springs, California. AmDocs is a prestigious festival presenting a wide range of international documentary and animated films. Teddy has initiated a new and unique film festival alliance, the North-South Doc Network, that connects us to several important international film festivals, including Kosovo, Ecuador, and Mexico. For two or three months a year, John attends film festivals throughout Europe, including Cannes, Venice, and San Sebastian, searching for films to bring back to AmDocs.

He has a Film Production and Film Services company in Mendocino, on the Northern California Coast (mendocinofilmcompany.com or mendofilmco.com). He’s been hired as a Production Assistant and Location Manager on all sorts of professional film productions that have been made in and around Mendocino, California, and in Hollywood and Las Vegas.

As a college professor, John developed and taught English, Film, and Humanities classes. He took students abroad to Italy. Teaching and studying film was a major aspect of his academic career. After retirement, when he started working on location with a major studio production, he made the film industry his career.

And finally there is wine! He has the good fortune to work with Van Williamson, wine maker and owner of Witching Stick Wines located in Anderson Valley, Mendocino, California. Producing a movie about wine is the perfect match for John!