TELEVISION EVENT Q&A with Director Jeff Daniels and THE DAY AFTER Director Nicholas Meyer, Co-Presented by the Nuclear Threat Initiative
Friday, May 30
6:30
Introduced by James McKeon, Program Officer, International Peace and Security at the Carnegie Corporation NY
Moderated by Film Forum Premieres Artistic Director Mike Maggiore
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) is a nonprofit with a 25-year track record of reducing nuclear, biological, and emerging technology threats imperiling humanity. The Critical Mass project is dedicated to building public awareness of nuclear risks to drive urgent policy change, in part by partnering with TV and film talent.
Born and raised in New York, Jeff Daniels is a multi-award winning independent filmmaker specializing in feature-length documentaries. Now based permanently in Melbourne, Australia, Jeff is best known for his first film, the controversial 10 CONDITIONS OF LOVE (2009), which made international headlines after being banned by the Chinese government for highlighting the plight of its Muslim minority, the Uyghur. He has since made MOTHER WITH A GUN (2016) about the Jewish terrorist group, the Jewish Defense League, and FAIR GAME (2017) which sparked a national debate in Australia after exposing systemic racism within the Australian Football League.
Nicholas Meyer is an award-winning author, screenwriter, and director. His body of creative work in publishing, film, and television spans more than five decades. He’s the author of eight novels, including The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974), in which Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud. The novel sold more than two million copies, stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for forty weeks, and won the British Gold Dagger award from the British Crime Writers’ Association. Two years later, Meyer received an Academy Award® nomination for his screenplay of the eponymous film, which starred Nicol Williamson, Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin, Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier. Meyer made his directing debut in 1979 with a film he wrote, TIME AFTER TIME, starring Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen and David Warner. He went on to direct STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. Other directing credits include VOLUNTEERS (Tom Hanks, 1986), THE DECEIVERS (Pierce Brosnan, 1988), COMPANY BUSINESS (Gene Hackman, 1991), STAR TREK VI, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (Christopher Plummer, 1992) and the HBO film, VENDETTA (Christopher Walken, 1999). His screenplays include SOMMERSBY (Richard Gere and Jodie Foster, 1993) and contributions to FATAL ATTRACTION (1987) and Dreamworks’ PRINCE OF EGYPT (1998). His other books include Target Practice, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, and four other Holmes novels, The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (2019), The West End Horror (also New York Times bestseller, 1976), The Canary Trainer (1993) and The Return of the Pharaoh, (2022). His autobiographical novel, Confessions of a Homing Pigeon, was published in 1981. Meyer’s memoir, The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood, was published in 2009. Meyer directed the subject of TELEVISION EVENT — ABC’s THE DAY AFTER (1983), which remains the single most-watched television film ever made (100 million people in one night) and was nominated for fourteen Emmys. Additional work includes a two-part miniseries, Houdini (Adrien Brody, 2014) based on his father, Bernard C. Meyer’s biography. He is the co-creator of the Netflix series Medici—Masters of Florence, starring Dustin Hoffman, and worked on STAR TREK: Discovery for CBS Access.

James McKeon is a program officer in the International Peace and Security program, managing the program’s nuclear security portfolio. Previously, McKeon was a senior program officer at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), supporting various projects related to U.S.-Russia arms control, U.S.-China nuclear relations, emerging technology and strategic stability, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Before NTI, McKeon worked at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and its sister organization, the Council for a Livable World, and he was a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Stimson Center. McKeon’s expertise and analysis on nuclear policy issues have been published and quoted in various publications, including USA Today, the Washington Post, CBS News, Wired, Politico, BBC Radio, UPI, and War on the Rocks. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Northeastern University in Boston.
