Alumni Profile: Mixing Business and Film
Independent filmmaker and Business Honors graduate Mark Stolaroff’s critically acclaimed film “DriverX” opens in select theaters nationwide Nov. 30.
By London Gibson
After his business honors classes, Mark Stolaroff, BBA ’87, used to run over to the UT communications building to spend hours shooting and cutting 16mm film (with a razor blade, no less). Now an independent film producer, Stolaroff says the discipline he learned at McCombs helped him find success in the difficult film-making industry.
“My career has been this zig-zaggy thing that I didn’t plan from the beginning,” Stolaroff says. “When I got to college, I was too chicken to major in film. So I just thought, ‘This may be kind of a fun hobby thing, but I’ll go and get a real degree.’”
Stolaroff says the Business Honors Program allowed him the flexibility to take both MBA-level business classes and the intensive film production classes he loved. Now in Los Angeles, Stolaroff says his unconventional career has earned him many titles: investment banker, theater producer, playwright, film finishing funds executive, and, for the past 15 years, award-winning feature film producer. Despite his brief stint in banking at the beginning of his career, Stolaroff says filmmaking was always his passion.
His newest film, DriverX, about a middle-aged, stay-at-home dad who begins driving for an Uber-like rideshare company, has garnered critical acclaim and numerous film festival awards. It features many familiar faces, such as Patrick Fabian (Better Call Saul), Oscar Nunez (The Office), and Melissa Fumero (Brooklyn Nine Nine), and will be released in theaters by IFC Films/Sundance Selects on Nov. 30, 2018. It will also be available for streaming on demand.
“The idea that we’re with IFC Films [distributors of Boyhood, The Death of Stalin, and The Babadook] is a real feather in the cap of the film,” Stolaroff says. “Getting a theatrical release these days is really difficult for a small independent film like this one.”
Stolaroff credits the business skills he learned at McCombs with his success and ability to maintain his independence as a filmmaker.
“I never really had any interest in working for a studio. I wanted to make my own films,” Stolaroff says. “So, to work for myself and have the ability to do that successfully, I think that really does come from the business degree.”
This article appeared in the fall 2018 issue of McCombs magazine. Click on the link to see the full issue.
