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  amboozled marks a return to comedic satire for Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Spike Lee. Having made his first movies with a Super 8 camera on the streets of Brooklyn, Lee also returns to his roots with a production shot entirely with digital video cameras.
Spike Lee has become one of Hollywood's most important and notable filmmakers, a multifaceted director, producer and actor who has forged an original mix out of compelling entertainment, relentless creativity and keen social awareness. Lee launched his career in 1986 with the stylish, sexually provocative black & white comedy She's Gotta Have It, which he wrote, directed, produced, edited and starred in. The film garnered the Prix de Jeunesse at the Cannes Film Festival and drew new American audiences hungry for something different at the movies.
He went on to direct the hit satire School Daze, the story of fraternity rivalry at an all-black college. This was followed by Lee's searing entry into dramatic entertainment with DoThe Right Thing, set on a single, sweltering day in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn as racial tensions come to a boil. Lee was honored with two Oscar nominations - for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director - and also garnered the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Best Director award. But the film hit a cultural chord that went deeper than just two hours of riveting entertainment - Do The Right Thing became the subject of editorials, talk shows, magazine articles, even college classes, as a major 20th century discourse on racial conflict.
Lee went on to explore interracial relationships in Jungle Fever starring Wesley Snipes, and made a sensual homage to the jazz lifestyle with Mo Better Blues featuring Denzel Washington. He then tackled the most epic project of his career, the bio pic of Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington as the African-American leader who transformed himself from street hustler to international hero. The film stunned critics and audiences, becoming an instant classic of American history.
Next up for Spike Lee was the very personal Crooklyn, the critically acclaimed Clockers, based on the best-selling novel by Richard Price, and Girl 6, set in the hidden world of phone-sex operators. Lee then went bare-bones for the documentary-like Get On The Bus, the high-energy, high-emotion story of a busload of men headed for the Million Man March; and followed his deep passion for basketball onto the court in He Got Game, the story of a young NBA-hopeful. Most recently, Lee directed Summer of Sam, set during the infamous summer of 1977.
A native of Brooklyn and a graduate of Morehouse College, Lee received his Master of Fine Arts degree in film from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to his feature film credits, commercials, music videos and books, Lee's telefilm credits include the Oscar-nominated "4 Little Girls," which he directed and produced for HBO.
Lee is often credited with forging a more open and respectful atmosphere for African-American filmmakers and actors, helping them to access, or in many cases circumnavigate, Hollywood's financing, production and distribution channels. He established the 40 Acres and a Mule Institute at Brooklyn's Long Island University to further instruct people in the business of filmmaking.
Lee is the author of six books about filmmaking as well as Best Seat in the House: A Basketball Memoir.
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