Paul Szynol (/ˈSHinôl/)
_____ Practice Areas
Art, Entertainment, and Technology
_____ Teaching (current)
_____ Lectures, Panels, and Workshops
SXSW (2023, 2024, 2025), Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, Fordham Law School,
NYU Journalism, NYU Tisch, DocNYC, Documentary Association of Europe, University of Oxford,
Camden International Film Festival, and many others.
_____ Legal Scholarship and Commentary
Copyright and the Myth of Creativity
38 Berkeley Tech. L.J. _____ (forthcoming 2025)
47 Colum. J.L. & Arts 55 (2024)
_____ Media Appearances
CNN, CBS News Prime Time, KCRW
_____ Clerkship
The Hon. Mariana R. Pfaelzer, Central District of California
_____ Education
Yale Law School, Columbia University (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa)
_____ Contact
paul [at] filmlawgroup.com, +1 415 663 5153
_____ Longer Bio
In the last two decades, I've worked extensively with award-winning filmmakers, artists, tech start ups, and tech
multinationals. My practice spans a broad range of legal areas--from fair use assessment and licensing
to services agreements and distribution deals. As an academic, I'm particularly interested in copyright
and in the First Amendment.
I teach Film Law, Entertainment Transactions, and Art Law at the University of Michigan Law School. I've written for the Atlantic about fair use, and I've
appeared on CNN and
CBS News Prime Time to discuss the doctrine's importance. I'm very committed to empowering filmmakers and
activists,
and regularly lecture on legal issues related to film production, including talks and panels at the Sundance
Institute,
SXSW, Tribeca Film Institute, NYU Tisch, DocNYC, Documentary Association of Europe,
Camden International Film Festival, and many others.
Before starting my own firm, I worked in the New York City and San
Francisco offices of two international law firms, and I was in-house counsel at a major media
company.
I'm also a filmmaker and photographer. I've filmed in the US, Uganda, Poland, and England,
and my documentaries have been featured on the New York Times (Op-Docs), the Atlantic, and the New Yorker,
and have been shown at festivals internationally, including AFI Docs,
Big Sky, Clermont-Ferrand, Doc NYC, Palm Springs, Slamdance, and Toronto Int’l Film Festival (Kids).
My short doc "A Peaceful Place" was a Tribeca If/Then finalist. Some of my photos have been exhibited in the
US and Europe,
including the Leica Gallery in Warsaw. In addition to shooting my own films, I also
sometimes
work as a cinematographer for other projects (e.g., Nanfu Wang's In the Same Breath) and occasionally
help with production
(e.g., Susan Sandler's Julia Scotti: Funny That Way).
A more personal bio: I was born in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to NYC at the age of 12, the year that the
city’s transit fare rose from 75 cents to 90 cents;
33 previously unknown Bach pieces were found in an academic library; and Canon demoed its first digital
still camera.
Besides New York City and Warsaw, I’ve lived in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Alexandria
(VA), New Haven,
Philadelphia, NJ, DC, and, for shorter periods, Kampala and Berlin. I’ve driven across the US
six seven times,
and I’ve visited the vast majority of the contiguous states, and, by train, plane or automobile, I’ve also
visited some
45 50 55 60
countries. I like
stray all dogs, old jazz LPs and old
trains, Greene and Kundera, open source software,
the Oxford comma, and occasionally translating Polish poetry to English.
In the past, I played loud drums with loud bands in a bunch of loud places, including CBGBs. I also started
coding in 7th grade, and I'm still
a huge nerd
an occasional
software developer (mostly Python
and Java).
_____ My Own Films (Director, Cinematographer, Editor, and Producer)
The
Pull (New York Times)
After serving time in a New Hampshire jail, a freed inmate faces the pull of addiction.
Quiet Hours
(Atlantic)
Donald Hall, America’s Poet Laureate and winner of the National Medal of Arts, lives in the fragile
space between loneliness and solitude.
Not a
Woman (Atlantic)
A Ugandan couple struggle to get pregnant and save their marriage.
Booklyn (New Yorker)
A short documentary about a quirky Brooklyn bookstore that has been an enigmatic but beloved
neighborhood fixture for the last three decades.
I Want Everything (Rolling Stone)
After a lifetime of writing about famous rock stars, Larry “Ratso” Sloman releases his own album and
records a tribute to Nick Cave’s son.
Small Talk (Vimeo Staff Pick)
A handful of inmates weather the slow passage of time with candid reflections on drug addiction.
_____ Festival Programmer
Slamdance Film Festival (Doc Features and Narrative Shorts)