DIRECTOR
ALAN BALL
Alan Ball is obsessed with the dark side. Whether it's what lies beneath the pretty facade of suburbia (the Oscar-winning American Beauty) or death (the Emmy-winning Six Feet Under), the fearless writer—director—producer has made a career of the deft exploration of sociocultural themes with a keen sense of drama and humor from the perspective of both insider and outsider. This year his HBO series True Blood ventured into an underworld of vampires seeking acceptance in mainstream society, and his feature film Towelhead dared broach the subject of anti-Arab sentiment in a post-9/11, mid–war on terror United States.