Gil Kenan

Gil Kenan (born October 16, 1976) is a British–American filmmaker. He is best known for directing the animated film Monster House (2006). Early life Kenan was born in London to a Jewish family. When Kenan was three, his family immigrated to Tel Aviv, Israel. He has one brother. At age eight, Kenan and his family once again moved to Reseda, Los Angeles. Kenan studied at the film division of the University of California, Los Angeles where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in animation in 2002. For his graduate thesis, he created a 10-minute stop-motion/live-action short film, The Lark. Career The first public screening of The Lark caught the attention of Jordan Bealmear, who was an assistant at Creative Artists Agency. The agency sent hundreds of copies of Kenan's short in order to interest parties in the film industry and after a few months of interviews, Robert Zemeckis offered Kenan the director's chair for his first feature, Monster House (2006). Executive produced by Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Happy Feet.