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Ben Lewin

A Polish-born, English-trained Australian writer-director, Ben Lewin impressed the world with his creative gifts. Using crutches after contracting polio as a child, Lewin overcame his physical challenges and built an international screen career, winning Australian Writers' Guild Awards for "The Dunera Boys" (BBC, 1985) and "The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish" (1991), as well as an Australian Film Institute (AFI) award for "Plead Guilty, Get a Bond" (1990) and two AFI nominations for "Georgia" (1988). After making the leap to Hollywood by lensing installments of "Ally McBeal" (Fox, 1997-2002) and "Touched by an Angel" (CBS, 1994-2003), Lewin scored his biggest American film success when he wrote, produced and directed "The Sessions" (2012), the based-on-real-life story of a paralyzed man (John Hawkes) who hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt). Hilarious, heartbreaking and honest, the Sundance Film Festival award-winning film showcased Lewin's unique strengths and was tapped to be a major awards contender. Gifted with a deep compassion and quirky sense of humor to match his filmmaking prowess, Ben Lewin was able to tell powerful stories that reflected the human condition, regardless of country or culture.