Martin Guigui

Martin Guigui is a multi-hyphenate, feature film director, screenwriter, and producer as well as a music producer and composer. His directorial feature debut was the comedy, My X-Girlfriend’s Wedding Reception (1999), with Debbie Gibson, Dom DeLuise, and Mo Gaffney.

Guigui’s next feature was the film adaptation of Daniel Wright’s play, Changing Hearts (2002), with Lauren Holly, Faye Dunaway, and Tom Skerritt, followed by the music-based movie, Swing (2003), also co-starring Skerritt, and Jacqueline Bisset, Jonathan Winters, and Nell Carter. Winters again appeared under writer-director Guigui’s direction in National Lampoon Presents Cattle Call (2006), with Diedrich Bader, Chelsea Handler, and Paul Mazursky, and then Guigui directed and co-wrote with star Courtney Gains the rock mockumentary, Benny Bliss and the Disciples of Greatness (2009), with Corey Britz.

Martin Guigui’s next directing assignment was in the horror-thriller mode, Beneath the Darkness (2011), starring Dennis Quaid, followed by the lambasted boxing movie, The Bronx Bull (2016), with William Forsythe as Jake LaMotta, Joe Mantegna, Tom Sizemore, Paul Sorvino, and Penelope Ann Miller, and which Guigui directed and co-wrote.

Co-writer and director Guigui steered the topical thriller, 9/11 (2017), co-starring Charlie Sheen, Whoopi Goldberg, and Gina Gershon, and then writer-director Guigui made the anti-bullying high school musical, Drama Drama (2019), with Cheri Oteri, Cinta Laura Kiehl, and Hunter Sansone.

Director Guigui turned to the horror-fantasy genre for The Unhealer (2020), starring Lance Henriksen, Natasha Henstridge, and Adam Beach. Guigui’s biggest-budget ($8 million) movie to date as writer-director was the basketball drama, Sweetwater (2023), starring Everett Osborne, Cary Elwes, Jeremy Piven, Kevin Pollak, Richard Dreyfuss, Jim Caviezel, Eric Roberts, and Ernest Harden Jr. As director and co-writer, Guigui then turned to the crime genre and star Chazz Palminteri for the crime comedy, The Stone Pony (date to be announced).

Another comedy for writer-director Guigui was Big Finish (date to be announced), starring Garrett Morris and Rudy De Luca. Guigui’s non-directorial credits included serving as an executive producer on director James Franco’s and writer Matt Rager’s film version of John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle (2016), with Franco, Nat Wolff, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Sam Shepard, Selena Gomez, Bryan Cranston, Ed Harris, and John Savage.