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Leave it to Brian De Palma to turn one of the most traumatic events of his adolescence into a film school homework assignment.

Arguably the most personal entry in De Palma’s filmography, Home Movies began as a class project while he was teaching film production at his alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College. Fresh off the supernatural successes of Carrie and The Fury, he tasked his students with the challenge of creating a low-budget film using highly personal stories from his own teenage years. As De Palma bluntly states in the documentary De Palma, “99% of film students are going nowhere” after graduation. At least these students would get hands-on training and earn a feature film credit. More importantly, De Palma would get the opportunity to revisit his early days of guerilla filmmaking and indulge some of his usual obsessions (erotic surveillance, films within films) while poking fun at some of...

Jennifer Salt has the distinction of breaking into and succeeding in the competitive world of the entertainment industry twice. Her first go-round was as an actor, appearing in such classic films as "Midnight Cowboy" and starring as spoiled Eunice Tate on "Soap." But Salt says she eventually "lost the love" for acting and turned to writing, where she found even greater success. After seven seasons as a writer and producer on Ryan Murphy's "Nip/Tuck," Salt now finds her first produced screenplay hitting theaters Aug. 13. Co-written with Murphy, "Eat Pray Love" is an adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir about leaving her comfortable marriage and journeying to three countries—Italy, India, and Bali—to find herself. Salt, her own life marked with opportunities and coincidences, seemed destined to write the film. She was born in 1944 to actor Mary Davenport and screenwriter Waldo Salt, who survived the Hollywood blacklist and won two Academy Awards,...