Tom Musca

Tom Musca^[1][2] (born 1951) is an American filmmaker and professor.

Biography

Musca graduated Phi Beta Kappa rom Rutgers University in 1973^[2] and received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1981.^[1]

Musca's best known work was as the writer and producer of Warner Brothers' Stand and Deliver in 1988.^[3] The film was nominated for seven Independent Spirit Awards and won six, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay honors for Musca.^[4] Additionally, Edward James Olmos, was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar for his role in the film^[5] and actor Lou Diamond Phillips was nominated for a Golden Globe. Stand and Deliver is preserved in the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress.^[6]

Musca has gone on to write, produce and direct for film, television and the theater.^[7] He was a co-writer and producer for Hollywood Pictures'Money for Nothing with John Cusack, James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Benicio del Toro and Samuel Goldwyn's Tortilla Soup^[8] starring Hector Elizondo and Raquel Welch. He wrote and directed Melting Pot aka Race^[9] starring Paul Rodriguez and was a writer for Disney Channel's Gotta Kick It Up! starring America Ferrara.^[10]

Since 2010 Musca has been the head of the MFA Screenwriting track and Professor of Professional Practice at the University of Miami School of Communication.^[11] Since that time he has gone on to become one of Miami's most prolific producers; in 2020 he wrote, produced and directed^[12] Chateau Vato, a rags to riches comedy set in Miami and his fourth film for HBO.^[13] On March 9, 2023, he premiered Dying To Direct,^[14] a thirty minute film based on one of his short stories at the 40th Annual Miami Film Festival,^[15] which he wrote, produced and co-directed. Aguadilla, ^[16]his film noir thriller premiered at Cinequest FIlm Festival in 2025 ^[17]and the 42nd Annual Miami Film Festival,^[18] his fifth film to be showcased at this prestigious forum.

Filmography

• Little Nikita (story) 1988^[19]
• Stand and Deliver (writer/producer) 1988^[5]
• Money for Nothing (writer/producer) 1993^[20]
• Melting Pot (film) aka Race (writer/director) 1998^[9]
• Flight of Fancy aka Facing Fear (writer/producer/second unit director) 2000^[21]
• Tortilla Soup (writer, producer) 2001^[8]
• Gotta Kick it Up! Writer (2001)^[22]
• Make Love Great Again (producer, additional writing, actor) 2018^[23]
• Chateau Vato (writer/director/producer) 2020^[24]
• Amaraica (producer) 2021^[25]
• Dying to Direct^[26] (writer, director, producer) 2023
• Aguadilla (writer, producer, director) 2025^[27]