Producer / Director Tom Gustafson (member of the Producers Guild of America) has made 7 feature films & numerous short-form projects. Shot with crews from 2 to 200 in NYC, Mexico City, Chicago & LA, his work has won 60+ awards while playing 275+ festivals around the world.
Specializing in ambitious imagination with bang-for-buck, money-on-the-screen common sense, his producing work spans his own films, independent features, music videos & commercial production, including a recent Starbucks campaign produced by OBB. From inception to delivery, Tom has taken on just about every role: development, budgeting, financing, screenwriting, producing, directing, casting, locations, post producing, delivery & more. Along the way, he’s tackled music licensing, optioned existing IP, navigated international co-productions, managed VFX-heavy sequences & worked with performers from household names to up-&-comers.
Tom Co-Chairs the Producers Guild LGBTQ+ group & works on the producing team for Oslo-based, Drama Desk-winning visual theatre company Wakka Wakka.
Under his banner, SPEAKproductions, Tom’s first feature as Producer-Director, cult indie hit Were the World Mine, was chosen by The New York Times as a Critics’ Pick, calling it “movie musical magic.” His follow-up, Mariachi Gringo, was financed through a Mexican tax incentive program in co-production with Sin Sentido Films. Starring Martha Higareda, Shawn Ashmore, Grammy winner Lila Downs & Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza, it opened the Miami International Film Festival & won the top prize at Guadalajara. About his screen adaptation of celebrated Off-Broadway musical Hello Again - starring Tony winner Audra McDonald, Cheyenne Jackson, Emmy winner Martha Plimpton & more - The Times decided, “The movie musical needs more ambitious creators like them.” Another Mexico co-production, his Indigo Girls-infused musical romance Glitter & Doom, was also his second project with Tony-winning producing partner Hunter Arnold. The Cleveland International Film Festival honored Tom as “Someone to Watch” with a retrospective including Getting Go, an experimental narrative, documentary, art-film hybrid he produced for Director Cory Krueckeberg.
Since undergrad at Northwestern, Tom has been dedicated to representing the diversity of the world we live in on screen & behind the scenes. He’s served on juries & panels at 20+ film festivals, lectured at Princeton & The University of Hong Kong & when not directing or producing, moonlights as Location Casting Director for directors including David Fincher, Sam Mendes & Gore Verbinski on studio projects including Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight & Mindhunter.
Tom lives in Harlem with business & life partner Cory Krueckeberg & their ornery greyhound, Pippin.
