Film and televisionגיל קינן

Gil Kenan

Gil Kenan is an English, Israeli and American filmmaker who directed Monster House, City of Ember and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

born 1976Directing Monster HouseGhostbusters: Frozen EmpireCollaborations with Jason Reitman

Born: 16 October 1976, London
Occupation: film director, screenwriter, producer, director
Education: University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television

Gil Kenan was born in 1976 in London

Kenan was born in London on October 16, 1976, to a Jewish family. At 3 his family moved to Tel Aviv, and at 8 they moved again to Reseda in Los Angeles. He has one brother.

He studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles, and earned a Master of Fine Arts in animation in 2002. His thesis was a 10-minute short film called The Lark, mixing stop-motion and live action.

The short led Robert Zemeckis to offer him the direction of Monster House, released in 2006 and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He then directed City of Ember in 2008 and a remake of Poltergeist in 2015. He co-wrote and directed A Boy Called Christmas, released on Netflix in 2021.

With Jason Reitman he co-wrote Ghostbusters: Afterlife, released in 2021. The two then formed Reitman/Kenan Productions with a deal at Sony Pictures Entertainment. Kenan directed the 2024 sequel Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which he co-wrote with Reitman.

In 2005 he married Eliza Chaikin, an art director on City of Ember.