A Young Director With Tom Hanks's Seal of Approval

Kenan's big break on "City of Ember" is the stuff of film student dreams: His UCLA senior film project, "The Lark," a 10-minute black-and-white film made in his kitchen, won a class award and caught the eye of an agent. It wasn't long before he was sitting across the table from industry titans at Playtone.

"It was wild. Not to overstate it, but these were film gods of mine," Kenan says of his first meetings, where "basically you go in and talk about how great you are and what you want to do when you grow up."

With Playtone, Kenan says he began pitching a kind of "non-intergalactic science-fiction film" when Hanks's executives "started looking at each other." A like-minded novel, "The City of Ember," by Jeanne DuPrau, had just landed on their desk. Would Kenan like to take a look?

Would he ever. Kenan rang the next day and pleaded for the chance to give his interpretation of the manuscript, complete with sketches. His presentation lasted three hours.

"We loved his energy, and Tom [Hanks] was delighted with Gil," says Steven Shareshian, a Playtone producer who was at that initial meeting. He says they could tell that "Gil was a true visualist" and that he could bring "an overall look and feel that was incredibly unique."

And if some might think it risky to gamble so much on a young director, the "Ember" producers had all the validation they could possibly want in Kenan's first film. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, 2006's "Monster House" is an animated adventure story that has a big toe in the horror genre, and received strong reviews and an Oscar nomination.

Kenan has a deceptively folksy style and says "amazing" and "pretty cool" so often it's easy to forget that he's responsible for the most expensive film ever made in Northern Ireland. He hasn't forgotten: He moved to Belfast with his wife for the eight-month shoot, works six days a week and cut all television, film and literature out of his life. He also finds it helpful to ignore the fact that many in his cast and crew started their careers before he was born.

"I learned to kind of suppress that notion on the first day. I just thought, I get to do this, and shame on me if I stop to worry if I'm not [experienced enough]. I have this opportunity. It would be a disservice to everyone who's trying to get the break that I got to allow myself to get overwhelmed," he says. "At the end of the day, I am telling the story, and I know how it ends, and as long as I kind of follow that really simple formula, there's only so much I can screw up."

Indeed, Tim Robbins says Kenan's sure-footed direction was one of his most distinctive traits. "He is super-confident," says Robbins. "And you wonder about that with someone you haven't worked with before. I mean: Do they have talent, or are they just stubborn? I was happy to learn it was talent."

Born in London, Kenan moved to Tel Aviv when he was 4 and Los Angeles when he was 7. As he was growing up, his father, a commodities trader, used to take him to "inappropriate" -- his word -- films, he says, such as "The Tin Drum" and "Time Bandits," leaving him "really confused and really fascinated." But he says the films that influenced him most were Spielberg's "E.T." and Zemeckis's "Back to the Future," setting the stage for surreal moments on his first film.

"I'd show my work to them in Spielberg's theater, and the lights would come up and we'd discuss. That's not something that's supposed to happen. That was a fantasy," says Kenan, who has thick eyebrows and an intense gaze. But those butterflies appear to have long since fluttered away as he now grins and says, "I can't wait to show them my new film."

In a recent phone interview, Kenan, who has since become a father, says that looking back, "I felt like I learned how [to direct] on this film. Making a live-action film is like someone turning the world's biggest fan on in your face."

Despite the success of Kenan's first feature, there are still many who can't help but question just how long ago it was he removed his training wheels.

"Some people say: 'Who do you think you are? I have been doing this my whole life, and you fly in from L.A. and tell me how to do my job?' " he says. "But others, as long as you don't let them down too much, like the idea of giving you the benefit of the doubt."

Some of the biggest names in Hollywood have done just that.