Jim Jarmusch , 1953- ; Highly original independent filmmaker who has carved out a niche all his own; Pauline Kael called it the "low-key minimalist comedy about American anomie." Jarmusch studied filmmaking at New York University; his final student project, Permanent Vacation (1980), was seen overseas and greeted with acclaim. His next feature, Stranger Than Paradise (1984), was expanded from a 30-minute short made two years earlier and followed the marginally comic adventures of a young man, his best friend, and his cousin from Budapest. The film received the Camera d'Or prize at Cannes and was named Best Picture of the year by the National Society of Film Critics. It established Jarmusch's cool, measured style, which looks at America through the eyes of people from foreign lands. Down by Law (1986) featured Italian comic Roberto Benigni as the outsider, and Mystery Train (1989) offered a trio of stories about foreigners staying in a Memphis hotel. Night on Earth (1991), a five-part story set in five taxis in major cities around the world, is probably his most accessible film to date. In 1993 he won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for his short film Coffee and Cigarettes (Somewhere in California which featured Tom Waits and Iggy Pop, and directed the Waits video "It's All Right With Me."