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BALL’S BIG SCREEN DIRECTORIAL DEBUT, TOWELHEAD, WILL BE RELEASED IN
AUGUST 2008

LOS ANGELES — Alan Ball will receive the ShoWest Groundbreaking Filmmaker of 2008
award, it was announced today by Mitch Neuhauser, co-managing director of the event that will
be held March 10-13, 2008 in Las Vegas. Ball will be presented with his award at the Opening
Day Luncheon to be held on Tuesday, March 11th at Bally’s Paris Las Vegas. The focus of this
year’s luncheon is going to be on the importance of Specialty and Independent films and
distribution companies in today’s marketplace.

“Alan Ball is a celebrated director and screenwriter in both the world of television and film who
has been honored by his peers with the highest endorsement in our industry when he received an
Academy Award® for American Beauty,” said Neuhauser. “Ball’s wide range of highly
recognized work from his award-winning production of American Beauty to his award-winning
direction and writing for “Six Feet Under,” proves him to be an influential writer, director and
producer. ShoWest is honored to be presenting him with its own Groundbreaking Filmmaker of
2008 award.”

Ball’s directorial debut is Warner Independent Picture’s Towelhead, which will be released
theatrically in August 2008. Based on the critically acclaimed novel by Alicia Erian and written
for the screen and directed by Ball, Towelhead stars Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bello,
Peter Macdissi and newcomer Summer Bishil as Jasira. Jasira wants something she can’t
define: attention, love, acceptance or a normal life. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know the right
way to find it. When Jasira’s mother exiles her to Houston to live with her strict, quick-to-anger
Lebanese father, she quickly learns what aspects of herself to suppress in front of him. In
private, however, she conducts her sexual awakening with all the false confidence that pop
culture and her neighbor’s magazines have provided. The result is a funny, dark, bold and
harrowing look at the confusion and misguided exploration of youth in America’s track houses,
public schools and suburban wastelands. Towelhead delivers to fans exactly what Ball is known
for, bringing real life to the screen with drama and humor.

Ball’s career began in New York as an art director for various trade publications before he
became a playwright, writing such plays as “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress,” “The M
Word,” “Made for a Woman,” “Bachelor Holiday,” “The Amazing Adventures of Tense Guy,”
and “Your Mother’s Butt.” Ball then moved to Hollywood where he worked in television
garnering credits for “Oh Grow Up,” “Cybill,” and “Grace Under Fire.” His first produced
feature film screenplay was American Beauty, for which he received the 1999 Academy Award®
for Best Original Screenplay, the Writers Guild of America award for Best Original Screenplay
and the Golden Globe award for Best Screenplay, among others. Next, Ball created and
executive produced “Six Feet Under,” the critically acclaimed drama series on HBO. The series
garnered many awards including three Golden Globes, seven Emmy awards and a George
Foster Peabody Award. Alan was awarded an Emmy and a DGA award for directing the pilot of
“Six Feet Under,” his television directorial debut. More recently, Ball has completed work on
his new HBO pilot, “True Blood,” which he directed and adapted from the novel Dead Until
Dark by Charlaine Harris.