Rochel Blachman joined Phoenix Pictures in late 2005, reuniting with Mike Medavoy, with whom she had previously worked 20 years earlier at Orion Pictures.  Rochel is executive vice president of business and legal affairs for Phoenix, reporting to President Arnie Messer, and is responsible for negotiating many different facets of the company’s movie-making business, ranging from rights acquisitions and writer deals to actor, director, producer deals and financing/distribution arrangements.

Prior to working at Phoenix, Rochel spent nine years at Paramount Pictures (including a short stint at Nickelodeon Movies), where she was senior vice president of business affairs (reporting to Bill Bernstein) for the Motion Picture Group (then headed by Sherry Lansing and John Goldwyn).  At Paramount, Rochel was responsible for the same type of deal-making as she is currently engaged in at Phoenix (including high level actor and director deals for Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Angelina Jolie, John Travolta, Julia Roberts, Nancy Meyers, John Woo, among others), along with supervision of many producer overall deals.  

Rochel is a 1974 graduate of UCLA (bachelor’s degree in political science) and earned her law degree in 1977 from UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law.  Rochel began her legal career as a litigator at the Wyman, Bautzer, Rothman, Kuchel law firm.  She moved into the practice of entertainment law in 1982, commencing in the legal department of Orion Pictures, and under the tutelage of Bob Geary and Bill Bernstein, was thereafter promoted to vice president and then senior vice president of business and legal affairs, respectively.  Her tenure at Orion was a golden period for the company and its management group, which included co-founder and head of production Mike Medavoy, during which time the company developed, produced and/or distributed many Oscar® winning films, including Amadeus, Platoon, Dances with Wolves, and Silence of the Lambs, as well as many critically acclaimed films (e.g., Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sisters, Purple Rose of Cairo, and Broadway Danny Rose, Bull Durham, Hoosiers, Mississippi Burning, Back to School, Terminator, Robocop, and The Addams Family, among others).

Rochel is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Executive Branch) and has served on the board of directors of Women in Film and Bet Tzedek Legal Services.  

Rochel is a single mother with a 12 year old daughter, Cayla, who is a seventh grader at Harvard-Westlake Middle School.  Rochel continues to juggle the dual responsibilities of parenting and working for Phoenix.