The Firelight Media announced today a national open call for submissions for its Documentary Lab program. The fellowship supports filmmakers from racially and ethnically underrepresented communities working on their first or second feature-length documentary film.
In an effort to bring more inclusion and diversity to the filmmaking industry, the Documentary Lab is an 18-month program that provides filmmakers with customized mentorship from prominent leaders in the documentary world, funding, professional development workshops and networking opportunities.
“There are hundreds of talented, diverse filmmakers out there creating work that pushes the boundaries of documentary. These voices are critical to providing new narratives about the most pressing issues of our time,” says Loira Limbal, Vice President and Documentary Lab Director at Firelight Media. “Many of them, however, do not have accessible points of entry to the film industry. Through this open call, Firelight can better reach those filmmakers, support them, and flood the...
In an effort to bring more inclusion and diversity to the filmmaking industry, the Documentary Lab is an 18-month program that provides filmmakers with customized mentorship from prominent leaders in the documentary world, funding, professional development workshops and networking opportunities.
“There are hundreds of talented, diverse filmmakers out there creating work that pushes the boundaries of documentary. These voices are critical to providing new narratives about the most pressing issues of our time,” says Loira Limbal, Vice President and Documentary Lab Director at Firelight Media. “Many of them, however, do not have accessible points of entry to the film industry. Through this open call, Firelight can better reach those filmmakers, support them, and flood the...
- 4/11/2018
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Article by Dane Eric Marti
Sometimes a film will speak directly to a person in an audience: A preternatural, unearthly tendril of luminous light tapping you on the shoulder, a benevolent yet mysterious voice reminding you of an obligation, or a musical, colorful Dream Message entering your eyes and speaking to your soul with wonder, awe and truth. Like other Art forms, film can do amazing things.
For me, there are definitely a few choice films of overwhelming, pristine power. Yet one cinematic work is not just great, deeply special to me: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ Directed by the Wonderkind, Steven Spielberg, directly after his landmark suspense-adventure film, ‘Jaws’.
Now, his new flick, released in 1977, also dealt with the fantastic, with riveting moments of terror… but its endgame was something quite dissimilar.
I think it would take either a first-rate Psychologist or an Exorcist with a lot of...
Sometimes a film will speak directly to a person in an audience: A preternatural, unearthly tendril of luminous light tapping you on the shoulder, a benevolent yet mysterious voice reminding you of an obligation, or a musical, colorful Dream Message entering your eyes and speaking to your soul with wonder, awe and truth. Like other Art forms, film can do amazing things.
For me, there are definitely a few choice films of overwhelming, pristine power. Yet one cinematic work is not just great, deeply special to me: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ Directed by the Wonderkind, Steven Spielberg, directly after his landmark suspense-adventure film, ‘Jaws’.
Now, his new flick, released in 1977, also dealt with the fantastic, with riveting moments of terror… but its endgame was something quite dissimilar.
I think it would take either a first-rate Psychologist or an Exorcist with a lot of...
- 8/31/2017
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Getting Real 2016: Ida and AMPAS Announce Conference Guests, Including Ava DuvVernay and Steve James
The International Documentary Association (Ida) has announced the lineup and additional keynote presentations for Getting Real ‘16, its biennial filmmaker-to-filmmaker conference inaugurated by the Ida and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2014.
The three-day conference, which will be held September 27-29 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study and other locations in Hollywood, will include keynotes, conversations with filmmakers and interactive presentations exploring the art and craft of documentary, along with their exclusive “Here’s What Really Happened” sessions, which go behind the scenes into the making and distribution of recent documentaries.
Read More: ‘Cameraperson’ Trailer: Kirsten Johnson’s Acclaimed Documentary Is a Cinematic Self-Portrait
This year will also see a new focus on the evolution of documentary, including a Vr Doc Summit.
Keynote speakers for the latest incarnation of Getting Real include filmmakers Ava DuVernay, Shola Lynch, Ezra Edelman,...
The three-day conference, which will be held September 27-29 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study and other locations in Hollywood, will include keynotes, conversations with filmmakers and interactive presentations exploring the art and craft of documentary, along with their exclusive “Here’s What Really Happened” sessions, which go behind the scenes into the making and distribution of recent documentaries.
Read More: ‘Cameraperson’ Trailer: Kirsten Johnson’s Acclaimed Documentary Is a Cinematic Self-Portrait
This year will also see a new focus on the evolution of documentary, including a Vr Doc Summit.
Keynote speakers for the latest incarnation of Getting Real include filmmakers Ava DuVernay, Shola Lynch, Ezra Edelman,...
- 8/23/2016
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Everybody has to start somewhere.
The best and most successful Hollywood directors might find themselves marshalling $200 million epics, but in their formative years big budgets weren't at their disposal and they had to make do only with a good idea and the drive to make it happen. Many filmmakers use shorts to test-run ideas and explore themes they'd circle back to down the line.
From Christopher Nolan to Steven Spielberg, we look at nine short films that helped kick-start careers behind the camera.
1. Christopher Nolan - Doodlebug (1997)
Even before he hit it big, Interstellar director Christopher Nolan was distorting reality with his film work.
Doodlebug - led by Nolan's Following star Jeremy Theobald - played out an intriguing narrative loop over a brisk three minutes as a man chased a 'bug' around his flat with a shoe. A year after he made this film, Nolan took his feature debut Following...
The best and most successful Hollywood directors might find themselves marshalling $200 million epics, but in their formative years big budgets weren't at their disposal and they had to make do only with a good idea and the drive to make it happen. Many filmmakers use shorts to test-run ideas and explore themes they'd circle back to down the line.
From Christopher Nolan to Steven Spielberg, we look at nine short films that helped kick-start careers behind the camera.
1. Christopher Nolan - Doodlebug (1997)
Even before he hit it big, Interstellar director Christopher Nolan was distorting reality with his film work.
Doodlebug - led by Nolan's Following star Jeremy Theobald - played out an intriguing narrative loop over a brisk three minutes as a man chased a 'bug' around his flat with a shoe. A year after he made this film, Nolan took his feature debut Following...
- 11/9/2014
- Digital Spy
Steven Awalt – author interviewed by Todd Garbarini
“Well, it’s about time, Charlie!”
Dennis Weaver utters these words in my favorite Steven Spielberg film, Duel, a production that was originally commissioned by Universal Pictures as an Mow, industry shorthand for “movie of the week”, which aired on Saturday, November 13, 1971. The reviews were glowing; the film’s admirers greatly outweighed its detractors and it put Mr. Spielberg, arguably the most phenomenally successful director in the history of the medium, on a path to a career that would make any contemporary director green with envy. Followed by a spate of contractually obligated television outings, Duel would prove to be the springboard that would catapult Mr. Spielberg into the realm that he was shooting for since his youth: that of feature film directing. Duel would also land him in the court of Hollywood producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck and get him his...
“Well, it’s about time, Charlie!”
Dennis Weaver utters these words in my favorite Steven Spielberg film, Duel, a production that was originally commissioned by Universal Pictures as an Mow, industry shorthand for “movie of the week”, which aired on Saturday, November 13, 1971. The reviews were glowing; the film’s admirers greatly outweighed its detractors and it put Mr. Spielberg, arguably the most phenomenally successful director in the history of the medium, on a path to a career that would make any contemporary director green with envy. Followed by a spate of contractually obligated television outings, Duel would prove to be the springboard that would catapult Mr. Spielberg into the realm that he was shooting for since his youth: that of feature film directing. Duel would also land him in the court of Hollywood producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck and get him his...
- 10/16/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Intended as a sequel to Close Encounters, Night Skies began in the 1970s but later stalled. We look at how its ideas evolved into E.T...
Feature
Having scored a phenomenal hit with Jaws in 1975, director Steven Spielberg used his considerable industry clout to make Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - a science fiction fairytale for the UFO age. It was a personal project for Spielberg, conceived and partly written by the director himself (several other writers made uncredited passes on the script), and based on Firelight, the UFO film he'd shot for $500 while he was a teenager.
“I had a real, deep-rooted belief that we had been visited in this century,” the director once said of his fascination with the UFO phenomenon. “I was a real UFO devotee in the 1970s, and really into the UFO phenomenon from reading. For me, it was science.”
Like Jaws, the production...
Feature
Having scored a phenomenal hit with Jaws in 1975, director Steven Spielberg used his considerable industry clout to make Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - a science fiction fairytale for the UFO age. It was a personal project for Spielberg, conceived and partly written by the director himself (several other writers made uncredited passes on the script), and based on Firelight, the UFO film he'd shot for $500 while he was a teenager.
“I had a real, deep-rooted belief that we had been visited in this century,” the director once said of his fascination with the UFO phenomenon. “I was a real UFO devotee in the 1970s, and really into the UFO phenomenon from reading. For me, it was science.”
Like Jaws, the production...
- 5/28/2014
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
Steven Spielberg’s success didn’t start in Hollywood — it started when he was a teenager and joined the Boy Scouts. In order to earn his photography merit badge, the budding filmmaker created movies with his dad’s camera. When Spielberg was 17, he made one of his earliest feature films (many of the scenes were shot near the Spielberg family home), which screened at a local movie theater. The sci-fi story was a template of sorts for the director’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and gives a nod to classic science fiction films from the 1950s. In Firelight, a group of scientists investigate strange, colored lights in the sky and the mysterious disappearance of people in the small town of (fictional) Freeport, Arizona. Footage of...
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- 3/24/2014
- by Alison Nastasi
- Movies.com
For decades now, Steven Spielberg has been a household name, but, in 1964, the young director was just trying to get his foot in the door.
That year, Spielberg made a sci-fi film called "Firelight" on a $500 budget. It was about a group of scientists who question the existence of aliens after noticing strange colors in the sky. Over the years, most of the reels have been lost, but a few minutes of the director's footage has survived. Barely.
The quality of the clip is poor -- it's grainy and the sound cuts out -- though it is a fascinating to look at Spielberg's early style and influences.
Photo by Getty Images...
That year, Spielberg made a sci-fi film called "Firelight" on a $500 budget. It was about a group of scientists who question the existence of aliens after noticing strange colors in the sky. Over the years, most of the reels have been lost, but a few minutes of the director's footage has survived. Barely.
The quality of the clip is poor -- it's grainy and the sound cuts out -- though it is a fascinating to look at Spielberg's early style and influences.
Photo by Getty Images...
- 3/24/2014
- by Jonny Black
- Moviefone
Before he was billionaire director Steven Spielberg — hell, before he was millionaire director Steven Spielberg — Steven Spielberg was a young upstart trying to make a name in Hollywood. 1964's $500 Firelight was his attempt to do so. However, a production company he lent it to eventually lost most of the reels and only the below few minutes survived. The film follows a group of scientists who begin noticing strange colors in the sky and one man's search to prove the existence of aliens. Though brief, you can see glimpses of the director he became. Be forewarned that the clip's sound is off and cuts out, so it ends up feeling like Spielberg's attempt at a Godard film.
- 3/21/2014
- by Jesse David Fox
- Vulture
It was the Boy Scouts that started Steven Spielberg on the path to becoming a filmmaker. When his father's camera was broken, a very young Spielberg instead took his dad's movie camera to complete a project for his photography merit badge. And the rest, as they say, is history. By age sixteen, in 1964, the budding director was diving into features, and made an epic sci-fi movie, "Firelight," for just over $3700. The 135-minute movie screened at a local theater and it was going to be Spielberg's calling card to the industry... until the production company holding the reels went out of business and lost his material. But four minutes of footage managed to survive, and the folks at No Film School brought it to our attention. It's exactly what you might expect from a teenage Spielberg, with the footage owing a serious debt to classic sci-fi movies of the '40s and '50s.
- 3/21/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Kerry Washington was a big winner at Friday’s 44th NAACP Image Awards, where in addition to seeing Scandal honored as best TV drama and being named best actress in a drama series, she also scored best supporting actress in a motion picture (for Django Unchained).
Other multiple winners on the TV side were Loretta Devine (for Grey’s Anatomy and Disney’s Doc McStuffins), Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, Lifetime’s Steel Magnolias telepic and daytime’s The Young and the Restless.
The...
Other multiple winners on the TV side were Loretta Devine (for Grey’s Anatomy and Disney’s Doc McStuffins), Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, Lifetime’s Steel Magnolias telepic and daytime’s The Young and the Restless.
The...
- 2/2/2013
- by Matt Webb Mitovich
- TVLine.com
As far as the category of “directors’ first films” goes, in all of its consequently huge breadth, a shocking few are really worthy of note. This truth works both with and against intuition, because one would think the first film of an accomplished director—the work that shows the world where they started as a feature-length artist—should automatically be of note, and yet so many are not. How many people have actually seen Ridley Scott’s The Duellists or Steven Spielberg’s Firelight? Few directors’ first feature-length works are well known and even fewer are particularly notable beyond being that director’s first. Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave (his first theatrical film) is one of those sublime exceptions: it’s a work very much indicative of styles he’d continue using for years and the first of many films that would demonstrate his knack for mastering any genre he dabbles in.
- 6/27/2012
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
Who knew? The master director of "Indiana Jones," "E.T.," "Jaws," Steven Spielberg, once wrote a high school sports column. Grantland's Bryan Curtis sifted through the archives for a studied and amusing analysis of Spielberg's early journalistic efforts. "Why sportswriting? To judge from Spielberg's references to 'basket accuracy' and 'professionally executed' touchdowns, he didn't know much about sports," Curtis writes, "No, the first reason he was drawn to the sports page is what we might call sports-as-movie." At 17, he had already directed the sci-fi flick "Firelight," and served an internship at Universal Pictures. When his family moved from California to Phoenix, however, he tried a brief stint in high school sportswriting. His directorial, movie-slanted eye gleamed through. The young Spielberg filmed the games he covered rather than taking notes. He also made...
- 2/24/2012
- by Maggie Lange
- Indiewire
Steven Spielberg produced the J.J. Abrams period sci-fi adventure Super 8 via his Amblin Entertainment banner and helped promote the film with numerous appearances praising Abrams and discussing how his own Super 8 movie, Firelight, from 1964 and about a small town experiencing mysterious alien kidnappings, helped influence the movie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spielberg made bigger news with reports of continued meetings with writer Mark Protosevich on the possibility of a fourth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise. Spielberg first worked with Protosevich on a planned remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy with Will Smith set to star but the project unraveled over rights issues.
- 6/16/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Steven Spielberg produced the J.J. Abrams period sci-fi adventure Super 8 via his Amblin Entertainment banner and helped promote the film with numerous appearances praising Abrams and discussing how his own Super 8 movie, Firelight, from 1964 and about a small town experiencing mysterious alien kidnappings, helped influence the movie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spielberg made bigger news with reports of continued meetings with writer Mark Protosevich on the possibility of a fourth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise. Spielberg first worked with Protosevich on a planned remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy with Will Smith set to star but the project unraveled over rights issues.
- 6/16/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Steven Spielberg produced the J.J. Abrams period sci-fi adventure Super 8 via his Amblin Entertainment banner and helped promote the film with numerous appearances praising Abrams and discussing how his own Super 8 movie, Firelight, from 1964 and about a small town experiencing mysterious alien kidnappings, helped influence the movie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spielberg made bigger news with reports of continued meetings with writer Mark Protosevich on the possibility of a fourth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise. Spielberg first worked with Protosevich on a planned remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy with Will Smith set to star but the project unraveled over rights issues.
- 6/16/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Oh man, the Amblin logo with E.T. biking past the moon used to mean a lot to children of the '80s -- itt meant whatever we were about to see was either made or overseen by our cinematic Jesus, Steven Spielberg, who had the magical ability to turn even the corniest concepts ("kids looking for pirate treasure!") into delicious wine.
Now writer/director/nerd prince of Hollywood J.J. Abrams ("Lost," "Star Trek") is working in tandem with Spielberg to bring us "Super 8," an original movie in the spirit of "Close Encounters," "E.T.," "The Goonies," and other fantasies of that era. After last year's tantalizing teaser and February's Superbowl spot, Paramount has finally dropped a full trailer via Twitter, and it is Amblin-rific.
The studio synopsis reads like this: "In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making...
Now writer/director/nerd prince of Hollywood J.J. Abrams ("Lost," "Star Trek") is working in tandem with Spielberg to bring us "Super 8," an original movie in the spirit of "Close Encounters," "E.T.," "The Goonies," and other fantasies of that era. After last year's tantalizing teaser and February's Superbowl spot, Paramount has finally dropped a full trailer via Twitter, and it is Amblin-rific.
The studio synopsis reads like this: "In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making...
- 3/11/2011
- by Max Evry
- NextMovie
As Skyline prepares to invade cinemas, we look back at more than 30 years of the best and worst alien abduction movies...
Do aliens really hover in our skies, waiting to kidnap us for their own unfathomable ends? Ever since the case of Us couple Betty and Barney Hill became widely publicised in the mid-60s, hundreds of people have come forward with similar claims of extraterrestrial abduction, missing time, strange medical examinations and grey-skinned extraterrestrials
And while psychologists and ufologists disagree on the reality of such claims, the theme of alien abduction has been revisited several times by filmmakers since the late 70s. And as this list demonstrates, the results of such films can be decidedly mixed...
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Following the financial success of Jaws, director Steven Spielberg took the risky step of remaking Firelight, a small low-budget movie he'd directed when he was just 16. The resulting movie,...
Do aliens really hover in our skies, waiting to kidnap us for their own unfathomable ends? Ever since the case of Us couple Betty and Barney Hill became widely publicised in the mid-60s, hundreds of people have come forward with similar claims of extraterrestrial abduction, missing time, strange medical examinations and grey-skinned extraterrestrials
And while psychologists and ufologists disagree on the reality of such claims, the theme of alien abduction has been revisited several times by filmmakers since the late 70s. And as this list demonstrates, the results of such films can be decidedly mixed...
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Following the financial success of Jaws, director Steven Spielberg took the risky step of remaking Firelight, a small low-budget movie he'd directed when he was just 16. The resulting movie,...
- 11/10/2010
- Den of Geek
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