Northern Light Productions is a documentary film and museum media production company based in Boston, MA. Founded in 1982 by independent filmmaker Bestor Cram, the company is one of New England's premiere production organizations, creating a variety of work for museums, visitor centers, educational institutions, and television broadcast worldwide.
Northern Light Productions was founded in 1982 when Bestor Cram, himself a Vietnam Veteran, produced How Far Home, a documentary film about the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. In 2001 another landmark film about the Vietnam War, co-produced by Northern Light Productions and titled Unfinished Symphony, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film went on to screen extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Unfinished Symphony, divided into three sections and mirroring the movements of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3, focuses on a 1971 three-day protest in Lexington, MA staged by newly returned war veterans. [1]
Over the years, Northern Light Productions has had films in The Sundance Film Festival, [2] The Boston Film Festival, [3] The Austin Film Festival, [4] Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, [5] International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, [6] and others.
Birth of a Movement: The Battle Against America's First Blockbuster aired on PBS's Independent Lens on February 6, 2017. [7] It premiered in Boston at the Somerville Theater [8] and in New York at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. [9]
Beyond The Wall, which premiered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in May 2016, follows five formerly incarcerated men who are attempting to rebuild their lives on the outside with little support from our criminal justice system. [10] It was also featured at the Woods Hole Film Festival, the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival, the Social Law Film Series, and more. [11]
Circus Without Borders premiered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in April 2015. The film was additionally screened at the Montreal First Peoples Festival, the Boston Globe's GlobeDocs film festival, the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Woods Hole Film Festival, the Roxbury International Film Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Anchorage International Film Festival. [12] In 2015 and 2016, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting featured the film as part of a traveling series. [13]
This Is Where We Take Our Stand, [14] a feature-length film about veterans and active duty soldiers who voiced their opposition to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan by testifying from personal experience in Washington DC.
Primal Fear, [15] a one-hour Halloween special for The History Channel.
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, [16] a one-hour special included with the Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison album's re-release from Columbia Records.
Killer Poet: The Double Life of Norman Porter, [17] a feature-length film about the life of escaped-convict-turned-poet Norman Porter, AKA J. J. Jameson.
12 media exhibits for Ocean Hall in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. [18]
An orientation experience for Lassen National Park in Mineral, CA. [19]
Destination Indiana, an interactive virtual time-travel experience for the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis, IN.
17 media exhibits for the Museum at Bethel Woods at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
Folsom State Prison (FSP) is a California State Prison in Folsom, California, U.S., approximately 20 mi (30 km) northeast of the state capital of Sacramento. It is one of 34 adult institutions operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
"Folsom Prison Blues" is a song by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. It was written in 1953 and first recorded in 1955 for his debut studio album Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! (1957), appearing as the album's eleventh track. The song combines elements from two popular folk styles, the train song and the prison song, both of which Cash continued to use for the rest of his career. It was one of Cash's signature songs. Additionally, this recording was included on the compilation album All Aboard the Blue Train (1962). In June 2014, Rolling Stone ranked it No. 51 on its list of the 100 greatest country songs of all time.
Johnny Cash at San Quentin is the 31st overall album by Johnny Cash, recorded live at San Quentin State Prison on February 24, 1969, and released on June 16 of that same year. The concert was filmed by Granada Television, produced and directed by Michael Darlow. The album was the second in Cash's conceptual series of live prison albums that also included At Folsom Prison (1968), På Österåker (1973), and A Concert Behind Prison Walls (1976).
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is the first live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records on May 6, 1968. After his 1955 song "Folsom Prison Blues", Cash had been interested in recording a performance at a prison. His idea was put on hold until 1967, when personnel changes at Columbia Records put Bob Johnston in charge of producing Cash's material. Cash had recently controlled his drug abuse problems, and was looking to turn his career around after several years of limited commercial success. Backed by June Carter, Carl Perkins and the Tennessee Three, Cash performed two shows at Folsom State Prison in California on January 13, 1968. The album consists of 15 songs from the first show and two from the second.
Walk the Line is a 2005 American biographical musical romantic drama film directed by James Mangold. The screenplay, written by Mangold and Gill Dennis, is based on two autobiographies authored by singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, 1975's Man in Black: His Own Story in His Own Words and 1997's Cash: The Autobiography. The film follows Cash's early life, his romance with June Carter, and his ascent in the country music scene. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, Reese Witherspoon as Carter, Ginnifer Goodwin as Cash's first wife Vivian Liberto, and Robert Patrick as Cash's father.
ITVS is a service in the United States which funds and presents documentaries on public television through distribution by PBS and American Public Television, new media projects on the Internet, and the weekly series Independent Lens on PBS. Aside from Independent Lens, ITVS funded and produced films for more than 40 television hours per year on the PBS series POV, Frontline, American Masters and American Experience. Some ITVS programs are produced along with organizations like Latino Public Broadcasting and KQED.
Glen Milborn Sherley was an American citizen who became a country singer-songwriter after his song "Greystone Chapel" was made famous by Johnny Cash in 1968. Sherley wrote the song while in prison and it was later performed by Cash at his Folsom Prison performance, which was eventually released as the album At Folsom Prison. Sherley was in the front row, unaware that his song was going to be played.
The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June 2020. In addition to the annual festival, Hot Docs owns and operates the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, administers multiple production funds, and runs year-round screening programs including Doc Soup and Hot Docs Showcase.
"Dark as a Dungeon" is a song written by singer-songwriter Merle Travis. It is a lament about the danger and drudgery of being a coal miner in a shaft mine. It has become a rallying song among miners seeking improved working conditions.
Unfinished Symphony: Democracy and Dissent is a 59-minute documentary film about a protest against the Vietnam War divided into three sections, mirroring the movements of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, to which the film is set. Set primarily in Lexington, Massachusetts over Memorial Day weekend in 1971, the film focuses on the three-day protest in the form of a march, staged by newly returned war veterans.
Tala Hadid is a film director and producer. She is also a photographer. Her work has shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, The Smithsonian National Museum, The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., L'Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and other locations.
John R. Cash was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his career. He was known for his deep, calm bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his Tennessee Three backing band characterized by train-like chugging guitar rhythms, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and a trademark all-black stage wardrobe which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black".
Hell and Back Again is a 2011 American-British-Afghan documentary film produced, shot, and directed by Danfung Dennis, about a sergeant in the United States Marines Corps who returns from the Afghanistan conflict with a badly broken leg and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Arlington International Film Festival (AIFF) is an annual nonprofit film festival dedicated to promoting and increasing multicultural awareness and showcases world cinema and independent films in their original language with English subtitles. Independent film producers, directors and actors within the US and abroad are invited to participate in engaging panel discussions and Q&A sessions after the screenings. Each year the festival greets more than 2,000 movie aficionados and shows about fifty films from all over the world with an impressive lineup of premieres. The Arlington International Film Festival also includes a year-round events such as poster contest competitions, pre-festival screenings and art exhibitions with local artists and performances by musicians, singers and dancers.
Tom Donahue is an American film director and producer. His latest documentaries include This Changes Everything, which he directed and produced, about systemic gender bias and discrimination against women in Hollywood and entertainment, and HBO's Bleed Out, which he produced with Ilan Arboleda under the banner of their independent production studio, CreativeChaos vmg. The Los Angeles Press Club awarded Bleed Out with the film Best Documentary and runner-up for Best Medical/Health Reporting at its annual National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and SoCal Journalism Awards in July 2019. Both films premiered in the fall of 2018. Donahue has also received much critical acclaim for directing HBO's Casting By, which was nominated for an Emmy, and Thank You for Your Service, which was released theatrically by Gathr Films in 2016. In 2010, Donahue founded the production company CreativeChaos vmg with Ilan Arboleda and Steve Edwards.
Molly Macklin Fowler is an American television producer and documentary filmmaker. She was Executive Producer of Red Darragh Films, LLC, and has been a supervising and co-executive producer for Wes Moore and his Omari Productions since 2011 when she was paired with Moore for his debut as series anchor for "ABC News Beyond Believe on OWN." Together they produced the PBS mini-series “Coming Back with Wes Moore” with a grant from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting for Omari and Powderhouse Productions in Somerville, MA. In 2018, she founded Justice-Partners, Inc. a 501c3 charity initially established to make socially relevant films, the first of which was "Born To Be," the story of gender affirmation surgeon Jess Ting, M.D. which premiered at the 2019 New York Film Festival.
Beth Harrington is an Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated filmmaker based in Vancouver, Washington, specializing in documentary features. Her documentaries often explore American history, music and culture, including the Carter Family and Johnny Cash, and the history of women in rockabilly. In addition to her film work as a producer, director and writer, Harrington is also a singer and guitarist, and was a member of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers from 1980 to 1983.
Johnny Symons is a documentary filmmaker focusing on LGBT cultural and political issues. He is a professor in the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University, where he runs the documentary program and is the director and co-founder of the Queer Cinema Project. He received his BA from Brown University and his MA in documentary production from Stanford University. He has served as a Fellow in the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program.
Birth of a Movement is a 2017 American documentary film produced by Northern Light Productions and based on the book Birth of a Movement: How Birth of a Nation Ignited the Battle for Civil Rights by Dick Lehr. The film tells the story of how, in 1915, Boston-based African American newspaper editor and activist William Monroe Trotter waged a battle against D.W. Griffith’s technically groundbreaking but notoriously Ku Klux Klan-friendly film The Birth of a Nation based on the book The Clansman by Thomas Dixon Jr. Birth of a Nation prompted a debate about race relations, media representation, and the power and influence of Hollywood that still continues. The film explores the backdrop to this clash between human rights, freedom of speech, and a changing media landscape.
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