
07/10/2025
UPDATE: The U.S. Senate is expected to vote as early as Monday, July 14 on the Rescissions Act. Contact your Senators now and tell them to !
Firelight Media is a nonprofit organization that supports, resources, and advocates on behalf of documentary filmmakers of color.
New York, NY
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In 1998, Firelight Media was co-founded by director/producer Stanley Nelson, an Emmy-winning MacArthur “genius” Fellow, and Marcia Smith, an award-winning writer and visionary, who has worked extensively in philanthropy, government, arts and politics. During its first ten years, Firelight Media operated as a non-profit production company dedicated to developing social-issue films that aired nationally on PBS. Firelight won numerous awards and enjoyed great critical acclaim, with five films in the documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival in ten years, two of which won awards (The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords won the Freedom of Expression Award in 1999; The Murder of Emmett Till won the Special Jury Prize in 2003). Firelight’s films won every major industry award, including a du-Pont Columbia Silver Baton, a Peabody, the International Documentary Association, and numerous festival awards. In addition to a focus on excellence in filmmaking, Firelight has a long history and ongoing commitment to the development and implementation of targeted outreach efforts related to its films. Firelight developed outreach campaigns around a number of past titles, including The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords (1999), Running: The Campaign for City Council (2001), The Murder of Emmett Till (2003) and Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise (2004). Beyond Brown served as a centerpiece for reflection on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education by such organizations as the NAACP, the National Baptist Convention, and the Children’s Defense Fund since airing nationally on PBS in May 2004. Firelight’s crowning achievement is the massive card and letter-writing campaign for The Murder of Emmett Till that contributed to the recent reopening of the murder investigation. In its announcement of this historic move, the U.S. Justice Department cited the presence of witnesses unearthed in the film as a major factor in their decision. In 2008, based on tremendous success, Firelight expanded. Firelight Media shifted its focus to provide technical education and professional support to emerging documentarians, and Firelight Films, a new for-profit entity dedicated solely to producing Stanley Nelson’s films, was launched.