Firelight Media

Firelight Media Firelight Media is a nonprofit organization that supports, resources, and advocates on behalf of documentary filmmakers of color.

Join us in celebrating 25 years of changing the story in 2025! ABOUT FIRELIGHT MEDIA
Documentary storytelling is among the most powerful tools for artistic expression and advancing social justice. For more than a century, people of color have harnessed the power of image-making to showcase and celebrate our full humanity and to cultivate communities of action. This collective work has created new

visual languages, moved the arc of history toward justice, inspired audiences, and, ultimately, created a new canon of BIPOC cinema. We see our work as a continuation of this legacy. Filmmakers of color continue to build creative communities that advance the art of documentary. Yet, in the larger documentary field, BIPOC filmmakers still struggle to find artistic and financial resources to tell their stories. Firelight Media meets this challenge by supporting, resourcing, and advocating on behalf of filmmakers of color. OUR MISSION
Firelight Media’s mission is to support the creation, distribution, and impact of documentary media by and about communities of color in all our vibrance and complexity. By providing filmmakers mentorship, funding, and creative development, we seek to advance the art of nonfiction storytelling to realize a more just and beautiful world. For films by Stanley Nelson visit .

UPDATE: The U.S. Senate is expected to vote as early as Monday, July 14 on the Rescissions Act. Contact your Senators no...
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 !

Congratulations to Firelight Media Co-Founder Marcia Smith on being inducted into the Gold Circle of the National Academ...
06/26/2025

Congratulations to Firelight Media Co-Founder Marcia Smith on being inducted into the Gold Circle of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences! The Gold and Silver Circle Society honors industry leaders who have made lasting contributions to the television industry.

Follow mixed-media artist Danielle Scott as she traces her ancestors’ lives for a greater purpose: creating art that exp...
06/24/2025

Follow mixed-media artist Danielle Scott as she traces her ancestors’ lives for a greater purpose: creating art that exposes the pain of the Atlantic Slave Trade, while guiding her audience through an experiential journey. ’Danielle Scott: Ancestral Call’ is now streaming via PBS and the link in our bio.

On Juneteenth, follow the multi-racial, mixed-media artist Danielle Scott as she heeds the ‘Ancestral Call,’ tracing her...
06/19/2025

On Juneteenth, follow the multi-racial, mixed-media artist Danielle Scott as she heeds the ‘Ancestral Call,’ tracing her ancestors’ life stories and laying bare the intergenerational trauma spawned by the Atlantic Slave Trade. Watch now via on YouTube at the link in our bio.

Today and always, For future updates from Firelight Media’s new President & CEO Loira Limbal, subscribe to our newslett...
06/12/2025

Today and always,

For future updates from Firelight Media’s new President & CEO Loira Limbal, subscribe to our newsletter via the link in our bio.

In the rich, emotive world of Gioncarlo Valentine’s photography, tenderness takes center stage. ‘Gioncarlo Valentine: Ex...
06/09/2025

In the rich, emotive world of Gioncarlo Valentine’s photography, tenderness takes center stage. ‘Gioncarlo Valentine: Exposures,’ directed by Zeshawn Ali as part of our series with PBS’ American Masters, is now streaming via PBS at the link in our bio.

Congratulations to Karla Murthy, whose feature documentary The Gas Station Attendant supported by the PBS/Firelight Will...
06/04/2025

Congratulations to Karla Murthy, whose feature documentary The Gas Station Attendant supported by the PBS/Firelight William Greaves Production Fund, will have its World Premiere on June 19 at Sheffield DocFest in the UK: https://buff.ly/9Lh3Edz

As a young boy, Shantha Murthy ran away from home to escape the extreme poverty of his Indian village. He traveled the country in search of work, holding onto the belief that one day his life would change. It did, following a serendipitous encounter with a Texan couple. He travelled to the U.S., but his American Dream was not to be fulfilled. Karla’s film weaves together home videos and phone conversations recorded during her father’s stint as a gas station attendant, while also reflecting on her own identity as a first-generation American. What emerges is an intimate love letter – a meditation on a complicated father-daughter relationship and a poignant tribute to the immigrant working class.

Firelight Media is a proud partner of DC DOX Festival, taking place later this month! Get ready for 60 groundbreaking fe...
06/03/2025

Firelight Media is a proud partner of DC DOX Festival, taking place later this month! Get ready for 60 groundbreaking feature documentaries & 34 shorts from 24 countries, including 10 World Premieres ✨ and a host of U.S., North American, & International Premieres. Discover urgent, visionary storytelling and meet the creators behind these vital stories at DC/DOX.

Firelight Media-supported filmmaker screenings and REALITY CHECK FORUM events include:
- Shellée Haynesworth & Michelle Parkerson's documentary short film 'Camille A. Brown: Giant Steps'
- Tetiana Anderson and Sonia Kennebeck's documentary short film 'Danielle Scott: Ancestral Call'
- Angela Tucker's William Greaves R&D Fund and PBS/Firelight William Greaves Production Fund-supported film 'The Inquisitor'
- Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni's Documentary Lab-supported film 'Cutting Through Rocks'
- Brittany Shynes' Documentary Lab-supported film 'Seeds'
- Eloise King's Documentary Lab-supported film 'The Shadow Scholars'
- "From Print To Screen: Linnentown Case Study," a panel centering on Firelight Media's supported filmmaker Kevin Shaw's film 'Linnentown'
- "Anatomy of a Funding Decision," a workshop featuring Firelight Media's Senior Manager of Grantmaking Ximena Amescua Cuenca

Explore the program + get your Pass for the full experience, or grab single tickets now! dcdoxfest.com 🔗 Don’t miss this June 12-15 in !

What shapes a rising literary star? Sarah Thankam Mathews revisits her past and reimagines the future as she crafts her ...
05/29/2025

What shapes a rising literary star? Sarah Thankam Mathews revisits her past and reimagines the future as she crafts her next novel. ‘Sarah Thankam Mathews: After All This’ is now streaming via the link in our bio.

This week marks the end of an era for Firelight Media! Our Co-Founder Marcia Smith officially steps down as president, a...
05/28/2025

This week marks the end of an era for Firelight Media! Our Co-Founder Marcia Smith officially steps down as president, and Loira Limbal will take over as president and CEO beginning June 1. View the link to read Marcia’s farewell message (a preview of which is below), and please consider donating to our 25th anniversary campaign to ensure another 25 years of : https://firelightmedia.medium.com/a-fond-farewell-from-marcia-smith-18800136b587

“I write today with a mix of joy and melancholy, as this is my final week serving as president of Firelight Media. On June 1, Loira Limbal will take over as president & CEO of what has been a founder-led organization for the last 25 years. I am supremely confident in handing over the reins to Loira and Firelight’s talented and dedicated staff. And yet I know, as I’m sure you do, that times are tough for the documentary field and for the cause of freedom of expression, and so I want to offer some learnings from my two and a half decades in this chair.”

Attend a screening of Expression of Illness as part of their Road to the Oscars Academy-qualifying initiative. Now thru...
05/28/2025

Attend a screening of Expression of Illness as part of their Road to the Oscars Academy-qualifying initiative. Now thru Thursday, May 29th. The short documentary by Bryn Silverman is about healing from thyroid cancer. Get tix now! https://buff.ly/9NXTJdc

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Our Story

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.