Andrea Kalin

Andrea Kalin is an American independent filmmaker, writer, producer, and director. She is also the principal and founder of Spark Media and founder and executive director of Stone Soup Productions, a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation.American Experience | Partners of the Heart | Today. Pbs.org. Retrieved on 2010-12-12.

Personal life Kalin was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts and graduated from American University with a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice and corrections. Kalin lives and works in Washington, D.C. and is the founder and owner of Spark Media a documentary production company.

Filmmaking

Andrea Kalin is a documentary filmmaker who focuses on social, mental health and women's health issues. She uses storytelling and marketing strategies to promote social change and raise awareness to societal problems, such as women's health issues and suicide. Some of her productions, such as Prince Among Slaves, Partners of the Heart, and Soul of a People, tell stories lost to history, while others—No Evidence of Disease, Scattering CJ, and The Pact address contemporary social issues, such as women's "below the belt" (GYN) cancers, suicide and inner city male role models.

Kalin started as a newsreel researcher for Ken Burns on his film The Congress.Full cast and crew for The Congress (1988), IMDB.comThe Congress. PBS. Retrieved on 2010-12-12.

2020–2024

In 2021, Andrea Kalin began production of a documentary film entitled Public Defender The film is about a DC left-leaning public defender named Heather Shaner who represents over a dozen January 6 defendants with a commitment to rehabilitating her clients through education. A lawyer hoped history books would help her Capitol riot clients grow. She was called a traitor — and worse. In the days after the January 6, 2021 attack, Heather Shaner, Esq. got a call from the Federal Defender's Office asking her to represent those charged with crimes related to January 6. Heather weighed the decision and elected to take on a handful of nonviolent misdemeanants. Her intent was not to get her clients off the hook for sedition but to understand how an average American could become so radicalized. The film features a number of her clients. Public Defender premiered at Mountainfilm in May 2024, where it won the Moving Mountains Award for social justice and impact.

2016–2020

Kalin's film, Scattering CJ, the story of CJ Twomey, a seemingly happy Air Force recruit who violently ended his own life at age 20, whose passing plunged his family into unrelenting grief and guilt. Years later, in a moment of desperate inspiration, his mother put out an open call on Facebook, looking only for a handful of world travelers who might help fulfill her son's wish to see the world by scattering some of his ashes in a place of beauty or special meaning to them – a call that 21,000 would answer. Scattering CJ had its world premiere at the Camden International Film Festival in September 2019. Scattering CJ was broadcast nationally on PBS in 2022. Scattering CJ earned awards from industry and film festivals including 2020 Audience Award from the Diff Film Festival and social impact awards awarded by Impact DOCS (Award of Excellence) and the Accolade Global Film Competition (Award of Excellence). The film was screened in a number of film festivals including Emerge Film Festival, Diff Film Festival, Salem Film Festival, Annapolis Film Festival, Richmond International Film Festival, Docutah, 320 Festival, Female Filmmakers Fuse Film Festival, Real Abilities Film Festival Boston, and FlickFair.

In 2017, Kalin directed, produced and wrote First Lady of the Revolution, a feature-length documentary about Henrietta Boggs, the American woman from Birmingham, Alabama who was married to José Figueres Ferrer during the years of the Costa Rican Civil War and served as the First Lady of Costa Rica from 1948 to 1949. The film premiered at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in 2017 and has won numerous awards on the festival circuit. The documentary also had a limited theatrical release in Costa Rica and New York City and was broadcast on the American Public Television WORLD channel documentary series, Reel South.

2010–2015 In 2013, Kalin directed and produced No Evidence of Disease, a feature-length documentary film about N.E.D., a rock band of six gynecologic oncologists who seek to bring more attention and awareness to women's cancers. The film tells the story of the band members – their personal lives, as doctors, and as musicians – and also takes a look into the world of GYN cancers, where patients struggle to fight the disease and advocacy groups and activists seek to raise awareness and research funds for gynecological cancer research and funding. The film premiered at the LA Femme International Film Festival.

In 2014, Kalin released the film Red Lines, a feature-length documentary, depicting the ongoing civil war in Syria and the efforts of activists Mouaz Moustafa and Razan Shalab-al-Sham to raise international support for the revolution and to promote democracy in the Middle East. Red Lines debuted in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the Hot Docs film festival in April 2014, where it was named in the festival's Top 20 Audience Picks. Red Lines was a competition finalist at the 2014 Woodstock Film Festival, which was also the films US premiere. The UK premiere took place September 25 at the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation.

2000s Kalin's films have received industry awards and nominationsWelcome . Spark Media. Retrieved on 2010-12-12. a Gracie Allen Award,Gracie Allen Award : Who, What, Where, When. Servinghistory.com. Retrieved on 2010-12-12. CINE Golden Eagles, EdPress Awards of Distinction, The Chris Awards, NEH a Paul Robeson award, a Gold UNESCO medal at the NY Festivals, the 2004 Organization of American Historians "(OAH)" Erik Barnouw Award for best documentary concerning a topic of American History,OAH Erik Barnouw Award Winners . Oah.org. Black Maria Film Festival Jury AwardsAwards – 2010 . Blackmariafilmfestival.org. Retrieved on 2010-12-12. and a nomination from the Writers Guild of America for outstanding achievement in television (documentary non current events) among others.".The Internet Movie Database . IMDb (2009-05-01). Retrieved on 2010-12-12.2010 WGA Awards TV Nominees Announced . Wga.org. Retrieved on 2010-12-12. Kalin was an Executive Consultant on Something The Lord Made, a made-for-television biographical drama film which received three Prime Time Emmy awards from nine nominations.

Her first feature-length documentary film Partners of the Heart was inspired by Katie McCabe's Washingtonian article "Like Something the Lord Made", which formed the basis for the Emmy winning HBO film of the same name.DOME: Almost a Miracle . Hopkinsmedicine.org. Retrieved on 2010-12-12. Partners of the Heart" is the story of the 34-year partnership between Dr. Alfred Blalock, a white surgeon and Vivien Thomas, a black lab technician . At the height of segregation, Blalock and Thomas pioneered a procedure that saved the lives of thousands of children, called blue babies and opened up the field of heart surgery. With no more than a high school education, Thomas went on to train a generation of heart surgeons.Vivien Thomas The documentary was funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities NEH, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting CPB and WGBH, and was screened at a number of film festivals and aired on WGBH's American Experience in February 2003 and was rebroadcast in March 2005. Narrated by Morgan Freeman 'Partners of the Heart' went on to win the Erik Barnouw Award for Best History Documentary in 2004. Partners of the Heart also won a Gold TIVA-DC Peer award in the Documentary "Classic" Category.

Andrea Kalin served as the Executive Consultant for the "Something the Lord Made" film.Something the Lord Made: Information from. Answers.com. Retrieved on 2010-12-12. "Something the Lord Made" was produced by Robert Cort, directed by Joseph Sargent, written by Peter Silverman and Robert Caswell, and starred Mos Def and Alan Rickman. "Something the Lord Made" was nominated for nine Emmy Awards (including acting nominations for both principals) and won three, for Best Made for Television Movie, Best Cinematography (Don Morgan) and Best Picture Editing (Michael Brown). It also received two Golden Globe nominations, Black Reel Awards for Best Film and Best Supporting Actor (Clayton LeBouef, in the role of Thomas' activist brother Harold), an NAACP Image Award, a Directors Guild of America Award for director Joseph Sargent, and a Writers Guild of America Award for scriptwriters Peter Silverman and Robert Caswell. The American Film Institute named "Something the Lord Made" "Best Television Movie of the Year for 2004" and called it "a revelation...a bittersweet story [that] is an important tool for America as it continues to search for a public vocabulary to discuss issues of race.

In the Fall 2002 issue, Andrea Kalin was featured in an article in the magazine Jewish Women International as one of "10 Jewish Women to Watch". Her picture appeared on the cover of that issue.

In 2006, Kalin went on to direct and produce The Pact (2006 film), a feature-length documentary based on a New York Times bestseller book, The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream. The film chronicles the true life story of Rameck Hunt, Sampson Davis, and George Jenkins, who made a pact in their inner-city high school in Newark, New Jersey, to find a way to go to college and then medical school. The Pact won the following awards and nomination: Indie Spec Best Documentary Award at the Boston International Film Festival, a 2006 CINE Golden Eagle award and a nomination for a 2006 Black Reel Best Independent Documentary. "The Pact (2006 documentary)" aired on American Public Television APT in 2008.

Andrea Kalin

Bron en licentie