KIRBY DICK (DIRECTOR)

Kirby Dick is an award-winning Los Angeles filmmaker.  His latest theatrical release, “Derrida,” is a complex portrait of the world-renowned French philosopher.  The film premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival.  The prior year, Dick directed the innovative “Chain Camera,” a riveting portrait of contemporary urban teenage life, which also premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and featured footage shot entirely by the subjects of the film.

In 1997, he directed the internationally acclaimed “Sick:  The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist,” which won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival.  Released by Lion’s Gate Films, the film earned both an IFP/West Spirit Award Nomination and an International Documentary Association Nomination for Best Feature Documentary of 1998. 

Dick’s other films for HBO include “Showgirls:  Glitz & Angst” and “The End,” a moving and profound chronicle of five terminally ill patients and their families.

EDDIE SCHMIDT (PRODUCER)

Eddie Schmidt began collaborating with Kirby Dick on his groundbreaking documentary, “Sick:  The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist.”  Schmidt went on to produce Dick’s next feature, the critically acclaimed “Chain Camera,” which premiered in competition at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.  Schmidt then produced Dick’s high-energy musical documentary “Showgirls:  Glitz & Angst” for HBO’s “America Undercover,” one of the highest-rated documentary specials of that year.

Schmidt, who began his career at New Line Cinema, has also lent his producing talents to the TV series “Blind Date” and “The Competition,” as well as original DVD content for films, including “Boogie Nights” and “Se7en.”  He has also been a contributor to National Public Radio’s popular series “This American Life,” and co-wrote and directed the award-winning short, “Happenstance.” 

Schmidt most recently completed “The End,” a raw and intimate look at patients and families in a Los Angeles hospice program, which premiered at the 2004 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival and aired on television as part of the “CINEMAX Reel Life” documentary series.