About Marshall Curry

Marshall Curry Productions (aka, Firetower Films) is the creative home for two-time Academy Award nominee, Marshall Curry.

Curry was the director of STREET FIGHT, RACING DREAMS, IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, and executive producer of MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS.

He got his start shooting, directing, and editing the documentary STREET FIGHT, which followed Cory Booker's first run for mayor of Newark, NJ.

STREET FIGHT won the Audience Awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, AFI/Discovery SilverDocs Festival, and Hot Docs Festival. It also received the Jury Prize for Best International Documentary at Hot Docs and was nominated for a Writer's Guild of America (WGA) Award. The film went on to be nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy.

The critically praised film was called "extraordinary" by David Denby (The New Yorker), "vastly entertaining" by John Anderson (Variety), and "filmmaking of the first order" by Scott Foundas (L.A. Weekly).

After STREET FIGHT, Curry was the Director and Producer, as well as one of the Cinematographers and Editors of the feature documentary, RACING DREAMS.

RACING DREAMS follows two boys and a girl who dream of one day racing in NASCAR, and the film won numerous awards including the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival Award for Best Documentary. RACING DREAMS was called "The best movie of the year," by The Los Angeles Times ("The Envelope") and "Absorbing… one of the rare documentaries you leave wishing it was a little longer, " by The New York Times.

Dreamworks is currently adapting it for a fictional remake.

Both STREET FIGHT and RACING DREAMS are included in the top 30 of Rotten Tomatoes' list of Best Reviewed Documentaries.

Curry's newest documentary, IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, tells the story of a radical environmentalist who faced life in prison for burning two Oregon timber facilities. It won the Sundance Film Festival award for Best Documentary Editing, was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award, and was acquired by Oscilloscope Laboratories.

In the summer of 2011 it was released to critical acclaim, called "one of the best documentaries of the year" by Kenneth Turan at the Los Angeles Times, "an intriguing and important film" by Filmmaker Magazine, and "a sterling example of journalistic documentary" by Salon.com.

It was nominated for an Academy Award and aired on PBS's documentary series, POV.

In 2005 Curry was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of "25 New Faces of Independent Film", and he was awarded the International Documentary Association (IDA) Jacqueline Donnet Filmmaker Award. In 2007 he received the International Trailblazer Award at MIPDOC in Cannes.

Of Curry's three films, S.T. VanAirsdale (Movieline) said, "From vérité campaign-trail flashes in Street Fight to intimate dinner-table powwows in Racing Dreams to the candid, point-blank interviews in If a Tree Falls, his films take keen and unique advantage of both access and timing... getting down to the business of communicating without distraction, discrimination or guile. At heart, the films seek to detail the spectrum of grace."

Most recently Curry Executive Produced and helped edit MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS, a heartbreaking comedy rock-doc about The National and sibling rivalry. It was opening night film at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, where it received rave reviews. The Hollywood Reporter called it "Brutal, hilarious... unexpectedly honest" and the New York Observer said it was "the best documentary we've seen all year."

Curry has appeared as a guest on television and radio numerous times, including NPR's Morning Edition, ABC's Nightline, PBS's The Tavis Smiley Show, and others.

He has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Duke, Columbia, NYU, and other colleges, and he has served on juries for the International Documentary Association, the Tribeca Film Festival, Hot Docs Film Festival, Full Frame Documentary Festival, and the Gotham Awards.

All three of Curry's films have been a part of the American Documentary Showcase, a program sponsored by the US State Department to share the art and practice of documentary filmmaking with the international community. As part of the Showcase, he has traveled to Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, and Ukraine to lead classes and discussions about documentary filmmaking.

Before making STREET FIGHT, Marshall worked for a number of years at Icon Nicholson, a New York multimedia design firm, where he produced and directed interactive documentaries and websites for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others.

Independently, he has shot, edited, and directed a number of short films including THE DAY THE INDIANS WON, (for the Rainforest Foundation US), which tells the story of the Panará Indians in Brazil who successfully won back their land, and NEGRIL ELEMENTARY, (for the Rockhouse Foundation), which chronicles an education project in Jamaica.

Prior to filmmaking, Marshall taught English in Guanajuato, Mexico, worked in public radio, and taught government in Washington DC.

He is a graduate of Swarthmore College where he studied Comparative Religion and was a Eugene Lang Scholar. He was also a Jane Addams Fellow at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, where he wrote about the history, philosophy, and economics of non-profits.