Critical Accolades for Stephens Film Professor Chad Freidrichs
Read the full New York Times story about The Pruitt-Igoe Myth here!Chad Freidrichs, assistant professor in Stephens' Digital Film & Media Department, recently traveled to Los Angeles to receive the ABCNews Videosource Award for best use of archival footage from the International Documentary Association. It's just another honor on top of the others he and his film, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, have racked up as it's made the film festival circuit, including SilverDocs, True/False, Full Frame, Big Sky and the Los Angeles Film Festival. On Jan. 20, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth opened at the IFC Center in New York.
So far, he's won the Best Feature Documentary Award at both the Oxford Film Festival and KCFilmFest, and is up for the Cinema Eye Honors Spotlight (winner announced Jan. 11 in NYC). He's also slated to receive the American Historical Association's prestigious John E. O'Connor Film Award for outstanding interpretation of history.
The film, which examines Pruitt-Igoe, the infamous public housing complex in St. Louis, has also earned critical praise: Variety's film critic said, “An uncommonly artful example of film journalism…gloriously musical at times, cut in perfect tempo to Benjamin Balcom’s resonantly moody score.”
The film, co-written by his wife, Jamie, has been acquired by New York-based First Run Features and will be released in select theatres across the country beginning in March 2012, and also on video on demand (VOD) and home video. He's also waiting to hear from several distributors on a television premiere.
Freidrichs first screened his film to his students at Stephens, who honored him with The Century Candle Award, for his dedication to teaching them the tricks of the trade.
“Stephens film faculty mentor us with their real-world knowledge all while shaping us into professionals,” says Angel Mendez '14, a film student. “I feel so blessed to be a part of the film and media department, knowing that everything I'm learning from my professors is not from a book or simply hearsay. It's from their personal experiences, and in this case with Chad, his personal experiences as a successful, award-winning filmmaker. That knowledge is undeniably what makes Stephens College top-notch and what makes me proud to be a Stephens woman.”
Visit The Pruitt-Igoe Myth website.
Interested in studying filmmaking at Stephens? Learn more: Stephens' Film program
Interested in the Citizen Jane Film Scholarship? Applications/portfolios due March 1.
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