Northern Light Productions is a documentary film and museum media production company based in

Boston, MA Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...

. Founded in 1982 by independent filmmaker Bestor Cram, the company is one of New England's premiere production organizations, creating a variety of work for museums, visitor centers, educational institutions, and television broadcast worldwide.

History

Northern Light Productions was founded in 1982 when Bestor Cram, himself a Vietnam Veteran, produced How Far Home, a documentary film about the dedication of the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

. In 2001 another landmark film about the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

, co-produced by Northern Light Productions and titled

Unfinished Symphony An unfinished symphony is a fragment of a symphony, by a particular composer, that musicians and academics consider incomplete or unfinished for various reasons. The archetypal unfinished symphony is Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 (sometimes ...

, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film went on to screen extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Unfinished Symphony, divided into three sections and mirroring the movements of

Henryk Górecki Henryk Mikołaj Górecki ( , ; 6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010) was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. According to critic Alex Ross, no recent classical composer has had as much commercial success as Górecki. He became a l ...

's Symphony No. 3, focuses on a 1971 three-day protest in Lexington, MA staged by newly returned war veterans. Over the years, Northern Light Productions has had films in The Sundance Film Festival, The Boston Film Festival, The Austin Film Festival, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival,

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...

, and others.

Recent film and television

'' Birth of a Movement: The Battle Against America's First Blockbuster'' aired on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence H ...

on February 6, 2017. It premiered in Boston at the Somerville Theater and in New York at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. ''Beyond The Wall'', which premiered at the

Independent Film Festival of Boston The Independent Film Festival Boston is a not for profit film festival in Boston, Massachusetts. History The Independent Film Festival Boston (also known as IFFBoston or IFFB) was created in 2003 by the non-profit organization the Independent ...

in May 2016, follows five formerly incarcerated men who are attempting to rebuild their lives on the outside with little support from our criminal justice system. It was also featured at the

Woods Hole Film Festival The Woods Hole Film Festival was founded in 1991 by Judith Laster and Kate Davis. Since its foundation, the festival has grown from a one-day invitational event to an eight-day event with films submitted from around the world. The Festival is hel ...

, the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival, the Social Law Film Series, and more. ''Circus Without Borders'' premiered at the

in April 2015. The film was additionally screened at the Montreal First Peoples Festival, the

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

's GlobeDocs film festival, the

Margaret Mead Film Festival The Margaret Mead Film Festival is an annual film festival held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It is the longest-running, premiere showcase for international documentaries in the United States, encompassing a broad spe ...

at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the

, the Roxbury International Film Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Anchorage International Film Festival. In 2015 and 2016, the

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is an American news media organization established in 2006 that sponsors independent reporting on global issues that other media outlets are less willing or able to undertake on their own. The center's goal ...

featured the film as part of a traveling series. ''This Is Where We Take Our Stand'', a feature-length film about veterans and active duty soldiers who voiced their opposition to the war in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

by testifying from personal experience in

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

. ''Primal Fear'', a one-hour Halloween special for

The History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

. ''Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison'', a one-hour special included with the

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison ''Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison'' is the first live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records on May 6, 1968. After his 1955 song "Folsom Prison Blues", Cash had been interested in recording a performance at ...

album's re-release from Columbia Records. ''Killer Poet: The Double Life of Norman Porter'', a feature-length film about the life of escaped-convict-turned-poet Norman Porter, AKA J. J. Jameson.

Recent museum

12 media exhibits for Ocean Hall in the Smithsonian's

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

. An orientation experience for Lassen National Park in Mineral, CA.Lassen National Park Fall 2005 Newsletter
/ref> ''Destination Indiana'', an interactive virtual time-travel experience for the

Indiana Historical Society The Indiana Historical Society (IHS) is one of the United States' oldest and largest historical societies and describes itself as "Indiana's Storyteller". It is housed in the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center at 450 West Ohio Street ...

Indianapolis, IN Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

. 17 media exhibits for the Museum at Bethel Woods at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

References

External links

Northern Light Productions Website
{{Authority control Film production companies of the United States Companies based in Boston