Tony Zierra is an American director and producer. He is best known for the documentaries: ''

My Big Break ''My Big Break'' is a 2009 documentary film directed by Tony Zierra starring Wes Bentley, Brad Rowe, Chad Lindberg, Greg Fawcett and Zierra himeself. The film was produced by MBB Group, Elizabeth Yoffe and Zierra. It mostly consists of foota ...

'' (2009), in which he also appeared, and '' Filmworker'' (2017). From an early age Zierra's goal was to become a filmmaker. He attended film studies classes at

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-United States Secretary of the Treasu ...

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. His first documentary, ''Carving Out Our Name'', premiered at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

to much acclaim. Shortly after, Zierra went on the road to capture America's reaction to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. The film that emerged,''USA The Movie'', explores the cyclical nature of violence and retaliation. The film was the subject of an in-depth analysis from a Deleuzian perspective by scholar and commentator Dion Dennis. Zierra's award-winning documentary, ''My Big Break'', is a cautionary tale about the darker side of celebrity and the consequences of fame that also includes his struggle to make his first film. ''My Big Break'' has received consistently strong reviews and has been repeatedly praised for its unusually candid look at the effects of success on young rising stars in Hollywood. ''My Big Break'' won Best Documentary at the

Boston Film Festival Boston Film Festival (BFF) is an annual film festival held in Boston in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It has been held annually since 1984, usually in early September. The Boston Film Festival premiered such notable films as '' The Last Kiss'' ...

, Best Documentary at Artsfest, Pennsylvania, was nominated for Best Documentary at the

Raindance Film Festival Raindance is an independent film festival and film school that operates in major cities including London, Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Budapest, Berlin, and Brussels. The festival was established in 1992 by Elliot Grove to ...

in London and was an official selection of The American Cinematic Experience Festival in New York. Zierra has been a featured speaker at The Popular Culture American Culture (PCA/ACA) national academic conference in New Orleans, PCA/ACA Southwest/Texas academic conference and the PCA/ACA national academic conference in Boston. Zierra's latest production is the documentary SK13 about the legendary filmmaker,

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

. The film deals specifically with the Kubrick film

Eyes Wide Shut ''Eyes Wide Shut'' is a 1999 erotic mystery psychological drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. It is based on the 1926 novella '' Traumnovelle'' (''Dream Story'') by Arthur Schnitzler, transferring the story's sett ...

, this being Kubrick's 13th feature film. His documentary '' Filmworker" about the life of Stanley Kubrick's longtime assistant,

Leon Vitali Alfred Leon Vitali (26 July 1948 – 19 August 2022) was an English actor, best known for his collaborations with film director, Stanley Kubrick, as his personal assistant, and as an actor, most notably as Lord Bullingdon in ''Barry Lyndon''. ...

was part of the Cannes Film Festival Official Selection 2017 premiering in Cannes Classics

References

External links

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Final Film Courage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zierra, Tony American male actors Tisch School of the Arts alumni Texas A&M University alumni UCLA Film School alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)