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Spark Media is an American independent multi-media and documentary production house based in Washington, D.C., United States.
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History
Established in 1989 by director and producer Andrea Kalin, the company specializes in creating socially conscious media used to raise public awareness in America and throughout the world. The company has produced over a dozen films, including seven feature-length documentaries, including Red Lines (Free Speech TV), No Evidence of Disease (American Public Television, WorldChannel, V-me), Soul of a People: Writing America's Story (Smithsonian Channel), Worlds of Sounds: Ballard of Folkways (Smithsonian Channel), Talking Through Walls (PBS), Prince Among Slaves (PBS), Allah Made Me Funny (theatrical release), The Pact (American Public Television), and Partners of the Heart (PBS American Experience).
Partners of the Heart, narrated by Morgan Freeman, aired on PBS’s American Experience in February 2003 and was rebroadcast in March 2005. Partners of the Heart went on to win the Erik Barnouw Award for Best History Documentary in 2004 and was later turned into the Golden Globe-nominated HBO film Something The Lord Made starring Mos Def, who also narrated Prince Among Slaves. As part of their 50th anniversary celebration, the National Endowment for the Humanities highlighted Partners of the Heart as one of 50 top grant projects that have enriched and shaped American lives.
Spark Media's films have won numerous awards, among them Emmys, CINE Golden Eagles, Gracies, as well as a Writers Guild of America nomination.
Current projects
Spark Media is currently in post-production for First Lady of the Revolution, the remarkable story of Henrietta Boggs, who fell in love with a foreign land and the man destined to transform its identity. Her marriage to Jośe "Don Pepe" Figueres in 1941 let to a decade-long journey through activism, exile, political upheaval and, ultimately, lasting progressive reform in Costa Rica. Spark Media is also producing an adaptation of Rita Dove's Sonata Mulattica, about George Bridgetower, a black musician and friend of Ludwig van Beethoven. The film, also entitled 'Sonata Mulattica,' will detail Bridgetower's life and relationship with Beethoven, and contrast that story to a contemporary young black musician, Joshua Coyne.