Charles F. Cirgenski is a Michigan Emmy award-winning producer,
director and screenwriter, who began his career in filmmaking in 1967,
when at the age of 11, he purchased a Super 8 camera and projector with
S&H Green Stamps and made his first opus, The Rubicon Extension.
Charles has co produced, written and directed two feature films, One
Room Castle in 1993 and Stardust (AKA "Hoover") in 1998. In 2000,
Stardust was acquired by HBO for domestic television release and was
available on DVD through MTI Artist View. Both films were in
distribution but are no longer available.
His award-winning, six film, documentary series, Artists in America,
for the Archives of American Art is in the Smithsonian Institute's
permanent collection. In 1984, he co produced, wrote and directed a
documentary, In Celebration: The Fours Project, for the Smithsonian,
which took him on a journey around the world to West Irian Jaya,
Indonesia, where he was the first filmmaker in over twenty years to
gain access to the remote jungle of the Punjak Jaya mountain range.
Two of his feature screenplays have won major awards, including
the prestigious Malcolm Vincent first place script award for Hoover
(AKA Stardust) and a Christopher Columbus Society Discovery screen
writing award for the unproduced The Tontine.
Cirgenski received his BFA in photography and design at The Center for
Creative Studies (Detroit) in 1978. He continued his education in
filmmaking at School of Visual Arts' (NYC) abroad studies program at
the Irish National Film Studios in Ireland under the tutelage of both
Academy Award winning producer, director Robert Wise (Sound of Music,
West Side Story, Star Trek) and screenwriter, producer Earnest Lehman
(Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Sabrina, North By Northwest).
In 2001, Charles was both an executive producer and the assistant
director on the highly acclaimed, direct to video feature, TimeQuest,
starring Bruce Campbell, Victor Slezak, Vince Grant, Barry Corbin and
Larry Drake.
The documentary, Making Genes Dance, which he produced for PBS
affiliate WFUM won him a local Michigan EMMY in 2006 in the Cultural
Documentary category.
Charles and his producing partner, Steve Kimbrell (Access Hollywood,
Bump-It Entertainment) in 2006 announced that they had signed a life rights deal with
base-guitarist William Bootsy Collins. The production is assumed abandoned.
In 2007 and 2008, he began producing (but did not complete), Blood Phantasies:Tales From The
Barren Earth, a science fiction feature film, and the unreleased web series "New
Directions."
For a few years afterwards, Charles taught screenwriting at The Actors Loft in Royal Oak, Michigan.
