Evolving Non-Fiction Storytelling
Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kevin Schreck is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and film educator currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York.
Kevin was the recipient of both the Jerome Hill Award for Exceptional Work in the Documentary Tradition and the recipient of the Award for Contribution to the Film and Electronic Arts Department of Bard College in 2011.
At the age of 23, Kevin released his first major feature-length documentary, Persistence of Vision. The film was about the journey of master animator Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and his 30-year quest to create his ultimately ill-fated magnum opus, The Thief and the Cobbler. Persistence of Vision screened at nearly 100 international film festivals and other institutions on five continents to virtually universal acclaim, and became the first film to win both of the top prizes at the 2013 Buffalo International Film Festival: the Audience Award for Best of Festival and the Audience Award for Best Documentary. Kevin's subsequent films include Tangent Realms: The Worlds of C.M. Kösemen (2018) and The Duck of New York (2023).
Kevin's next film is Antarctic Voyage, a project about a scientific research expedition to the Antarctic Convergence and the remote island of South Georgia to study the state of the region's wildlife. This project was made possible with considerable financial support from the National Science Foundation. Anticipated premiere for Antarctic Voyage is late 2024.
He is currently in production on his third major project, Enongo, a documentary-animation hybrid and portrait of a young rapper/producer/Ph.D. candidate, Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo –– better known by her stage persona, Sammus. This documentary will be the first feature-length film with an animation team composed entirely of Black women animators.
As an educator, Kevin has been a teaching artist and mentor at Reel Works, a Brooklyn-based non-profit dedicated to helping young, aspiring filmmakers from low-income backgrounds and underrepresented communities get a start in the competitive film industry. Since beginning his tenure at Reel Works in March 2018, he has taught such classes as the Documentary Lab, the Experimental Filmmaking Lab, Stop-Motion Animation, Social Justice Documentary Filmmaking, and the Film Club.
Kevin has taught masterclasses and guest lectures on filmmaking and film history at major colleges and universities in Australia, Denmark, and across the United States, including the School of Visual Arts, the Barry R. Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, the National Film School in Copenhagen, Griffith University in Brisbane, James Cook University in Cairns, Savannah College of Art & Design, DePaul University, the City College of New York, Wesleyan University, the University of North Dakota, the State University of New York at Fredonia, and Breck School, among others. Most recently, Kevin was the Visiting Documentary Filmmaker for the fall semester of 2023 at Robert Morris University, teaching a class on documentary film production.