Curry Split’s ‘Fight’ Success With Two New Flicks

Director Marshall Curry is riding high the wave created by his Oscar-nominated documentary Street Fight by helming a pair of new nonfiction feature length projects. Racing Dreams chronicles the dreams and aspirations of aspiring NASCAR drivers. The other will detail the true tale of an environmental arsonist, If a Tree Falls.  

“Dreams” will track three junior high school-age “extreme kart racers” through the World Karting Assn.'s Rage Karts Speedway Pavement Series, a training ground for NASCAR hopefuls. Curry’s own production company, Marshall Curry Productions, along with Bristol Braughan and Ben Goldhirsh of the media group Good, have collaborated to handling producer duties. Filming is scheduled to begin March 17^th at the X-Caliber Winter Nationals being held near Charlotte, N.C., and will wrap at the Mobsteel Grand Nationals in Chapel Hill, N.Y., in September.

Currently in post-production, Falls was shot by Curry during the past year, during which he followed Daniel McGowan, a controversial environmental activist who was arrested for arson and accepted a plea bargain for the crime. Curry self financed the documentary and is looking to have the film completed by the fall.  Curry’s follow-ups to Street Fight appear to be splitting the facet of the highly acclaimed first flick by taking the energy and drive to the Dreams project, while keeping the edgy social commentary that permeated Fight limited to Falls. Each film seems destined to cement the director’s status so long as the premise backs up the product.