Biography
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.
