On Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 9:30 PM, The North Park Theater, on Hertel Avenue in North Buffalo. in conjunction with the Department of Media Study, University at Buffalo will sponsor a benefit screening of award-winning director Robert Lieberman’s cult classic, Fire in the Sky. It is based on Travis Walton’s book The Walton Experience,[4] which describes an extraterrestrial abduction. The film stars D. B. Sweeney as Walton, and Robert Patrick as his best friend and future brother-in-law, Mike Rogers. James Garner, Craig Sheffer, Scott MacDonald, Henry Thomas and Peter Berg also star.
Lieberman, a Buffalo native and alumnus of Riverside High School and The University at Buffalo, where he received the first degree in film ever to be given by that lauded local school.
Lieberman, “This brings me full circle. It is the theater where I saw my very first movie when I was six-years-old and where the dream of my fifty year career as a successful Hollwood director was birthed and nurtured.” It will benefit the Buffalo non-profit organization Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Arts Center, an organization that aids filmmakers in getting their first short films made.
The director will be in attendance to do Q&A directly following the screening. In addition, the director will be guest lecturing and screening additional film material at his alma mater on Monday, September 12th.
Tickets for the event are on advanced sales at:
https://ticketing.useast.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=9azqedb8634rh3y4a5rzc1z2km
or
https://www.fandango.com/north-park-theater-aahjc/theater-page?date=2022-09-10
Director Robert Lieberman
ABOUT ROB LIEBERMAN
Robert Lieberman, born and raised in North Buffalo, attended PS #81, Riverside High School and was the first to graduate with a B.A. specializing in film studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Over the past fifty years he has been a prominent, award winning director in film, television and commercials. A highlight from his expansive career in television was directing the pilot and Executive Producing the CBS series Gabriel’s Fire, which starred James Earl Jones and garnered three Emmy Awards. In addition to Gabriel’s Fire, he directed the pilot and Executive Produced The Dead Zone (which ran for seven seasons on USA), and Strong Medicine (which ran for six seasons on Lifetime). He was also brought on as a Co-Executive Producer on Ascension for Syfy. In all, he has directed nineteen pilots, sixteen of which were ordered to series.
In recent years Mr. Lieberman’s television directing assignments have included multiple episodes of The Expanse, Eyewitness, Art of More, Rogue, Criminal Minds, Dexter, The X-Files, Brothers & Sisters and eight episodes of Haven. In long form television he directed Tom Clancy’s Netforce with Kris Kristofferson and Scott Bakula (ABC), which he also wrote, the miniseries Titanic, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and George C. Scott for CBS, Earthsea with Isabella Rossallini and Danny Glover and for TNT he directed the original movie Second String with Jon Voight.
Mr. Lieberman also co-created and Executive Produced the daytime talk show Marilu with his then wife Marilu Henner and the Fox reality show The Casino, which he co-developed with Mark Burnett.
In the feature world, Mr. Lieberman directed the cult thriller Fire in the Sky for Paramount. Other feature films include Breakaway, Canada’s highest grossing film, in 2011; D3:The Mighty Ducks, Jon Voight in Table For Five, and All I Want For Christmas with Thora Birch, Leslie Nielson and Lauren Bacall.
A graduate of the University at Buffalo with a B.A. in Film, he did his graduate work at Loyola Marymount. Mr. Lieberman has directed over a thousand commercials for “A” list clients garnering him 29 Clios, the first Director’s Guild of America’s award for Best Commercial Director (he was nominated three more times and winning it a second time), Commercial of The Year from the industry magazine Ad Age and the Gold and Silver Lions for commercials from the Cannes Film Festival.
Most recently Mr. Lieberman has been nominated for The Directors Guild of Canada’s esteemed award for Outstanding Achievement in the Direction of a Dramatic Series for his work on The Expanse.
He is currently writing two screenplays, one in the horror genre and the other a personal independent film. He is in the process of launching his new food blog, Rob’s Little Kitchen and plans to direct a short film he authored, Suerte (Lucky) in Mexico this year. It tells the poignant story of an eight-year-old Guatemalan boy who is separated from his mother and caged by US Immigration at the border.
www.rlieberman.com
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0509409/?ref_=nv_sr_1