2009 Keynote Presentation

Dannny Boyd, Professor-Filmmaker

Beginning his filmmaking career making documentaries, Boyd's early projects took him from the hobo "jungles" of the U.S. (Homeless Brother) to the war-torn mountains of Guatemala (Marcos De San Marcos).

Several of Boyd's short narrative films were featured on regional and national television in the early and mid-eighties.

His first feature film, Chillers, was released in 1988. Currently in international video and television distribution, this horror feature was awarded the Silver Scroll for excellence from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films in Los Angeles.

Boyd's second feature, a science fiction/comedy, Strangest Dreams, premiered on the USA Network in 1991. It is currently in domestic and international video and television distribution.

Boyd's third feature film, Paradise Park, a dramatic-fantasy, received Gold Awards at the Houston International Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival, was selected for the Breckenridge Festival of Film and the American Film Institute's, American Independents series. Currently distributed by Vintage Home Entertainment as Heroes of the Heart.

A professor of communications at West Virginia State University since 1985, Boyd has actively involved his filmmaking students in his professional projects. In 1994, Boyd established the Paradise Film Institute at WVSU for the purpose of supporting filmmaking in the state through resource services, production support, foreign exchanges and continuing education. PFI currently has active travel/study/production exchange partnerships with film schools in Tanzania (School of Fine & Performing Arts, University of Dar Es Salaam), Russia (The All Russian State Institute of Cinema), the Czech Republic (Film Academy of Performing Arts), Venezuela (Escuela de Cine y Television) and Belize (Ministry of Culture).

Boyd is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and recipient of a 2002 Fulbright Alumni Award. A former National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, Boyd has also won awards in documentary, horror, comedy and dramatic filmmaking as well as screenwriting. He was named "Filmmaker of the Year" by the WV Filmmakers Festival in 2003. Two of Boyd's archeology documentaries, Red Salt & Reynolds (04) and Ghosts of Green Bottom (05), won national Telly awards, and both were regional Emmy nominees. In 2006, Boyd was inducted into the West Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame for his contributions to the music genre through his film work.