DOC - The Furious Light
Documentary Feature
Title: The Furious Light
TRT: 01:29:16
Project Status: In Postproduction
Logline
When a small-town singer/songwriter’s rock ’n’ roll dreams falter, he turns to his family, friends, and video camera to help him reclaim his confidence and redefine creative success and fulfillment.
Synopsis
The Furious Light is an autobiographical feature documentary about creative ambition, family legacy, and the emotional inheritance that shapes how men learn to express--or suppress--vulnerability. For more than thirty years, I have documented my life and creative work on film and video, recording family gatherings, rehearsals, concerts, and the behind-the-scenes moments of my creative projects. What began as a simple habit of documentation gradually revealed itself as something more: an evolving portrait of how creativity helps people navigate identity, disappointment, connection, and purpose across a lifetime.
The film centers on two generations of Ullman brothers. My father Jim, my uncle Jack, my brother Brian, and I are working-class men from rural Ohio who were never taught how to talk about our feelings, but who learned to share them through music. Through present-day interviews, vérité footage, home movies, journals, original songs, and decades of archival material, the film explores how each of us turned to music during pivotal moments of grief, uncertainty, and transformation.
At its heart, The Furious Light asks a question that has quietly guided much of my work: how do artists continue to create when recognition fades, expectations shift, and life moves on? By excavating the archive of my own creative life and family, I discovered that the answer often lies not in achievement, but in the act of creation itself--and in the connections that process makes possible.
Additional Project Info
ARTIST STATEMENT:
In my work, creativity is more than an artistic pursuit. It is an act of survival. I explore how artistic expression sustains people emotionally and builds connection. I’m drawn to unseen, uncelebrated artists: working-class creatives navigating ambition, self-doubt, and the realities of making art outside traditional industry centers. My films challenge conventional notions of success and the mores of masculinity, particularly for men raised in environments where vulnerability is discouraged.
I grew up in rural Ohio. My grandparents were deaf, and my father carried deep shame as their hearing representative in the community. He still struggles with confidence and communication. His unspoken lessons about self-worth and self-limiting ambition shaped my life and creative trajectory. Yet from that silence emerged my drive to communicate--to transform pain into creative expression and use art as a bridge between isolation and connection.
Through my work, I hope to embolden others to embrace their creativity, redefine artistic success on their own terms, and recognize that their voices--no matter how small--are worth hearing.
FURIOUS LIGHT PROJECT HISTORY:
2015 (Summer) Began production during The Furious Light music tour
2016 (Fall) Completed first rough cut
2019 (Fall) Production trip to South Dakota
2022 (Summer) Produced a podcast and 7-part blog adaptation of the story
2022 (Fall) Refined the film’s structure through a weeklong Maine Media Documentary Masterclass with Jason Kohn
2023 (Fall) Work sample scenes selected for The D-Word’s Works-in-Progress Face2Face
2026 (Spring) Awarded a Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council Advancing Artist grant for Sound Design & Mix
Team
Protagonist / Producer / Director / Writer / Editor: David Ullman
Story Consultant: Benjamin Percy
Sound Design & Mix: Kent Militzer
Colorist: Robert Curreri
Seeking
Producing Partners, Consulting editor, Finishing funds, Distribution/Impact Partners, Educational Distribution, Online Distribution
Rights Available
All rights available
Contact
David Ullman
dju@davidullman.net
330-347-7247