Fredric Lean

Award-winning documentary filmmaker (writer, director, producer) and comic book author, Fredric Lean is from French-Italian descents. He grew up with a family of musicians and music producers in France until moving to the US. With a strong interest in humanitarian and environmental matters, Fredric Lean has been involved, via different film and comics projects, with projects against injustice pertaining to human and environmental rights. He graduated in film studies at the prestigious university ,U.C.L.A (Los Angeles). He left the entertainment industry after he was asked to manage and consult different businesses, mainly for conceptual restaurants and and a French cosmetic company. Too busy with his new endeavors it took him a long time to get back to what he enjoyed the most - working in the entertainment space. In 2002, he developed and produced his first website which was based and inspired by the best-selling humanitarian comic strip hero called "Docteur Justice" (Dr. Justice). "Dr. Justice's" website received several prestigious awards from Internet professionals, such as: The Golden Web Award 2003-04, The Silver Award 2003 by Artsy Award, The Gold Award 2003-2004 by The American Association of Web Master, The Silver Award 2003 by Celebrity Web Award, The Silver Award 2003-2004 by the World Wide Web Award. The website enjoyed also the moral support from some non-governmental humanitarian organizations throughout the world. After much success with the website, in 2003, he was offered by M6, a French Network, to turn the comic book character into a live action TV series and a motion picture franchise. He then set up an international co-production and partnered with M6, Canadian production house Cinegroupe, along with veteran producer, Robin Spry, writer/show runner Larry Mollin (The Renegade, Highlander, Beverly Hills 90210, Largo Winch). Unfortunately, the project went on hiatus. In 2004, as a writer, he also created and authored his first comic book series called "Wolf, The Last Howl!" which was picked up and published by Semic publication in Europe. In 2006, he made his directorial film debut, as a writer, director and producer with a 27 minutes drama entitled "Fragile" (2006), starring television celebrity Sheree J. Wilson ("Walker Texas Ranger", "Dallas"), Alexi Yulish ( David Lynch's "Inland Empire"), Brett Kolste-Miller (former NFL quarterback player). Music was composed by award winning film composer, Cyril Morin. Cinematography was performed by award winning cinematographer and Sundance Alumni; Jim Matlosz. Fragile was part of the official selection of the "Short Film Corner" 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival. In the meantime, he also took on different consulting missions for several European producers and distributors. In 2012, Fredric Lean completed his first feature length film as a writer, director, producer, editor, called "Iraq: The Wind of Hope -The Wind of Al-Amal." The inspiring feature documentary portrays the complicated struggle and fragmented stories of some Iraqi refugees and exiled as some of them attempt to integrate themselves into the American landscape while struggling with the demons of their past. The film was also the first US/ French co-production which focused on the Iraqi Refugee Crisis. Major international humanitarian organization and Inter-Governmental Organization such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (U.N.H.C.R.),The International Rescue Committee (THE I.R.C.), UNICEF and also prominent journalists, militarists, academics, politicians, scholars such as Prof. Noam Chomsky, Denis J. Halliday (U.N Former Diplomat), Hamid Al-Bayati (Iraqi Ambassador to the U.N), Patrick Cockburn (Award Winning journalist and Middle-East correspondent -'The Independent') to name a few have brought their support and contribution to the making of this documentary. The film was screened at the Headquarters of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (U.N.H.C.R) in New York in June 2012. In 2014, he wrote, produced and directed an award-winning documentary entitled "Skydancers". The film explores the developing world of women pilots in aviation and especially in Aerobatics. It portrays some of the world's best female pilots during The 27th World Aerobatics Championships (WAC), Texas. The film has won several international awards. In October 2014, Lean won 'Best Directing' at the Los Angeles New Wave International Film Festival. Skydancers won 3 additional awards ('Best Feature Documentary', 'Best Concept', & 'Best Cinematography'). In November 2014, the film won Third Place in the 'Best Feature Documentary' category at the All Sports Los Angeles Film Festival. It has also been part of the Official Selection (2015 & 2016 season) of the Palm Beach International Film Festival, Artemis Women in Action Film Festival, the Manhattan Film Festival and FilmFestival Kitzbuehuel. The film has been licensed by RedBull Media House for several European territories and was broadcast by Servus-TV and relayed by Astra-Satellite to 35 countries. His work has been shown on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, RedBull Media to name a few. He is working on several other TV and film projects (documentaries series and fiction under Leanmedia Company). Resides in the U.S.