Producers
Magic Circle Productions LLC
Daniel Loewenthal and Roberta Friedman, filmmaking partners in their company, Magic Circle Productions LLC, have collaborated on multiple films about the African American experience. Power to Heal: Medicare and The Civil Rights Revolution (2018), an award-winning documentary about Medicare’s role in desegregating hospitals, was narrated by Danny Glover and aired nationally on PBS. Friedman and Loewenthal were two of the producers, and Loewenthal directed the film. Their interest in Detroit dates to 2013, when they visited the city to shoot a segment of their video installation, Cosmopolis: 49 Waltzes for the World, ultimately seen at the Baryshnikov Art Center in New York and the Montclair (N.J) Art Museum. Captivated by Detroit and the resilient spirit of its residents, the filmmakers were determined to return. The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit provided the opportunity to dig deeper into the city’s fertile cultural and historical soil.
Daniel Loewenthal
Producer, Director, and Editor
Daniel Loewenthal — director, editor, and producer of The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit — has edited over 45 feature films, including Hard Choices, The Cutting Edge, Voices in Wartime, The Music in You, Missing in Action, Stephen King’s Silver Bullet, Friday the 13th Part IV and Cadillac Ranch. He has worked for major film studios such as Paramount, Orion, and Turner Productions, as well as independent producers Dino De Laurentiis and Cannon Films. Loewenthal is also finishing Big House, a documentary he produced and directed about Clarence (Big House) Gaines, a legendary Black college basketball coach. Loewenthal is a proud member of the Directors Guild of America.
Roberta Friedman
Producer
Roberta Friedman, producer of The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit, has worked in myriad idioms, from Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Wars and The Empire Strike Backs with George Lucas to creating experimental films including The Erl King, one of the first pieces of interactive video art and part of the permanent collection at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. As an independent filmmaker, she has produced and directed numerous short films and recently retired as a professor from the film program at Montclair State University. Her experimental films have been selected to be preserved and housed by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in Los Angeles.
https://robertafriedmanfilm.com/
Mark Stryker
Producer and Writer
Mark Stryker, writer and producer of The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit, is an award-winning author, journalist, filmmaker, and a 2020 inductee into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. His 2019 book, Jazz from Detroit (Univ. of Michigan Press), was named Jazz Book of Year by the Jazz Times Critics Poll and Jazz Journalists Association Awards. Stryker was an arts reporter and critic at the Detroit Free Press from 1995-2016, covering classical music, jazz, visual arts, and cultural news, and winning a dozen national awards for reporting, writing, and criticism. He is also the author of Destiny: 100 Years of Music, Magic, and Community at Orchestra Hall in Detroit. Stryker was a columnist for Jazz Times from 2021-2023, and in his youth worked as a professional jazz saxophonist.
https://jazzfromdetroit.com/about-the-author/
Producer Roberta Friedman (left) and Writer/Producer Mark Stryker