Adam Bhala Lough is an Americanfilm director, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker from Fairfax, Virginia. Known for his ability to authentically dramatize subcultures and popular youth cultures, several of Lough’s films have been selected as part of the Sundance Film Festival, and is the only filmmaker with a feature film and a documentary in the festival, as well as a screenplay selected for the annual Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.
Early life
Adam Lough was born in New York and raised in Fairfax, Virginia. In his teenage years, Lough spent his time restocking shelves at Blockbuster, where he was inspired by the independent cinema of the early 1990s. Armed with a borrowed Panasonic VHS Camcorder, Lough shot several short films with his friends, and edited them tape to tape at the localpublic access television station, submitting one to the film school program at New York University.
Career
Feature films
In 2002, Lough expanded his NYU thesis project to create Bomb the System, starring Mark Webber, Gano Grills, and Jaclyn DeSantis. With a budget of $500,000 and a crew composed mostly of Lough's fellow recent graduates, Bomb the System was shot in New York City. The film garnered the then 23-year-old Lough a Best First Feature nomination at the 2003 Independent Spirit Awards. Bomb the System was released by Palm Pictures in 2005. In 2007, Lough wrote and directed Weapons starring Nick Cannon and Paul Dano and a host of upcoming young actors and actresses. Weapons was an experiment in non-linear storytelling tackling the problem of youth violence, and premiered in competition at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
Documentary work
In 2007 and 2008, Lough transitioned into documentary when he spent a year on the road with Lil Wayne, shooting what would become The Carter. The documentary was shot in the time before and shortly after the release of Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III. The film was critically acclaimed and premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival where indieWire dubbed it the "best film of the festival", but raised controversy when Lil Wayne attempted to block the release of the film due to its depiction of his marijuana and cough syrup use. The case was eventually thrown out of court by a judge. In 2008, Lough premiered The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee "Scratch" Perry, a documentary following Lee "Scratch" Perry, at the SXSW Film Festival. Named after Perry's 1969 album of the same name, the film played in dozens of film festivals worldwide, and was screened across the globe in nearly 100 theaters in 2011. The film is equally devoted to thirty years of Jamaican music and culture, and was narrated by Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro. Lough's first sports documentary The Motivation premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in late April 2013. The film follows eight of the best professional skateboarders in the world including Ryan Sheckler, Nyjah Huston and Paul Rodriguez III. He collaborated on a documentary/narrative hybrid with music producer and internet phenomenon Hot Sugar, titled Hot Sugar's Cold World, that premiered at the 2015 South by Southwest. It received an honorable mention at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. In 2017, Lough profiled uncompromising millennial radicals from the U.S. and the U.K. attacking the system through dangerous technological means. The documentary film, titled The New Radical, premiered in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and featured Cody Wilson, Amir Taaki, Julian Assange and others. IndieWire called it "A real life Mr. Robot," in reference to the popular television series.
