Film Birmingham to host free directing seminar at Redmont Hotel

Film Birmingham is putting a free directing seminar inside the Redmont Hotel, giving Birmingham filmmakers a rare small-room entry point into craft training just as the city keeps building its own production pipeline. The session, How Directors tell stories, is set for Saturday, May 2, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Redmont Hotel Birmingham, Curio Collection by Hilton, 2101 5th Avenue North. Registration is required, and the event is capped at 50 people.

That tight cap matters. This is not a wide-open lecture hall event; it is the kind of compact industry conversation that can actually feel personal, especially for local writers, assistants, crew members and first-time directors trying to move up without film-school access or outside connections. Film Birmingham built the seminar around a simple but practical idea, that storytelling in film is shaped by every technical choice, from lighting and camera movement to performance and pacing.

The seminar will be hosted by Kris Kimlin, whose Amazon bio describes him as an award-winning Canadian/American cinematographer with more than 17 feature films to his credit. Kimlin’s own site says he is a photographer and director based in Birmingham, Alabama, which makes him a familiar kind of figure for this market, a practitioner with local roots and enough outside experience to speak both to regional crews and to the broader industry language they are trying to learn.

For Birmingham creators, the value is not just inspiration. A session like this should give attendees a clearer sense of how a director shapes tone, collaborates with departments and translates a script into something actors and crew can execute on set. That is the kind of practical storytelling knowledge that can show up the next day on a short film, a commercial shoot or a documentary interview setup. Film Birmingham has also made a habit of grouping opportunities, workshops and local-film resources in one place, which turns a single seminar into part of a larger path into the business.

That larger path is the point. Film Birmingham says it is an initiative of Create Birmingham and serves as the film commission for the Greater Birmingham region, acting as the primary liaison between productions and city agencies. Its mission includes creating job opportunities, generating revenue, elevating regional visibility and supporting economic development, while also helping productions with permitting, local crew and resources, and communication with municipalities and the community. Create Birmingham says its film work supports filmmakers at every level and helps grow a skilled local workforce.

The broader Alabama backdrop reinforces the timing. The Alabama Department of Commerce named Meghann Bridgeman director of the Alabama Film Office in September 2024, and Sidewalk Film Festival held its 27th edition in 2025, two signs that Birmingham’s screen culture is being treated less like a side project and more like a local industry to build. This seminar fits squarely into that effort, one more small but concrete step toward a stronger directing pipeline in Birmingham.