Right now, Eddie is in production on a new feature doc with a high-profile cast - one you should see later on this year. Check back for updates.

A sweet n' sour look at candy, capitalism and the fringes of the American Dream, CANDYMAN chronicles the rise and fall of Jelly Belly mastermind David Klein. Directed with subtle whimsy by New Zealander Costa Botes (who famously helmed FORGOTTEN SILVER with another famous New Zealander, Peter Jackson), and featuring running commentary by pop icon "Weird Al" Yankovic, CANDYMAN is a winning underdog story that's as charmingly eccentric as its candy creator and his sugarcoated creations.

Eddie began tracking and championing the film prior to its premiere at Slamdance in 2010, and following those successful screenings, came on board as Executive Producer. He brought along pal and accomplished editor Doug Blush (WORDPLAY, IOUSA, OUTRAGE), and together the pair collaborated on a polish of the film. This new cut debuted at Toronto's Hot Docs, with plans underway for national release.

For Eddie, the film also marks personal Hollywood milestone: sharing a title 'billing block' with the great Al Yankovic. Watch the trailer and visit the official movie site.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated is an unprecedented investigation into the MPAA film ratings system and its profound impact on American culture, from Academy Award nominated filmmakers Kirby Dick and Eddie Schmidt (Twist Of Faith).

The MPAA, a lobbying organization for the movie industry, maintains a ratings system first implemented in 1968 by longtime president Jack Valenti. This system, with its age based content classification using letter grades G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 (formerly X), has become a cultural icon. But behind its simple façade is a censoring process kept entirely secret. Board members are anonymous; deliberations are private; standards are seemingly arbitrary. Thus, the trade organization for the largest media corporations in America also keeps a trademarked lock on content regulation over our most unique and popular art form.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated asks whether Hollywood movies and independent films are rated equally for comparable content; whether sexual content in gay-themed movies are given harsher ratings penalties than their heterosexual counterparts; whether it makes sense that extreme violence is given an R rating while sexuality is banished to the cutting room floor; whether Hollywood studios receive detailed directions as to how to change an NC-17 film into an R while independent film producers are left guessing; and finally, whether keeping the raters and the rating process secret leave the MPAA entirely unaccountable for its decisions.

Filmmakers who speak candidly include John Waters (A Dirty Shame), Kevin Smith (Clerks), Matt Stone (South Park), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), Atom Egoyan (Where the Truth Lies), Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream), Mary Harron (American Psycho), and actor Maria Bello (The Cooler).

In This Film is Not Yet Rated, director/writer Kirby Dick and producer/writer Eddie Schmidt examine the most controversial ratings decisions in recent history, as well as the MPAA’s efforts to protect copyright and control culture in the name of piracy and profit. Ultimately, the filmmakers hire an unlikely private investigator in order to uncover Hollywood’s best-kept secret: the identities of the ratings board members themselves.

The result is a movie about movies unlike any other movie ever made.

Academy Award nominated TWIST OF FAITH follows the powerful and intimate psychological journey of Tony Comes, a firefighter from Toledo, Ohio, who survived years of sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest. When we first meet Tony, he seems to have it all: a great job, a loving wife, adorable kids and a beautiful house. But Comes is just beginning to come to grips with a past he’s buried for twenty years. The constant barrage of news items related to sexual abuse, coupled with a disturbing discovery in his personal life, forces Comes to confront his demons.

A proud Catholic all his life, Comes decides to report his abuse to the person he has been taught to trust the most, his bishop. But when the bishop isn’t completely honest with him, Tony files a lawsuit – first as John Doe, later putting his own name on the suit and going public. As Comes grapples with anger, guilt and confusion, the film shows how the effects of his abuse entangle everyone with whom he shares an intimate bond: his wife, children, extended family, friends and ultimately, his God.

While TWIST OF FAITH unravels the damage that sexual abuse wreaks on Comes’ life, the film also chronicles a close-knit Catholic town that is unwilling to let the truth come out. Comes does everything he can to hang on to a lifetime of Catholic traditions, despite his ongoing pain and the deceit of Church leaders. The result is a riveting drama of one man’s struggle to overcome a profound trauma in the face of intense family, community and religious pressures.

In November 2001, director Kirby Dick and producer Eddie Schmidt invited terminal patients in the Kaiser Permanente hospice program to participate in a bold experiment: to take home cameras and record their last experiences on Earth. Surprisingly, many patients and families embraced the concept.

For some it was a last new endeavor, a final project slipped in under the wire. For others the dwindling number of moments left with their loved ones inspired them to record the details of a life about to end. What was captured in all cases was a startlingly personal view of what it means to die.

Their footage provides a fascinating insight into the powerful emotions of conflict, loss, and reconciliation that envelop and often overwhelm a family. We see the dying as their loved ones see them - humorous, obstinate, loving, capricious, angelic, and angry. A vivacious woman in her forties who stubbornly refuses to die clashes with the hospice staff over disappearing narcotics. A teenage girl on her deathbed whispers about the guilt she feels because her illness is causing her father so much grief. A middle-aged son struggles to keep his aging father alive long enough to hear an "I love you" that never comes.

Interweaving these stories are the experiences of the hospice staff: a team of doctors, nurses, and social workers who give care to the dying in their homes. Often the last new person to come into a patient's life, they inevitably become close to their patients only to grieve them a few months later - a cycle of friendship and loss that repeats itself week after week, patient after patient.

THE END is an intensely personal meditation on the experience of death - both for the dying and for those who must go on living.

How do you capture cinema verite in a world of façade?

SHOWGIRLS:  GLITZ & ANGST, an explosive documentary musical about the men and women mounting a new Las Vegas show, delivers the memorable and colorful answer.

An innovative blend of high-energy dance numbers and revealing behind-the-scenes footage, SHOWGIRLS presents a fast-paced nonfiction narrative about hopes, dreams and harsh realities - both in show business and in life. It's like a Bob Fosse musical.for real.

Employing the technique used in their previous film CHAIN CAMERA, director Kirby Dick and producer Eddie Schmidt handed out cameras to the captivating cast of the show: dancers Melania, Stephanie, Syn-Syn, and Kat. Their footage, interwoven with backstage footage shot by Dick, Schmidt and their crew, provides a surprisingly intimate peek behind the curtain, showing a home life where kids have to be picked up from school, dad's parole board hearing is coming up, and boyfriends take off on motorcycles with no promise to return.

Through all this, the dancers must stay thin, beautiful and healthy while learning15 intricate dance numbers in just 25 days, wearing 20-pound headdresses and four-inch heels, and changing costumes in the blink of an eye.

At the heart of this ensemble lies the tumultuous relationship between the show's choreographer, Mistinguett, and Greg Thompson, the show's producer. Mistinguett, a six-foot-tall former showgirl who began choreographing Thompson's shows nearly 20 years ago, was his lover for 15 years. Though Thompson owes much of his success to their creative collaboration, he recently married Sunny, a bubbly, much younger blonde woman, who currently stars in many of his shows. Now it's up to Mistinguett to choreograph a sexy and beguiling show.for the woman who took her place.

SHOWGIRLS: GLITZ & ANGST dramatically builds to opening night, where internal conflict and external chaos threaten the dynamics of this large, dysfunctional family hard at work. And yet, when the curtain rises, the dazzling show must go on.

No lights, no crew - no rules.

For a groundbreaking experiment in documentary filmmaking, students at Los Angeles' John Marshall High School ("two miles East of Hollywood") were given video cameras to record their lives during the 1999-2000 school year. These cameras were passed around from student to student, traversing a range of cliques and eventually reaching representatives of the entire student population.

CHAIN CAMERA's kids hail from a diverse range of ethnic, social and economic backgrounds and illustrated their environments and innermost thoughts in raw, honest, funny and unpredictable ways. Although Kirby Dick and producers Eddie Schmidt and Dody Dorn kept dialogues with the students, neither they nor any other professional filmmakers were ever present when any of the material was shot. Thus, students speak and act like real kids and not like teenagers on their best behavior for the adult world.

We meet a girl who struggles with bulimia; a virginal couple flirting with the terrifying and hilarious edges of sexuality; a troubled boy with an alcoholic mother who becomes a social activist and volunteer. Some vignettes are hilarious and over-the-top; others are emotional and poignant.

The resulting film, edited into a series of engaging and linked vignettes, blasts through stereotypes to paint a picture of the urban teenage experience that is refreshingly real and thoroughly entertaining. Toward the end of the film, we meet once more with the students as they go through the rituals of prom and graduation - and finally "say goodbye" to their chain cameras.

Often imitated, CHAIN CAMERA, which premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, stands as the genuine article, foreshadowing YouTube, blogs, and other intimate, DIY media that's exploded in the last several years. It remains as a potent vision of the American teenage experience.