• Current Scholars
• Alumni
• Dream Big
• Scholar Travels
• Scholar Art & Music
• Scholar Stories
• The Scholar Experience

Isaac Brilliant

Biography

Yitz Brilliant has wanted to be a filmmaker ever since he was in third grade. When he was 13, he wrote a script, cajoled his friends into acting and their parents into letting him use their houses as locations, and edited the result into a gangster film - a process that lasted a year. The experience taught him about "organizational skills, production planning, special effects and shooting."

Throughout high school, Yitz's experimentation with filmmaking continued. He created his own production company, Brilliant Productions, videoing Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Later, during a year at the University of Maryland, he developed a film concept into a short script, which he has since expanded into a full-length screenplay.

Switching to Yeshiva University in his sophomore year, Yitz formed a Filmmaking Club and procured the equipment necessary to make it possible. He has shot a short 16-mm film and a short documentary on co-ed social interactions in Modern Orthodox Jewish circles and plans to enter them into film festivals. He has also been challenged by Yeshiva's intensive Talmudic study program, which Yitz calls "perhaps the most in-depth, critical thinking-oriented discipline I have pursued."

For many years, Yitz has been involved in the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), serving as a regional advisor on educational weekend retreats. Often the retreats are held in conjunction with Yachad, a branch of NCSY for high-functioning mentally handicapped youth and adults.

Yitz says that "educating and helping campers/students become acquainted with their cultural heritage at their own pace and in a manner geared to their own degree of affiliation was a highly rewarding experience related directly to my aspirations as a filmmaker."

An avid artist, who comes from a family that includes painters, designers, and a political cartoonist, Yitz also wishes to pursue graphic design. But his long-term career goal is to work at DreamWorks (he has already been a production assistant on a Steven Spielberg film) and then open up a DreamWorks branch in Israel, where he spent part of his childhood. There he hopes to produce and direct historical films and documentaries dealing with the social and political issues of the Middle East.

While he admits his goal may sound far-fetched to some, he says, "I have learned that it really is possible to accomplish almost anything with determination, focus, and optimism."

Other Scholars Like Isaac