About us

Sterling Productions is an award-winning New York-based film production company. The vision of its founder, Virgil Price, is to bring carefully-curated stories highlighting the best in humanity to the world.

In an era of unprecedented division and polarization, Sterling Productions’ beautiful films are poignant, timely reminders of what inspired individuals and communities can achieve, even against the longest odds – from teen romance in the shadow of a national tragedy to a rookie baseball star uniting an ethnically divided city.

Sterling’s full-length films and documentaries have been recognized at numerous national and international festivals and awards, including the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and the Gotham Awards.

About the Founder

The through line of Sterling’s ostensibly diverse productions is their testament to the restorative power of salvation in the wake of tragedy.

A lifelong fan of movies and Broadway musicals, Price founded Sterling Productions in 2006 after a successful career in the construction business. His belief in the positive potential of film is evident in all of Sterling’s productions, which are made in partnership with producer James Lawler and Osmosis Films.

Sterling hit the ground running with tender 2008 romantic drama Lovely, Still. Written and directed by Nik Fackler, the film stars Oscar winners Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn alongside Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games). A holiday fable of twilight-years romance, Lovely, Still debuted at the Toronto festival and won Best Actor & Director at the California Independent Film Festival.

Price swiftly followed up with 2009’s Don’t Let Me Drown, the first of three Sterling Productions helmed by Mexican-American director Cruz Angeles. A street-level tale of teenage love in New York City in the wake of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, it stars E.J. Bonilla (Guiding Light), Gleendilys Inoa (American Crime), and Damián Alcázar (Narcos). Don’t Let Me Drown debuted at Sundance and has won multiple film festival awards. “I’m interested in my senior citizen audience,” Price explained. “And I’m also interested in the ever-growing Latino audience in America.”

The following year, Sterling Productions made its first documentary, Fernando Nation, for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series. Once again directed by Angeles, the film documents how 1980s LA Dodgers pitching phenom Fernando Valenzuela shattered stereotypes of the all-American All-Star and created a new era of baseball, while helping to heal a community wounded by the controversial construction of Dodger Stadium (for which a Mexican-American neighborhood was bulldozed). “Fernando mania” reunited local Latinos with their team after a 20-year boycott, while uplifting the Mexican-American community nationwide.

Sterling returned in 2019 with a second sports-themed documentary, Valiant. In partnership with the NHL, this tells the remarkable tale of how owner Bill Foley and a cobbled-together team of journeymen defied expectations to successfully bring ice hockey to the desert as the Vegas Golden Knights. In their debut season, 2017-18 – as an expansion team in a city where many felt a major sports franchise could never survive – they stunned the world by making it to the Stanley Cup finals.

“I’ve always loved sports. It’s a passion of mine,” said Price. “I think you can tell a story around sports where you get the redemptive quality of the story, but you also have the excitement of the sport itself.”

The redemption in Valiant is that the Golden Knights’ astonishing early successes came within days of the unfathomable October 1 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, which cost 58 people their lives. The Knights’ subsequent Stanley Cup run helped galvanize a city wracked with grief and confusion, while both the team and so many others – including first responders and just regular citizens – proved themselves truly valiant. “Although they lost the series, they won-over a city,” said Price. Valiant went on to win five Vegas Movie Awards and a Cynopsis Sports Media Award for Best Special Documentary.

The through line of Sterling’s ostensibly diverse productions is their testament to the restorative power of salvation in the wake of tragedy: young Latino lovers staying afloat in a post-9/11 ocean of hate and fear in Don’t Let Me Drown; a misfit hockey team bringing a city together in the shadow of American’s worst modern mass shooting in Valiant; a remarkable athlete helping to unite historically divided communities in Fernando Nation; or the stunning reveal towards the end of Lovely, Still (which we won’t spoil here!) “There’s always some emotionally redemptive component that catches my heart,” Price concluded of his projects. “I think, going forward, that I’m looking for that same component in any other film.” All Sterling Productions films are currently available on Amazon Prime and other major streaming services.