At just 16 years old, Steven Spielberg directed this science fiction film unknown to the general public

For those of us who have seen The Fabelmans, the fact that Steven Spielberg played with cameras since he was basically a child does not surprise us. In the free recreation of his life that he shaped in this film, we saw how a proto-Spielberg carried out war movies, action movies, and westerns with a unique mastery for such a young boy. But the truth is that he did much more in real life.

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At just 16 years old, Spielberg directed his first science fiction film; a 140-minute long (mind you) film titled Firelight that was financed with $500 that his father lent him. Shot while he was studying, that is, on weekends and free afternoons, the film already made clear the passion that the director would later squeeze out for science fiction and aliens. In fact, he himself has stated that it was the spark that ignited Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This is all that remains of it at the moment:

Spielberg’s first story about aliens

These 3 minutes and 49 seconds are all we can see of Firelight, as Spielberg handed the film over to a Hollywood studio to test his credentials, and after its bankruptcy, the movie was lost. However, these scenes have been recovered—which makes it quite clear that it was not the work of an amateur who didn’t know what he was doing.

Firelight was, according to the director, about aliens who wanted to establish a human zoo in Arizona. A full-on extraterrestrial invasion that was explored in detail in the film. In fact, the movie was released on March 24, 1964, in a cinema in Phoenix. 500 people went to see it, so the film ended up making a profit of one dollar. An exciting story that marked the path of one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema.