Spellbound (2002 film)

Spellbound
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jeffrey Blitz
Produced by	Jeffrey Blitz Sean Welch
Written by	Jeffrey Blitz
Starring	Harry Altman Angela Arenivar Ted Brigham April DeGideo Neil Kadakia Nupur Lala Emily Stagg Ashley White
Music by	Daniel Hulsizer
Edited by	Yana Gorskaya
Distributed by	ThinkFilm
Release date	2002
Running time	97 min. 95 min. (Canada)
Country	United States
Language	English

Spellbound is a 2002 documentary that was directed by Jeffrey Blitz. The film follows eight competitors in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature;Yana Gorskaya's editing won the ACE Eddie award for best editing of documentary. Spellbound won the Emmy for Cultural/Artistic Programming and Jeffrey Blitz was nominated for directing. Frank Neuhauser, winner of the first National Spelling Bee, held in 1925, appears in the film.

The spellers were Neil Kadakia, Emily Stagg, Ashley White, April DeGideo, Harry Altman, Angela Arenivar, Nupur Lala and Ted Brigham. As they appear from left to right on the DVD's cover:

Neil (as speller # 139) missed "" in the bee to get ninth place. Other words Neil spelled include: , , , , and . He was sponsored by the Orange County Register. Neil is a graduate of UC Berkeley. Before he went to college, he went on a jet ski expedition with his father and his sister, Shivani, also a speller. He is currently the COO of Greens Global, a real estate company based out of San Clemente, CA. On July 3, 2011, he married Archana Sheth, also a UC Berkeley graduate. He is also an avid chess player, and has earned over 15 chess trophies in his life.

His grandfather paid 1000 people in India to pray for him.

Emily Stagg (speller # 148) was sponsored by the New Haven Register in New Haven, Connecticut and spelled: , , , , , , (spelled incorrectly as "clavison"). She came in 6th place. In 2006, as a junior in Carleton College, she wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times questioning the usefulness of the National Spelling Bee.

Ashley White (speller 149) represented The Washington Informer in Washington, DC in the spelling bee. Following Ashley's teenage pregnancy (she was 18), a marketing consultant who had seen the movie managed to rally support from other viewers of the documentary to help Ashley into Howard University. [2] The proctor of the Washington Informer regional spelling bee featured in the film is Mac McGarry