Columbia resident Robert Neal Marshall is an actor, director, producer, playwright and documentary filmmaker who founded the Columbia Maryland Film Festival. Marshall’s near-death experience a dozen years ago reshaped his life and work. Photo courtesy of Robert Neal Marshall

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One Friday morning 12 years ago, Robert Neal Marshall paced back and forth in his living room in Columbia, Maryland, feeling that something was wrong with his body. Phone in hand, he wondered if he should call 911. Despite that hesitation, he made the call.

“That Friday for me, on August 3 of 2013, was like any other day. I had no idea that that could have been my last day on this planet,” Marshall, now 64, recalled in an interview with the Beacon.

Marshall was having a heart attack, a “widow-maker,” experiencing total blockage of the heart’s biggest artery. Doctors later told him he probably had only a two-minute window to make that lifesaving call.

“My heart just started quivering like Jell-O. And from that moment, you’re dead. There’s nothing pumping,” he said.

Thankfully, he was able to make it to an ambulance, where paramedics used a defibrillator and conducted CPR. But for 90 seconds, Marshall had no heartbeat.

“A minute and a half without breathing, without your heartbeat, without anything, is a long time,” he said.

During that time, Marshall had what’s known as a near-death experience. Others who have come close to death have reported sensing an entity of light and beauty. Marshall felt the presence of his beloved grandmother.

“It was this incredible entity of light and electric smoke and energy…But the moment the smoke, the light, touched me, I knew it was my maternal grandmother,” Marshall said.

Marshall felt that his grandmother, who he was very close to, greeted him and expressed her love for him, reminding him of an earlier time in his life. He also sensed other beings nearby.

“It was very powerful for me,” Marshall said. “It would have been amazing to have conversations with them and ask questions and talk with them. Maybe there’s a part of us that’s always on the other side — this thread between us — and we’re just always communicating. I don’t know.”

A new lease on life

When Marshall’s heart stopped beating, he got more than just a reset, reboot and restart of his body. After doctors brought him back, Marshall felt even more plugged into life.

“It’s like the volume of everything turned up my awareness of things in life — my respect for being here, my sense of duty and purpose,” Marshall said. “It’s the one-on-one conversations that I suddenly realized were more important.”

Born in Baltimore, Marshall has had a long career as a multi-faceted producer, writer and director. He has worked on two teams that have won Emmys and released four documentary films, including the 2015 film “Back from the Light,” about near-death experiences.

Though he’s always shared the stories of others in his films and plays, his near-death experience deepened his need to listen to everyday people.

“I want to know their stories. It’s important that I make people feel wanted, loved and needed. It’s important that I do that now; I feel a greater sense of it,” Marshall said.

“We are introduced to people constantly in our lives. What I have learned as I’ve gotten older is to try to pay more attention, to give it value, to actually listen.”

As it turns out, caring about other people can be contagious.

“There are a lot of people that have incredibly good hearts, that are beautiful souls, that if we just listen to their stories — if we just let them in — we not only can be better people, but we can be better for other people and then teach other people to then continue that on,” Marshall said.

Heads the Columbia Film Festival

Marshall founded the Columbia Film Festival six years ago and today works as its executive director. Last year actor Matthew Modine was a panel speaker at the annual event.

Previously, Marshall worked as a contractor with the Columbia Festival of the Arts as its executive producer. When the pandemic hit, his predecessor wanted to shut down the festival — until Marshall pushed to make it virtual. “That’s how the festival stayed alive for two years during the pandemic,” he said.

After the previous executive director retired, Marshall took over the full-time position. He moved away from live music and rebranded the event as the Columbia Maryland Film Festival, which is “really growing,” Marshall said.

West End musical, memoir

Marshall has produced and directed several plays in the UK, and he’s excited about the upcoming West End musical “Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter,” which he and composer Tim Battle adapted from the award-winning book by Diane Stanley. The story veers off from the fairytale when Rumpelstiltskin falls in love with the miller’s daughter, and they have a daughter of their own. Kindness wins over greed.

Marshall is currently writing a memoir. What began as a recount of his heart attack and survival turned into a deeper autobiography that includes elements of his childhood, spirituality and identity. He also opens up about his experience in occasional lectures.

Since 2009 he has been a popular guest lecturer on the Queen Mary II and other ships. He discusses aviation history, his grandfather’s famous color footage of D-Day and the Cunard Line ships’ history, which he explored in his 2009 documentary film “Three Queens.”

The key to embracing the future, he said, is to realize we’re not in control of it.

“There’s a lot of people who worry about things, about fate, about avoiding things and making decisions, but there are things that will happen to us that we can’t control,” Marshall said.

“But really, it’s about being alive. It’s about living…That’s what I try to teach people with my work now. Through my creative work, my lectures, it’s about embracing that vibrant light, embracing, and finding what that is.”

The Columbia Maryland Film Festival is scheduled for September 8 through 14, 2025. For more information, visit columbiamarylandfilmfestival.com.