Indie music outfit Concord, via its film and TV department, is partnering on James Erskine’s upcoming documentary, Billie. The film chronicles legendary singer Billie Holiday’s life story. Concord is the successor to the Billie Holiday estate which is providing access to her music and recordings. The doc, originally mooted at the EFM in 2018, will be produced by New Black Films' Victoria Gregory and Barry Clark-Ewers and REP Documentary's Laure Vaysse. Concord's Scott… Read
“The day she went missing was just a normal day to me.” The many years that followed certainly were not. Here is the first full trailer for The Case Against Adnan Syed, HBO’s documentary series that expands on the murder case that captivated millions who heard the 2014 podcast Serial. The four-part program promises “groundbreaking revelations that challenge the state's case,” which led to a life sentence.
Sixteen years after Adnan Syed was sentenced to life in prison for… Read
“He just came across as a loving, caring, kind soul.” “Everybody wanted to be with Michael, and then he likes you.” “The days were filled with magical childhood adventure experiences.”
Those are some of the testimonials heard early in this new trailer for HBO’s upcoming Leaving Neverland, the explosive documentary about Michael Jackson that roiled this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
The memories soon turn much darker. “He told me if they ever found out what we were doing… Read
James Andrews Dahl, a filmmaker whose Modern Man Films produced the critically acclaimed biopic The End of the Tour about David Foster Wallace, died Feb. 13 at age 40 in West Hollywood.
A memorial service will be held Monday, Feb. 18 at 1 PM at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary, 1218 Glendon Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Dahl’s honor to the Harry Ransom Center at The University of… Read
EXCLUSIVE:AXS TV is teaming with Feld Entertainment on an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the final performance of the longest-running touring show in America. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus: The Final Farewell, a 90-minute documentary special, will premiere this spring on AXS TV. The special chronicles the making of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's 146th Edition of The Greatest Show On Earth.
Since its inception in 1871, Ringling Bros. and Barnum… Read
The youngest child of Merata Mita, the first Māori woman to write and direct a feature film, Heperi ‘Hepi’ Mita grew up with only a partial picture of who his mother was. A groundbreaking artist and activist who broke through barriers of race, class and gender in the 1970s, Mita sacrificed a great deal to give voice to the voiceless, and speak truth to power, as depicted in her son’s feature debut, Merata. After his mother passed away, Hepi came to see his mother more… Read
Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to Cold Case Hammarskjöld, the documentary from journalist Mads Brügger that delves into the investigation surrounding the death of UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld. The pic just won the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival where it had its world premiere. A 2019 release date is in the works. The pic centers on the 1961 plane crash that killed Hammarskjöld, a case that remains… Read
Committed to making movies about saving the planet until he dies, “or until people wake the f*ck up,” Fisher Stevens believes he’s seen positive change of late, in people’s attention to our changing climate. Out on the promotional circuit just a few years ago with Before the Flood, a nature conservancy doc he took on with Leonardo DiCaprio, the producer found it difficult even to secure talk show bookings, “because they were worried about the fossil fuel industry not… Read
Since its Sundance 2018 unveiling, the documentary RBGhas — like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — proven to be most resilient. While fellow successful theatrical release docus from that Sundance like Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and Three Identical Strangers were strangely excluded from the final Oscar ballot by the Academy’s Documentary branch, RBG has soldiered on, with a strong $14 million theatrical gross for Magnolia. As the film takes a turn for the home str…Read
Kim Longinotto's Shooting the Mafia, a documentary about photojournalist Letizia Battaglia's coverage of organized crime in Italy, has been acquired by Cohen Media Group. The film had its world premiere last month in the World Cinema Documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival and just screened at the Berlin Film Festival. The deal is for U.S. distribution rights; no release plans were announced.
The pic uses Battaglia's black-and-white photographs and rare… Read
A student of storytelling through the ages, documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe has often turned his lens upon classic films and those who made them—and while there’s certainly a canon of self-reflexive filmmaking, Philippe’s approach is unique. As manifest in his latest doc, Memory: The Origins of Alien, the idea isn’t simply to make a behind-the-scenes documentary. The concept that has appealed to Philippe is more out-of-the-box—a deeper dissection of a classic… Read
On January 24, Netflix released Conversations with a Killer, Joe Berlinger's riveting four-part docuseries on Ted Bundy; two days later, Berlinger was at Sundance with a narrative feature, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, also to do with Bundy, one of the most infamous serial killers in American history. Emerging around the same time—on a weekend marking the 30th anniversary of Bundy's execution—it's stunning to hear that this kind of synchronicity wasn't… Read
