Latest in Ondi Timoner

Towards the end of his life, when Eli Timoner's weakened body was failing him, he called his daughter, the filmmaker Ondi Timoner, and told her he was ready to go. "If they can give me goodbye powder, I'd take it," he said. "I just want to be in the ground." He pleaded with Ondi, "Help me go there…

The official trailer for director Ondi Timoner’s Mapplethorpe biopic is out, portraying the controversial artist as he ascends from nowhere to become one of the most talked-about media creators of the 20th Century. Former Doctor Who star Matt Smith is Robert Mapplethorpe, with Marianne Rendon as punk poet/rocker Patti…

EXCLUSIVE: Ondi Timoner, the documentary filmmaker who is making her narrative feature debut with the Matt Smith-starring biopic Mapplethorpe, has signed with APA and Dialed-in Entertainment. Timoner has won a pair of Sundance Film Festival grand jury prizes — first in 2004 for her feature documentary debut Dig!, then…

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired North American rights to Mapplethorpe, Ondi Timoner's biopic that stars Matt Smith as artist Robert Mapplethorpe. The company is eyeing a late fall release date. The film, which bowed at the Tribeca Film Festival, explores Mapplethorpe's life from moments before he and Patti Smith…

UPDATE Monday afternoon: Brand has also set a West Coast premiere, on September 25 at the Arclight Hollywood. Ignite Channel (Twinsters, Poached), which acquired Brand: A Second Coming after its subject tried to get the Russell Brand documenary pulled from last spring’s SXSW fest, has released the trailer and set a…

Brand: A Second Coming, the Russell Brand documentary whose subject tried to get the film pulled from its opening-night slot at SXSW in March, has found a North American distributor. Ignite Channel, whose pickups include Twinsters and Poached, both from SXSW, has acquired director Ondi Timoner’s film for theatrical…

UPDATED, 7:40 PM: At tonight’s SXSW premiere of her documentary Brand: The Second Coming, director Ondi Timoner acknowledged that she and her subject clashed during the filmmaking process. “Once he gave me creative control, it was a tug of war. You know I like characters like this. And I like challenges.” The…