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Lady Gaga honors queer music icon Carl Bean and the legacy of his 1977 anthem, “I Was Born This Way” in an exclusive clip from the upcoming documentary I Was Born This Way.

In the film, Gaga, Questlove, and Billy Porter are among those who reflect on the song’s powerful impact on the LGBTQ community. “This song is actually the music equivalent of the Giving Tree,” says Questlove, spinning the track on vinyl.

The clip opens with the chart success the song, released on Motown, had in the United States,...

Exclusive: Oscar winners Questlove and Jamie Lee Curtis and Emmy winner Billy Porter are joining forces to executive produce I Was Born This Way about Archbishop Carl Bean, the man who performed the titular groundbreaking gay disco anthem in the 1970s.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Daniel Junge and Emmy-winning filmmaker Sam Pollard directed the film, which makes its world premiere at Tribeca Festival on June 5. We have your first look at the documentary in the trailer above.

“Six years in the making,” notes a release, “the film follows the little known story of Bean’s life from his turbulent childhood growing up Black and queer, through his surprising music career, including the 1977 Billboard top 10 Disco hit and gay anthem ‘I Was Born This Way,’ and his departure from the music industry to start the prolific Minority AIDS Project and the world’s first LGBTQ+ church for people of color, Unity Fellowship.”

The release continues,...

Ryan Coogler’s box-office hit “Sinners” is steeped in the blues, its folklore and legends. People can’t get enough of the movie or its songs, but if you want a deeper dive into the bluesmen who shaped the genre, queue up these documentaries and learn more about Buddy Guy (who plays older Sammie Moore), Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Charley Patton and more.

You can also buy the incredible score by Ludwig Göransson, who was also an executive producer on the movie and on location for the shoot in New Orleans. Special edition LPs will be out on August 29 from Made by Mutant.

Buddy Guy in “Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away” (Credit: Sony Pictures) Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away

This 2021 documentary follows the nearly 70-year career of the blues master, who plays the older version of Sammie Moore in “Sinners. It’s not streaming for free,...

The iconic San Francisco-based LGBTQ+ festival Frameline is ready to celebrate a half-century… almost. IndieWire can unveil the highly-anticipated lineup for the 49th annual Frameline festival, which is the largest and longest-running queer film festival in the world.

The 2025 festival will open with Sophie Hyde’s “Jimpa” starring Olivia Colman, and close with James Sweeney’s “Twinless.” The festival will take place June 18 to 28, and feature nearly 150 films from 40 countries. Highlights include a special screening at Kqed of Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard’s “I Was Born This Way” documentary about activist Archbishop Carl Bean, who sang the titular gay anthem and founded both the Minority AIDS Project and the world’s first LGBTQ+ church for people of color. Lady Gaga, Questlove, Dionne Warwick, and Billy Porter appear in the film. “Heightened Scrutiny,” which was part of the Frameline Completion Fund, will also screen; the documentary feature centers on ACLU...

Billy Idol, female war field medics on the frontlines in Ukraine, a marriage agency matching North Korean women and South Korean men, a whistleblower in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the aftermath of Brexit, and Indian sex workers who begin making short films – those are just some of the topics to be featured in documntaries screening during the 32nd edition of Sheffield DocFest next month.

Overall, the festival in the north of England will screen 116 films, 82 features and 34 shorts. It will feature 51 world premieres, 16 international premieres, eight European premieres, and 39 U.K. premieres from 68 countries of production.

Among big names, Billy Porter will attend as executive producer of I Was Born This Way, Sam Pollard and Daniel Junge’s celebration of the life of Carl Bean, from a tough childhood through to his musical success and queer rights advocacy.

It will feature in the Sheffield fest’s Rhythms section, along with...

“The Perfect Neighbor” has found a home.

The film, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the directing prize in the U.S. Documentary competition, has been acquired by Netflix. A sum for the acquisition has not been disclosed but earlier reports from February had the number around $5 million. The streaming giant is planning a release for later this year.

The Geeta Gandbhir-directed film uses police bodycam, investigative interviews and dashcam footage to tell the chilling story of Susan Lorincz, who in 2023 fired a gun through her locked door, killing her Black neighbor, Ajike “Aj” Owens. Lorincz used self-defense and Florida’s “stand your ground” laws as an excuse. The official Sundance synopsis described “The Perfect Neighbor” as “a remarkable exploration of one horrific event that has profound implications for the challenge of living in community with the monsters who might live next door.

Updated to note that Cinetic brokered the deal. Exclusive: It’s official. After weeks of indications that it would acquire The Perfect Neighbor, Netflix has finalized a deal for the film which won the directing award for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.

The streamer is planning a release later this year for the documentary directed by Geeta Gandbhir, putting it in position to become a strong Oscar contender. Terms of the deal were not announced, but some earlier reports pegged the acquisition figure in the range of $5 million.

Through the use of police bodycam and dashcam footage, the documentary tells a heinous story from Central Florida. In 2023, Susan Lorincz, a white woman, fired a gun through her locked door, killing her Black neighbor, Ajike “Aj” Owens. Lorincz invoked Florida’s notorious “stand your ground” laws, claiming she feared for her life after Owens banged on her door...

Netflix’s upcoming documentary from Alisa Payne on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans will be available in August 2025. Katrina: Come Hell and High Water will be a three-part series with three directors, including Spike Lee. Here’s everything we know so far about the documentary.

Katrina: Come Hell and High Water is a Netflix documentary by showrunner and producer Alisa Payne. The series has three directors: Geeta Gandbhir, Samantha Knowles, and Spike Lee. Sam Pollard is also listed as a producer.

Picture: Showrunner Alisa Payne

The series is focused on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, which, thanks to government neglect, left the city defenseless against a storm of such magnitude. It will also catch up with locals who have spent the past 20 years recovering from the disaster and what the future holds for the city of New Orleans.

Photograph by Jerry Grayson...

Spike Lee’s next joint for Netflix is called Katrina: Come Hell and High Water — one of three documentaries planned for the streamer in 2025.

Lee’s doc with Message Pictures will revisit the hurricane that caused 1,392 fatalities and more than $100 billion in damages in 2005. The official logline for the doc set to drop in August says the “hurricane turned cataclysmic through human error and neglect. Over the course of a gripping and emotional three episodes, the people of New Orleans recount their past, extoll their present and lean into the future of what they and their beloved city survived and have become 20 years later. The series sets the stage for a tragedy — whose man-made elements expose the systemic governmental neglect that led to the city being defenseless in the face of the storm — and Katrina’s devastating impact that changed New Orleans irreparably. Detailed, harrowing and triumphant first-person accounts and...

There’s a scene in Geeta Gandbhir’s harrowing documentary The Perfect Neighbor, in which a Marion County police officer asks Susan Lorincz, a white Floridian, if she has ever called her Black neighbor’s children “the n-word.” Lorincz seems confused by the question and immediately denies it. But she eventually concedes, acknowledging that maybe the word had “slipped out.” She claims she was taught to use the word when referring to people who were being “unlawful, dirty and generally unpleasant.”

That moment is instructive for a couple of reasons: It reveals how Lorincz, one of the principal subjects of Gandbhir’s documentary, thinks; and it clarifies why Stand Your Ground laws are dangerous in a country plagued by racism.

The earliest version of this legislation, which allows a citizen to use force (even lethal) if they perceive the threat of harm, was passed in Utah in 1994. Florida followed suit 11 years later,...

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a day to reflect on the legacy of one of the most important leaders the world has ever seen, and for those who want a deeper dive into the life and impact of MLK Jr., there are a number of films worth checking out. On this national holiday, we’ve rounded up a list of some of the best MLK Jr. movies to watch and where to stream them. They range from narrative films that take some liberties to dramatize the civil rights leader’s life, to deep-dive documentaries.

Photo credit: Paramount Pictures “Selma”

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s 2014 film “Selma” offers a wonderfully complex portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. that chronicles the man’s inspiring impact, but also doesn’t neglect his personal challenges. The film covers the events surrounding the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches, with David Oyelowo playing the role of Martin Luther King Jr.

Exclusive: Wise Child Studios, the recently launched production company of Jason Beekman and Ryan Miller, has announced the formation of the Wise Child Collective, a group of creatives from across the country that will aim to help both individual artists and small companies overcome obstacles in getting projects off the ground.

Creatives participating in the inaugural 2025-27 Collective include director and showrunner Lisa Bryant (Netflix’s Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich and Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich); Emmy-winning producer and director Paul Burger (Nat Geo’s Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller); and Emmy-winning director and showrunner Amy Bucher.

Intended to support both up-and-coming and established talent, Wise Child Collective will be a mix of producers, directors, writers, and journalists representing diverse backgrounds and experiences, who in collaborating with Wise Child Studios, will...

Do you remember the 21st night of September?

Well, let six-time Grammy winner and Academy Award-winning director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson remind you — via the definitive documentary on the iconic group Earth Wind & Fire.

Earth, Wind & Fire is one of the most critically and commercially successful pop bands of all time with more than 90 million records sold, 11 consecutive albums going gold or platinum, six Grammy Awards and indelible hits like ““Shining Star,” “Let’s Groove,” “Reasons” and, of course, “September.” The forthcoming feature documentary, which Questlove teased on social media as coming in 2025, will examine the group’s lasting legacy, cultural impact and enduring body of work with exclusive access to archives of visual, audio and written material, as well as the support of the estate of the late Maurice White and the band.

“Having been baptized in the Afrocentric joy river of this powerhouse unit, I’ve learned about them,...

Exclusive: A multi-part film about the Fleischer Brothers, creators of a pioneering animation studio that launched Betty Boop, Popeye The Sailor, and Superman cartoons, has won the richest prize in documentary.

Today, the Library of Congress, The Better Angels Society, Ken Burns, and the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation today announced Cartooning America as the winner of the sixth annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. The $200,000 award will go to director Asaf Galay.

“Most people have never heard the names Max and Dave Fleischer, but their legacy on American animation is profound, having preceded – and also inspired – Walt and Roy Disney,” notes a release about the prize. “Unlike the polished characters produced by the Disney studio, the Fleischer characters came right off the streets of New York City: the subtly Jewish Betty Boop, the muttering, street-smart Popeye, and Superman, the first-ever superhero cartoon. The Fleischers were...

A hip-hop trailblazer is the subject of a new documentary Ol’ Dirty Bastard: A Tale of Two Dirtys’ on A&e. The two-hour special peels back the layers of the Wu-Tang Clan founding member Odb to explore his life off stage and away from the spotlight. Former collaborators including Mariah Carey, Wu-Tang Clan members Raekwon, and Ghostface Killah are among those featured in interviews. Odb’s widow Icelene Jones, son Bar-Sun Jones (Ydb), and other loved ones dig into the origin of Russell Tyrone Jones and how he walked the thin line between being a father, husband, and the alter ego that catapulted the entertainer to superstardom. The doc, co-directed by Emmy and Peabody Ward winner Sam Pollard and Jason Pollard, features never-before-seen archival photos and home movies that show the many faces of the performer. From the controversial MTV segment and making of the smash hit “Fantasy” music video with...

The Library of Congress, the Better Angels Society, Ken Burns and the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation have unveiled six finalists for the sixth annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. The $200,000 cash award, established in 2019, recognizes late-stage documentaries that use original research and a compelling narrative to tell stories that bring American history to life through archival materials.

The six projects that were selected are: James Sorrels’s “Area 2,” John Benitz’s “Behind the Lines,” Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth’s “Dory Previn: On My Way to Where,” Norah Shapiro’s “Magic & Monsters,” Asaf Galay’s “Out of the Inkwell: The Greatest Story Never Told,” and Marlene McCurtis’ “Wednesdays in Mississippi.”

This year close to 100 American history documentary features were submitted for consideration.

“It’s hard what we are doing,” Burns says of documentary filmmaking. “It’s really hard. In documentary, there are so many more really good filmmakers,...

In the wake of a slow return to production post WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, industry contraction, and an extended M&a deal for a major studio that has kept the whole town on pins and needles, Hollywood really needs a break. Creatives and executives alike were hoping for a boost in the form of a strong summer box office, but after almost every blockbuster released in the last month failed to meet expectations, a panic that’s been in place for a while now refuses to relent. As the traditional process of producing and distributing film and television hurdles towards oblivion, the best thing one can do is take a step back and gain some perspective. Ironically enough, I believe the best place to do this is actually… at a movie theater. Just not the kind you’re probably thinking of.

While first-run mega-chains like AMC and Regal struggle through the...

Mel Brooks will receive this year’s Career Achievement Award at the 84th Peabody Awards, and Quinta will be honored with the Peabody Trailblazer Award. Both received a unanimous vote of the Peabody Board of Jurors and will be recognized at the June 9 awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

“Mel Brooks is not only one of the most beloved comedians of all time, but he literally set the standard for television comedy from its earliest days. Across TV, film, theater, and recordings, Mr. Brooks is in a league of his own. And Quinta Brunson has emerged as a refreshingly creative force in network television comedy,” said Jeffrey Jones, executive director of Peabody. “Peabody is proud to honor Mel and Quinta not only for their extraordinary contributions as storytellers, but particularly for their use of comedy to tell stories that matter, enriching the lives of so many.”

The Career Achievement Award is...

The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors today announced that Mel Brooks has won the Peabody Career Achievement Award, while Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson has won the Peabody Trailblazer Award.

Both awards were selected by unanimous vote of the Peabody Board of Jurors and will be celebrated live at the 84th Annual Peabody Awards ceremony on June 9 in Los Angeles.

“Mel Brooks is not only one of the most beloved comedians of all time, but he literally set the standard for television comedy from its earliest days,” said Jeffrey Jones, executive director of Peabody, in a statement. “Across TV, film, theater, and recordings, Mr. Brooks is in a league of his own.”

Over the course of his career, Brooks has received two Academy Awards, four Emmys, three Tonys and three Grammys, as well as an honorary Oscar. Brooks joins Rita Moreno, Sam Pollard, Dan Rather, Lily Tomlin and...

The Peabody Awards will honor actor, comedian, writer, and director Mel Brooks with this year’s Career Achievement Award, while “Abbott Elementary” award-winning writer, producer, actor, and comedian Quinta Brunson will receive the org’s Trailblazer Award. Both Brooks and Brunson were chosen by the Peabody Board of Jurors in a unanimous vote and will be recognized at the 84th Annual Peabody Awards ceremony on June 9 in Los Angeles.

“Mel Brooks is not only one of the most beloved comedians of all time, but he literally set the standard for television comedy from its earliest days. Across TV, film, theater, and recordings, Mr. Brooks is in a league of his own. And Quinta Brunson has emerged as a refreshingly creative force in network television comedy,” said Jeffrey Jones, executive director of Peabody, in a statement. “Peabody is proud to honor Mel and Quinta not only for their extraordinary contributions as storytellers,...

Fresh off the rollout of the nominees for the 84th annual Peabody Awards, the organization’s Board of Jurors has announced that comedy stars Mel Brooks and Quinta Brunson will receive the Peabody Career Achievement Award and the Peabody Trailblazer Award, respectively. Both awards will be handed out live at the 2024 Peabody Awards ceremony on June 9 in Los Angeles. They were selected by unanimous vote of the Peabody Board of Jurors.

“Mel Brooks is not only one of the most beloved comedians of all time, but he literally set the standard for television comedy from its earliest days. Across TV, film, theater, and recordings, Mr. Brooks is in a league of his own. And Quinta Brunson has emerged as a refreshingly creative force in network television comedy,” said Jeffrey Jones, executive director of Peabody, via statement. “Peabody is proud to honor Mel and Quinta not only for their extraordinary contributions as storytellers,...

Black Public Media awarded a total of $610,000 to film and immersive projects and creatives at its seventh PitchBLACK Forum — the largest pitch competition for independent filmmakers and creative technologists developing new projects about the global Black experience — at the PitchBLACK Awards.

The figure was the highest ever amount awarded at PitchBLACK. Sponsored by Netflix and PBS, the event — held Thursday at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center — was hosted by Baltimore-based comedian Sir Alex and included the presentation of the Bpm Trailblazer Award to Emmy-winning filmmaker Sam Pollard.

The winner of the $150,000 film award was Zenón, a documentary about the life of Puerto Rican fisherman and revolutionary Carlos “Taso” Zenón, who spearheaded protests against the U.S. Navy’s occupation, exploitation and environmental degradation of his home, the island of Vieques. Puerto Rican director Juan C. Dávila and producer Camila Rodríguez Estrada accepted the grant for their film about...

Exclusive: Wellington Love has started the w/Love production company, and already has an inaugural slate of projects lined up.

After more than three decades working in various film business capacities — including distribution, festival direction, and publicity — Love made the leap into producing as co-producer of Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021), for which Andra Day was an Academy Award nominee and a Golden Globe Award winner.

His latest producing project is Daniel Peddle’s feature documentary Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later. Peddle’s follow-up to his groundbreaking documentary The Aggressives will debut on Paramount+ with the Paramount+ with Showtime Plan on Saturday, March 30th. Beyond the Aggressives revisits principals from the previous feature, uniting two generations of queer Bipoc in conversation and in action. Beyond the Aggressives is nominated for Outstanding Documentary Feature at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards. View exclusive clip below.

Love reflects, “I...

Oscar-winning director-producers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth (Chai) Vasarhelyi consistently deliver stunning visuals and compelling documentary content. And following such breakout films as “Meru,” Oscar- and Emmy-winning “Free Solo,” Emmy-winning “The Rescue,” and “Wild Life,” which took advantage of pro climber-cinematographer-NatGeo photographer Chin’s 20 years of athletic cinema and Vasarhelyi’s relentless producer drive for perfection, they moved into feature directing with long-distance swimming drama “Nyad,” which scored Oscar nominations for stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster.

Over the years, the filmmakers have established their filmmaking prowess, combining immersive cinema verité visuals with deeply felt personal drama. That is on full display in their latest collaboration with NatGeo, the series “Photographer,” for which the duo matched six of the world’s most renowned shooters with veteran directors Marshall Curry, Kristi Jacobson, and Sam Pollard, plus Sundance alumnae Crystal Kayiza and Rita Baghdadi, and set them loose to return with bespoke...

After making their first narrative feature “Nyad,” which debuted last year and earned Oscar nominations for the film’s stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, Academy Award winning directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (“Free Solo”) are returning to their documentary roots with “Photographer.”

The six-part National Geographic docuseries features seven photographers — Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen, Dan Winters, Campbell Addy, Krystle Wright, Muhammed Muheisen, and Anand Varma. Vérité footage of each subject’s current mission is interwoven with interviews and archival footage to demonstrate how each photographer approaches their work, the intention behind that work, their process, and how they each discover, see and experience the world.

To bring each of the National Geographic photographers’ stories to life, showrunners Chin and Vasarhelyi hired six veteran documentary filmmakers: Marshall Curry (“Racing Dreams”), Crystal Kayiza (“Rest Stop”), Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI”), Kristi Jacobson (“Solitary”) Rita Baghdadi (“Sirens”) and Pagan Harleman...

Sheila Nevins has produced documentaries for most of her professional life. But at 84, she’s still notching career firsts.

Last month, Nevins added “Oscar-nominated director” to her résumé, having landed her first nod for co-directing the short “The ABCs of Book Banning” with Trish Adlesic and Nazenet Habtezghi.

Nevins’ first Oscars as a nominee take place at the same time she is wrapping up her run as the head of MTV Documentary Films. Nevins joined the company in 2019 after 38 years at HBO.

“I went there to raise the bar for the intellectual quotient of what MTV could produce in the documentary arena,” Nevins says. “I did highbrow and lowbrow at HBO, but when I got to MTV, I just did highbrow.”

On Nevins’ watch, MTV produced 40 docs and landed five Oscar nominations, including a feature doc bid this year for “The Eternal Memory.”

“Sheila Nevins is an extraordinary storyteller,...

Mubi has unveiled their February 2024 lineup, featuring Roy Andersson’s little-seen 1991 short World of Glory, Nicole Holofcener’s Lovely & Amazing starring Catherine Keener with an early Jake Gyllenhaal performance, and special Black History Month selections: Spike Lee’s Red Hook Summer, Kasi Lemmon’s Eve’s Bayou, Carl Franklin’s One False Move, and more.

Check out the lineup below, including recently added January titles, and get 30 days free here.

Just-Added

American Movie, directed by Christopher Smith | Festival Focus: Sundance

Pieces of April, directed by Peter Hedges | Festival Focus: Sundance

The Blair Witch Project, directed by Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez | Festival Focus: Sundance

But I’m a Cheerleader, directed by Jamie Babbit | Festival Focus: Sundance

Secretary, directed by Steven Shainberg | Festival Focus: Sundance

Medicine for Melancholy directed by Barry Jenkins | First Films First

Antiviral, directed by Brandon Cronenberg | First Films First

Shithouse, directed by Cooper Raiff | First Films First

Age of Panic,...

Filmmaker Sam Pollard, one of the most prolific and important forces in contemporary documentary, will be honored by Black Public Media at its upcoming PitchBlack Awards in New York.

Pollard — who directed or co-directed four films and docuseries this year alone, including The League and Bill Russell: Legend — will receive the Bpm Trailblazer Award in a ceremony on April 25. The event is set to take place at the Stanley H. Kantor Penthouse of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, capping the latest edition of Bpm’s PitchBLACK Forum, described as “the largest pitch competition of its kind in the United States for independent filmmakers and creative technologists who create Black content.”

“A multiple Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning producer-director-editor, Pollard is known for his work on a plethora of important works including: Eyes On The Prize, Maynard, MLK/FBI, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, and Mr. Soul!,” a release noted.

Exclusive: Dick Wolf and his Wolf Entertainment are planning a feature documentary about Emmett Till.

Wolf and his longtime collaborator Tom Thayer are exec producing Murder In America: The Lynching of Emmett Till, a two-hour feature documentary, alongside James Moll, the Oscar winner behind Holocaust doc The Last Days.

It will be directed by Sam Pollard, who has directed documentaries including MLK/FBI, and Llewellyn Smith, who directed South to Black Power and produced American Experience.

Based on A Few Days Full of Trouble by Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr. and Christopher Benson, the feature doc will explore two parallel tracks of the Till story. One was set in motion by the last four years of an FBI investigation with details never revealed before, including significant new revelations of the case and its findings. The traumatic memory of Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., the last surviving witness to the crime and Emmett Till’s cousin,...

Starting with a modest proposal framing Black power as the erasure of systemic white supremacy, Sam Pollard and Llewellyn M. Smith’s South to Black Power, written by and featuring New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, proposes a roadmap forward: a reverse great migration back to southern states with Black populations. Citing Vermont as a successful case study, Blow tells the story of how the counterculture changed the rural, conservative state by simply doing the math and moving in. Born and raised in the racially mixed rural town of Gibsland, Louisiana, Blow returns home to find some signs of encouraging process, discussing with relatives their plans for redeveloping their town by obtaining power through official channels.

Herein lies the problem studied extensively in the documentary: while achieving strength and agency at a municipal level is possible, Blow uses his new hometown of Atlanta as a successful case study. But...

Bruce Springsteen on Garland Jeffreys in Claire Jeffreys' Doc NYC Audience Award-winning Garland Jeffreys: The King Of In Between: “He’s in the great singer songwriter tradition of Dylan and Neil Young. One of the American greats!” Photo: courtesy of Claire Jeffreys

Claire Jeffreys brilliant Doc NYC Audience Award-winning (and a highlight of the 14th edition) Garland Jeffreys: The King Of In Between has on-camera interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Laurie Anderson on Lou Reed’s support, Harvey Keitel, Vernon Reid, Alejandro Escovedo, Alan Freedman, Robert Christgau, Graham Parker, Michael Cuscuna, David Hajdu, Roger Guenveur Smith, and Phil Messina sharing their insights on Garland Jeffreys, whom Springsteen calls a great singer songwriter in the tradition of Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Claire Jeffreys with Ed Bahlman and Anne-Katrin Titze on Garland Jeffreys: “He went out with Bette Midler when she was doing The Continental Baths and he dated Alice Walker of The Color Purple.

Exclusive: Veteran entertainment lawyer and business strategist Jason Beekman has exited his role as VP and Head of Business & Legal Strategy at RadicalMedia to join director and former Imagine Documentaries showrunner Ryan Miller in co-founding new production company, Wise Child Studios.

Intended to marry the robust legal and business acumen of a larger studio with the distinguished creative vision and filmmaker-centric attention of a boutique shop, Wise Child will work with the industry’s best, from award winners to emerging talent, in the telling of thought-provoking and character-driven stories. The company is developing most of its projects from the ground up and will also handle post-production and sales for its titles.

Having already built a robust slate across scripted and non-fiction series, features, and podcasts, Wise Child’s projects in development include an investigative series with AMC; the feature doc Up the River about a 1972 concert at Sing Sing Prison,...

The HBO Original documentary South To Black Power, a This Machine production, directed by Peabody and Emmy®-winning filmmaker Sam Pollard and Peabody winner Llewellyn M. Smith (“Poisoned Water”), debuts Tuesday, November 28 (10:00-11:30 p.m. Et/Pt) on HBO and will be available to stream on Max. Synopsis: On the eve of last year’s midterm elections, Charles M. Blow, New York Times columnist and best-selling author of “The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto,” sets off across the country on a personal journey to test his theory on Black Liberation, which involves a daring strategy for Black Americans ... Read more...

Doc NYC is known for its 15-feature film shortlist and for its annual Visionaries Tribute luncheon, which attracts the who’s who of the docu community from both coasts.

But, while the festival, which begins on Nov. 8, is a key campaign stop for filmmakers hoping to garner a spot on the Oscar documentary shortlist, it has also become a place where more documentarians are choosing to premiere their work.

This year 33 films out of the 253 featured on the main slate will have their world premieres at the fest.

Many of those films debuting at Doc NYC are profile docus including: “June,” a profile of June Carter Cash; “The Cowboy and the Queen,” about Queen Elizabeth II’s friendship with a California horse trainer; “Candace Parker: Unapologetic,” the story of the WNBA superstar; “Ashima,” about Ashima Shirashi, the Japanese-American rock climber who set world records in her teens; “Shari & Lamb Chop,...

The North Road Company will partner with Two One Five Entertainment. The Peter Chernin-founded company acquired a significant stake in Oscar-winner Questlove and Black Thought’s production business. The deal will result in North Road financing future Two One Five films, television shows and other creative projects. The partnership will also see North Road supporting Two One Five with nonscripted content which will enable Two One Five to leverage its best-in-class IP portfolio while expanding its scripted slate.

North Road CEO David Nevins said, “Questlove and Black Thought have long been not only iconic musicians, but also beacons for talent. They are visionaries who have been behind some of the most impactful stories about music and Black culture and how they shaped America. We are thrilled to partner with such a uniquely creative team as they enter their next phase of growth, supporting them as they continue their excellent...

Peter Chernin’s spending continues.

The former Fox boss’ The North Road Company has invested in and acquired a “significant” stake in Two One Five Entertainment, the production company founded by Questlove and Black Thought of The Roots.

The deal includes an equity stake, project financing and support to scale the business across scripted and non-scripted content.

The company is behind Academy Award-winning documentary Summer of Soul, which was directed by Questlove and told the story of the legendary 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Other projects including The League, directed by Sam Pollard, about the Negro Baseball League, Descendant, which tells the stories of descendants of survivors of the Clotilda, the last ship that carried enslaved Africans to the United States, directed by Margaret Brown and produced with the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions, and a Questlove-directed documentary for Hulu about Sly and the Family Stone.

Though Huluween is almost officially over, Hulu is not slowing down at all as the new month approaches! The streamer will head into November with plenty of new additions to un-spook yourself and keep warm, including the new Awkwafina and Sandra Oh-led “Quiz Lady”; Christmas classics like “National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation” and “The Polar Express,” and much more.

On the TV side, Hulu will have the exclusive two-episode premiere of FX’s limited murder mystery series “A Murder at the End of the World” starring Emma Corrin. “Fargo” fans can also catch the next-day streaming premiere of Season/Year 5, which will star Jon Hamm, Juno Temple, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Plus, in comes more of the debut season of “Spellbound,” a serialized re-cut of Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia,” and several original series premieres, including “Black Cake” on Nov. 1.

Find out everything coming to Hulu in November, and check out The...

Clockwise from left: The League (Magnolia Pictures), The Last Rider (Roadside Attractions), Black Ice (Lionsgate)Image: The A.V. Club

It’s Thanksgiving time, so give thanks to Hulu if you’re a fan of sports documentaries because the streaming service is stuffing its library with them. Black Ice is about institutional racism in professional hockey,...

Oscar-nominated director Matthew Heineman and late filmmaker Nancy Buirski will be honored at the Hamptons Doc Fest in New York next month.

Heineman, whose latest film, American Symphony, premiered to acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival, will receive the prestigious Pennebaker Career Achievement Award, named for the legendary filmmaker and pioneer of “direct cinema” D.A. Pennebaker. Heineman is expected to be on hand to receive the honor, which has previously gone to Richard Leacock, Susan Lacy, Barbara Kopple, Stanley Nelson Jr., Alex Gibney, Liz Garbus, Sheila Nevins, Frederick Wiseman, Dawn Porter, Sam Pollard, and to Pennebaker and and his wife and filmmaking partner Chris Hegedus.

Jon Batiste in ‘American Symphony’

Hamptons Doc Fest will screen American Symphony, which has been acquired by the Obamas’ production company Higher Ground through the former first couple’s deal with Netflix. The documentary about Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste and his wife, the musician Suleika Jaouad,...

The Hulu series The 1619 Project and the Showtime feature Nothing Lasts Forever scored a leading three nominations apiece today as the Cinema Eye Honors announced its first round of contenders for the prestigious documentary-focused awards.

The 1619 Project, based on Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Pulitzer Prize-winning examination of slavery in North America and its impact up until the present day, earned nominations for Best Anthology Series, broadcast editing and broadcast cinematography. Oprah Winfrey, Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams and Hannah-Jones are among the producers of the six-part series.

‘Nothing Lasts Forever’

Nothing Lasts Forever, director Jason Kohn’s glittering examination of the world of diamonds – the real kind and the emergence of undetectable “synthetic” diamonds – earned nominations for Best Broadcast Film, broadcast editing and broadcast cinematography. Scroll for the full list of nominations announced today.

Other films and series that scored multiple nominations include Hulu’s Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields...

Hulu’s “The 1619 Project” and Showtime’s “Nothing Lasts Forever” lead all broadcast documentaries in nominations for the 17th annual Cinema Eye Honors, which were announced on Thursday during the Cinema Eye Fall Lunch at Redbird in downtown Los Angeles.

Each of the programs received three nominations in the five broadcast categories, with “The 1619 Project” nominated in the Anthology Series, cinematography and editing categories and “Nothing Lasts Forever” singled out in Broadcast film, cinematography and editing categories.

Other programs with multiple nominations include the broadcast movie “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” the nonfiction series “Dear Mama” and “Paul T. Goldman” and the anthology series “Edge of the Unknown With Jimmy Chin” and “Our Planet II.”

Hulu led all networks and platforms with eight nominations, followed by Netflix with five and Showtime with four.

Cinema Eye Honors, a New York-based organization devoted to honoring all facets of nonfiction filmmaking, also...

The 2023 Doc NYC lineup has officially been announced.

The program for the 14th annual festival includes opening night selection “The Contestant,” a real-life “Truman Show”-esque story of a Japanese comedian who was trapped alone and naked in an apartment for 15 months as part of a reality TV show. The only twist? The comedian had no idea he was being filmed. Clair Titley directs the stranger-than-fiction documentary which premiered at TIFF.

Doc NYC runs from November 8 through 26, featuring 30 world premieres and 26 U.S. premieres with more than 200 films programmed. New films from Wim Wenders, Penny Lane, Dawn Porter, and Jeff Zimbalist are among the lineup for America’s largest documentary festival, with screenings at New York City’s IFC Center, Sva Theatre, and Village East by Angelika. In-person screenings take place November 8 through 16, with online selections available through November 26.

The centerpiece screening is the world premiere of D.W. Young’s...

The groundbreaking documentary The League explores the rise and fall of the Negro Baseball Leagues, showcasing the perspectives of all-star players and owners. The documentary goes beyond baseball to examine the broader impact of the leagues on the Civil Rights movement, paving the way for integration and equality in baseball. Through personal recollections and historical analysis, The League sheds light on the social and economic aspects of Black baseball and the experiences of African Americans during this time.

Screen Rant is proud to present an exclusive clip from the ground-breaking documentary, The League, which examines the importance of the Negro Baseball Leagues to the Civil Rights movement. Examining both the great successes and difficult challenges, this documentary explores the rise and fall of the Negro Baseball Leagues in the first half of the twentieth century. Using never-before-seen interviews and newly discovered archival footage, this documentary is able to tell the...

Most people don’t get a text from Bono in the middle of the night.

But Jon Kamen, the CEO, chairman and co-founder of RadicalMedia, found himself fighting off jet lag on a recent business trip to Japan as he fielded messages from the U2 frontman. That pair had worked together on the One campaign, the musician’s push to eradicate AIDS and poverty in Africa, and this time Bono needed help launching ticketing for the band’s upcoming residency at Las Vegas’ newly launched venue, the Sphere. Kamen assured him that there was someone on staff who could help him.

“I said, ‘let me call this guy and see if he can come up with something,'” he remembers. “We needed to turn this thing around in ridiculous time. I go to bed in Japan. Bono gives me a good recommendation for a restaurant in Kyoto. I’m dreaming of sushi,...

Sony Picture Classics and Trafalgar Releasing have firmed up worldwide release plans for Carlos, their feature documentary on 10-time Grammy-winning musical icon, Carlos Santana.

The film on the father of Latin American jazz fusion will launch in theaters in September with the three-day premiere event, Carlos: The Santana Journey Global Premiere. In addition to the doc itself, the event taking place on September 23rd, 24th and 27th will spotlight exclusive introductory content featuring Santana and pic’s director, two-time Emmy winner Rudy Valdez (The Sentence). The film will then launch into its general theatrical release on September 29th.

A guitarist who has cemented his status as a legend over the last 50 years, Santana continues to be one of the music world’s premiere artists, blending jazz, blues, and the Mariachi sound with a rock n’ roll spirituality and a sense of music’s primal connection to our deepest emotions. SPC...

Exclusive: Paramount’s Republic Pictures has acquired worldwide rights to the inspirational documentary Lift, from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker David Petersen, slating it for release via Paramount Global Content Distribution. In the U.S., the film will hit select theaters on September 15th and bow on digital on the 22nd. Pic will also soon hit the UK, debuting on digital on the 25th.

Exec produced by world-renowned ballerina Misty Copeland, who also served as Principal Advisor, Lift shines a spotlight on the transformative power of dance and the invisible story of homelessness in America through young home-insecure ballet dancers and their mentor who inspires them at New York Theatre Ballet. Guided by Steven Melendez, whose journey leads back to his childhood shelter, their path within the Lift scholarship program becomes a celebration of joy and triumph in the face of adversity.

Presented by Vulcan Productions and Beaufort 9 Films, in association...

With the 2023 Truth Seekers Summit presented by Showtime taking place a day after former President Donald Trump was indicted for a third time, this time in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow set the tone of the event after receiving the Variety and Rolling Stone Truth Seekers Award, “The crisis we have right now in this work that we do is not a crisis about the truth,” she said in a sitdown with Variety’s Co-Editor-In-Chief Ramin Setoodeh. “The truth is the truth; the truth just exists.

Last Wednesday, Rolling Stone and Variety made more news regarding their upcoming Truth Seekers Summit, presented by Showtime on August 2nd. The two brands announced a digital content hub for attendees, featuring the kind of reporting that’s at the heart of the event’s celebration of hard-nosed journalism and documentary and investigative storytelling. Seeking to dig “underneath the surface to reveal what’s hidden, what happened and what might come next,” the content hub will showcase stories on documentaries of all genres by both Rolling Stone and Variety.

One...

Admittedly, as a white, baseball-phobic critic (I’ve never seen A League of Their Own or anything starring Kevin Costner and a bat), I’m not exactly the target demographic for The League, which takes a deep dive into America’s pastime through the parallel sports universe of the Negro League. Nevertheless, the doc was a must-catch, no pun intended, for me during Tribeca since I also happen to have a baseball-obsessed (Bronx-born/Brooklyn Dodgers-raised) father and (Mets-maniacal) sister who visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum several years back, and still speak of that trip as some sort of exotic holy pilgrimage. (For the record, the Nlbm is […]

The post A League of His Own: Sam Pollard on The League first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Admittedly, as a white, baseball-phobic critic (I’ve never seen A League of Their Own or anything starring Kevin Costner and a bat), I’m not exactly the target demographic for The League, which takes a deep dive into America’s pastime through the parallel sports universe of the Negro League. Nevertheless, the doc was a must-catch, no pun intended, for me during Tribeca since I also happen to have a baseball-obsessed (Bronx-born/Brooklyn Dodgers-raised) father and (Mets-maniacal) sister who visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum several years back, and still speak of that trip as some sort of exotic holy pilgrimage. (For the record, the Nlbm is […]

The post A League of His Own: Sam Pollard on The League first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.