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Prepare for some captivating documentaries and docuseries from Netflix this year. The streamer announced during its Next on Netflix event that it will be premiering new projects about the Manson murders, Osama Bin Laden, the Titan submarine implosion and Hurricane Katrina, just to name a few of its upcoming buzzy docs.

The first major new documentary release is a big one. The documentary film “Chaos: The Manson Murders” will premiere on March 7. From legendary filmmaker Errol Morris, who previously released “The Thin Blue Line” and “The Fog of War,” little is known about this project other than its subject matter. The film is likely based on Tom O’Neill’s “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.” Morris, Robert Fernandez and Steven Hathaway serve as producers.

That will then be followed by “American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden,” which will premiere on March 10. The upcoming docuseries offers...

Exclusive: Amy Hobby and Hard Working Movies founder Lori Cheatle (Mantangi/Maya/M.I.A) have teamed up for new music-oriented production venture Record Breaker Films+.

The company is developing and producing a range of music projects and will combine screenings with live events, merchandising, and director-to-audience collaborations.

Record Breaker’s initial slate is due to be revealed soon. The company’s Tribeca documentary 1-800-on-her-own, about singer Ani Difranco, opens at New York’s Film Forum in April.

The outfit has also struck a partnership with bi-coastal creative marketing agency IHeartComix (Ihc) to produce multiple films. Ihc has recently worked on the 500-capacity Rolling Stones concert with Lady Gaga in New York for the release of Hackney Diamonds, the Olivia Rodrigo Guts World Tour Bus Experience and the immersive fan destination and launch event for Billie Eilish’s second album Happier Than Ever. The company...

The holidays are coming, and if the weather outside is not to your liking, maybe binging on some excellent music documentaries could save the day

Focusing on Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance as one of her key live performances up to that moment, the film focuses on everything that was involved for her as an artist to reach such a peak, and the quality of the insights might also lie in the fact that Beyoncé also produced and directed this documentary herself.

Keith Richards: Under the Influence (2015)

Taking a look at the musical legend and an intriguing character that is Rolling Stone’s Keith Richards was an intriguing prospect that could have gone awry at any point, but the film’s director, Morgan Neville, was able to escape all the possible traps and come up with a film that is so easy to watch.

Miss Americana (2020)

The devoted fans of Taylor Swift...

Workers in the nonfiction entertainment division of RadicalMedia are seeking representation from the Writers Guild of America East.

The guild revealed the organizing effort in a memo Wednesday, with an “overwhelming majority” of the 65-member bargaining unit in support. The Wgae also called for voluntary recognition from management at RadicalMedia, which has produced documentaries including Summer of Soul, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, What Happened, Miss Simone? and Hollywood Black.

The decision to organize “reflects our collective commitment to fostering a collaborative, equitable, and respectful work environment that aligns with RadicalMedia’s core values and aspirations: using storytelling in radical new ways to create a more fair and equitable world,” the newly formed union’s members wrote in an open letter on Wednesday.

In the letter, workers explained that they hope to achieve contract language around workplace conditions, as well as job security and comprehensive benefits.

RadicalMedia, the production company behind such projects as “Summer of Soul,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and the filmed Broadway production of “Hamilton,” unionized Wednesday with the Writers Guild of America East (Wgae).

Emphasizing its goal of collective bargaining, the development came after workers at A+E Factual Studios organized with the Wgae, continuing a trend of unionization among nonfiction production studios. According to a statement sent to press, “an overwhelming majority” of RadicalMedia’s 65-member bargaining unit signed union cards.

“Management at RadicalMedia must respect their workers and recognize their union without delay or interference,” Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, president of the Writers Guild of America East, said in a statement. “Nonfiction television and film workers deserve contracts worthy of their hard work and the enormous value they bring to their sector of the entertainment industry.”

“Our decision to form a union should not be seen as an expression of dissatisfaction, but...

ESPN Films has greenlit a “30 for 30” documentary about Billie Jean King, which is now in production with Ridley Scott Associates and Story Syndicate, in association with Elton John’s Rocket Sports.

The docu is being touted as “the unfiltered, untold story of how King broke the rules and proved her critics wrong.” The film is told in King’s own voice and centers around one year that brings her life and career into focus: 1973.

Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff (“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark”) the doc promises to shed new light on King’s life and her transformative impact on sports and society.

“The legacy of Billie Jean King is like none other,” says Garbus. “She is a generational athletic talent, a pioneer in women’s sports, and a leader in the fight for equal pay and against discrimination in sports and society.

This is not the documentary renaissance we hoped for. Despite its 2023 Oscar win for “Navalny,” CNN pulled back on non-fiction production. Non-fiction programming at Showtime Networks, which produced Oscar-nominated “Attica” in 2022, is no more.

“The New York Times Presents” series, which produced titles like “The Killing of Breonna Taylor” and “Framing Britney Spears,” is being phased out in favor of integrating non-fiction video into the media brand. Hot Docs is on the ropes; Participant, which produced documentaries like “An Inconvenient Truth,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” and “American Factory,” closed last month.

And then there’s Netflix, which is still very much in the documentary game under Adam Del Deo, Netflix VP of original documentary films and limited series — and can afford to be with nearly 270 million global subscribers. However, it’s a specific sort of gameplay: For tight, high-quality nonfiction work that’s heartwarming, or thrilling, or stars a celebrity,...

Music movies are having a moment — if, indeed, they ever stopped having one. Take the pop-music biopic. There are times, like right now, when it surges in popularity, yet the form has never gone out of style. And music documentaries, a staple of the indie-film world, have only proliferated during the streaming era. This means that they have to compete for visibility, but a ton of them are getting made and (mostly) getting seen. They’ve become a happy epidemic.

A few, like “Amy” or “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?,” are popular and vital enough to have carved out a place in the culture — and, in the case of both those films, to have inspired the creation of a biopic. I have it on good authority that when you’re trying to put together a music documentary, the prospect of it spawning a biopic can be a key selling point.

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,...

Igor Martinovic is an Emmy-nominated cinematographer whose work includes “House of Cards,” “The Night Of,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and the Showtime limited series “George & Tammy,” but the best advice he ever got was not from a fellow cinematographer, a teacher or even a director he was working with.

Instead, Martinovic told TheWrap, it came from “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” screenwriter and “American Gigolo” and “First Reformed” director Paul Schrader, in an interview Schrader gave about what he and director Martin Scorsese were trying to do when they made “Taxi Driver.”

“He was talking about (Robert De Niro’s character) Travis Bickle, and he said they were trying to make a documentary of Travis’ mind,” Martinovic said. “That was the idea that taught me the most about filmmaking, the idea that you’re actually making visuals that represent somebody’s state of mind.

“So on ‘George & Tammy,...

MGM+ has given the green light to Hollywood Black, a documentary series from director Justin Simien that aims to serve as “a definitive chronicle of a century of the Black experience in Hollywood.”

The four-part series, based on the work of scholar Donald Bogle, is being produced by Simien’s Culture Machine, Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi’s Significant Productions, and the Academy Award-winning production company RadicalMedia.

“We are thrilled to work with Justin Simien, Jeffrey Schwarz, RadicalMedia, and to expand our prolific creative partnership with Forest and Nina,” Michael Wright, head of MGM+, said in a statement. “Hollywood Black, like other recent MGM+ docuseries, is an entertaining and thoughtful look at a vital part of American culture, examining the evolution of Black cinema and the talented artists who built it. It is a timely and relevant look at the Black experience in Hollywood.”

Simien’s credits include directing the 2014 film Dear White People,...

Netflix executive Lisa Nishimura backed some of the streamer’s biggest successes – Tiger King, The Tinder Swindler, The Power of the Dog, Making a Murderer, and American Factory – but in an era of corporate cost-cutting, it wasn’t enough to save her job.

Related Story Netflix Vets Lisa Nishimura & Ian Bricke Depart In Film Group Reorg Related Story Omar Epps Boards Netflix's Limited Series 'The Perfect Couple' Related Story IFC Center's John Vanco Joins Netflix To Oversee Programming For Streamer's Theaters

Her imminent departure as VP of independent film and documentary features, after a 16-year stint at Netflix, has come as a particular shock to the nonfiction film community, which saw her build Netflix into a dominant force in documentary and become, in the process, one of Netflix’s most visible execs.

(L-r) Lisa Nishimura, Taylor Swift and Ted Sarandos attend the Netflix 2019 Golden Globes After Party

“Lisa...

Twenty-five years ago, Liz Garbus pulled out her Cover Girl compact at the Oscars just before the winner of best documentary was announced. The Manhattan-raised filmmaker didn’t think her 1998 doc, The Farm: Angola, USA, which she co-directed with Jonathan Stack, would win, but wanted to be prepared. The caked powder spilled all over her gown. “As soon as they did not call us, I thought, ‘Phew, I don’t need to go up there with powder all over my dress,'” she says of the fleeting moment when losing felt like a blessing. “And then being like, ‘Wait, no,'” she recalls of the disappointment settling in.

Netflix vp original documentary features and series Adam Del Deo — then just an aspiring doc producer — kept close track of Garbus’ prolific career after seeing The Farm at the Sundance Film Festival. He was blown away by her deep curiosity and ability...

February is Black History Month, and with such a wide array of streaming options, there’s no shortage of options for learning about Black heritage and celebrating Black excellence.

Amazon Prime Video

Among the programming being promoted in Prime Video’s “Celebrating Black History Month” lineup are the new second season of “Harlem,” which follows four female friends from Harlem as they navigate their love lives and careers. There’s also the new original unscripted series “Coach Prime,” which chronicles Deion Sanders in his third year coaching football at Jackson State. Other noteworthy selections include Regina King‘s Oscar-nominated “One Night in Miami,” the acclaimed documentaries “My Name is Pauli Murray” and “I Am Not Your Negro,” the Emmy-nominated romance “Sylvie’s Love,” Spike Lee‘s “Chi-Raq,” the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect” starring Jennifer Hudson, the Oscar-winning stage adaptation “Fences” from Denzel Washington, who also stars in Prime offerings “Devil in a Blue Dress...

Liz Garbus, director of the controversial Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan”, is opening up about her eye-opening insights into what Prince Harry and Meghan Markle claim to have experienced.

Garbus, the Oscar-nominated director of such acclaimed documentaries as “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and the HBO series “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark”, spoke with Vanity Fair about how her own involvement with Buckingham Palace gave her a unique look into what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex claim to have experienced.

“For instance, Buckingham Palace said that we didn’t reach out for comment [on the docuseries] when we did,” Garbus said.

Read More: Palace Insiders: Prince William Ready To ‘Push Back Any Wild Claims’ In Harry & Meghan’s Netflix Docuseries

“They did that to discredit us… and by discrediting us, they can discredit the content of the show,” she noted, adding, “We lived through some of those moments that were a...

Exclusive: Summer of Soul producer RadicalMedia has hired New York attorney and business strategist Candice Cook Simmons as Chief Strategy Officer.

Cook Simmons joins the company from the Cook Law Group, which she founded in 2010. Her professional background includes entertainment, consumer products, technology and fintech.

She has served as an adviser to Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail and Chef Dominique Ansel; was the attorney and strategist behind the trademark execution of the Cronut pastry; and is an adviser to TheHistoryMakers in Chicago, the single largest archival collection of Black oral history, which recently was acquired by the Library of Congress.

“We have ambitious plans for RadicalMedia,” said CEO Jon Kamen, who co-founded the company with Frank Scherma. “The addition of Candice to our executive management team will be a tremendous asset to helping us accomplish those goals.”

“This is a team of visionaries, executors and thought leaders, and I’m excited...

The Grammys took place in April, but we might not be done with music award winners just yet. Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Sheryl Crow, and The Beatles are the subjects of documentary programs that are eligible for this year’s Emmys. Will they be recognized by the TV academy just like they have been by the Recording Academy?

Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” didn’t win any Grammys, alas, despite its seven nominations including Album of the Year. But her Disney+ special “Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles” is eligible for Emmys and is being submitted for Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special, as well as for its music direction, cinematography, and sound mixing. However, Eilish is not a credited producer or music director on “Love Letter,” so she herself won’t take home an Emmy if it wins its top category. Alas, the Grammy and Oscar winner...

“Summer of Soul” is the first proper music-centered film to land an Oscar nomination in Best Documentary Feature since 2015’s “Amy.” Despite that gap, the Questlove-directed doc will likely win the Oscar, much like “Amy” did. The film has won dozens of awards leading up to the Oscars, including the BAFTA, the Critics Choice Documentary Award and the Independent Spirit Award, making it a clear favorite to win the big prize.

The early-to-mid-2010s was a boon for music documentaries, starting with “Searching for Sugar Man” (2012), about singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez. The pattern continued with “20 Feet from Stardom” (2013), about the lives of various backup singers like Darlene Love. “Amy” made it a trend two years later with its chronicle of the strategic rise and fall of British singer Amy Winehouse. That same year, “What Happened, Miss Simone?”, about the life of Nina Simone, was also nominated. “Searching for Sugar Man,...

Rory Kennedy and Mark Bailey’s Moxie Films has partnered with Imagine Documentaries to develop and co-produce a slate of new nonfiction fare.

The partnership with the nonfiction division of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment and Moxie Films is a multi-year agreement.

Headed by Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes, Imagine Documentaries recently co-produced Kennedy’s “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” which Bailey wrote and produced. The Netflix docu, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is an investigation of two Boeing 737 Max crashes that occurred within five months of each other in 2018 and 2019 that killed a combined 346 people. Netflix began streaming the docu on Feb. 18.

Kennedy and Bailey will develop and produce projects with the full resources of the label, which currently has its own first-look output deal with Apple TV Plus and a multi-picture arrangement with Imax for large-format content.

“This partnership enables Moxie...

Maverick artist Nam June Paik will be the subject of a new feature-length documentary that will highlight unseen footage and archival materials. The currently untitled production will be completed in 2022. Oscar nominee and “Minari” star Steven Yeun and hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy have joined the project as executive producers.

Paik is often referred to as the “Father of Video Art” and was a prophet of the internet, as well as a visionary and futurist. Adopting technology to transform the way we see the world, he was one of the first to use television as an artist’s canvas and invented the video synthesizer. In the 1970s, he coined the term “Electronic Superhighway” and predicted the future of communication in the digital age. He launched a series of the world’s first global satellite art events, bridging the gap between East and West, pop and avant-garde and all genres of art...

Who really was Jacques-Yves Cousteau?

For Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, Cousteau was part of the cultural universe. Not only did he take us on his explorations of life under on the sea on his beloved ship the Calypso, he and co-director Louis Malle mesmerized viewers with his Cannes and Oscar-winning 1956 documentary “The Silent World” (the first non-fiction film to win the Palme d’Or). He went on to win two more Oscars and 10 Emmys (from 40 nominations) for his television series and documentaries. Cousteau also managed to find the time to write 50 plus books. He co-invented the revolutionary Aqua-Lung which allowed longer deep-sea dives, created the environmental advocacy group the Cousteau Society in 1974 and, five years before his death in 1997, addressed the historical first Earth Summit.

Tthe new National Geographic documentary “Becoming Cousteau” from two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus reveals just how complex and complicated an individual the adventurer was.

Charlie Chaplin was singled out for a honorary Oscar at the first Academy Awards in 1929 for his “versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing, and producing ‘The Circus.'” Forty-three years later, he was feted a second time by the academy for his “incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century. The following year he won his only competitive Oscar for the score of “Limelight,” which had not been released in Los Angeles during its initial 1952 run.

This year, the new documentary “The Real Charlie Chaplin” could strike Oscar gold as well. The film made the rounds on the fall film festival circuit before its theatrical release on November 19 and its Showtime debut on December 11. And it wouldn’t be the first biography of a show business figure to claim the prize.

“The Real Charlie Chaplin” tells Chaplin’s life story, framed by his own recorded words,...

Once upon a time, asking audiences to watch a documentary was like asking them to do their homework or eat their broccoli — sure, it’d be good for ’em, but they probably wouldn’t have a ton of fun doing it.

Early docs were often weighed down by heavy topics (a lot of war content) and dry, straightforward presentations (think newsreels). Eventually, filmmakers began introducing cinematic touches and more dynamism to documentary storytelling, though progress was slow. In 1922, “Nanook of the North,” the first feature doc, incorporated staged and fictionalized elements. The Sixties brought direct cinema and cinema verité, the fly-on-the-wall style of the Maysles brothers, Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, and so many others. In the Eighties and Nineties, cable expanded documentary’s reach to wider audiences, and in the early 2000s films like “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “March of the Penguins,” and “An Inconvenient Truth” became legitimate box-office breakthroughs. Still, the...

Documentaries are front and center at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, far more than usual, with 18 new releases in the main program (not classics) and a total of four from NatGeo Documentary Films. How did that happen? NatGeo is no stranger to quality nonfiction, from Oscar, BAFTA, and Emmy-winning “Free Solo” to Oscar-nominated Syria-under-siege documentary “The Cave.”

For one thing, one of the films booked for last year’s canceled festival is in the 2021 selection, as Tff co-director Julie Huntsinger welcomed rookie filmmaker Max Lowe back with “Torn,” the true story of a family hit hard by the loss of his father, legendary mountaineer Alex Lowe, killed in a Tibet avalanche in 1999.

Much like Bing Liu’s Oscar-winning “Minding the Gap,” “Torn” explores untapped emotions as Lowe seeks answers to complex and uncharted family dynamics, helped by his younger brothers, his mother, and her second husband, his father’s mountain partner,...

Documentaries are front and center at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, far more than usual, with 18 new releases in the main program (not classics) and a total of four from NatGeo Documentary Films. How did that happen? NatGeo is no stranger to quality nonfiction, from Oscar, BAFTA, and Emmy-winning “Free Solo” to Oscar-nominated Syria-under-siege documentary “The Cave.”

For one thing, one of the films booked for last year’s canceled festival is in the 2021 selection, as Tff co-director Julie Huntsinger welcomed rookie filmmaker Max Lowe back with “Torn,” the true story of a family hit hard by the loss of his father, legendary mountaineer Alex Lowe, killed in a Tibet avalanche in 1999.

Much like Bing Liu’s Oscar-winning “Minding the Gap,” “Torn” explores untapped emotions as Lowe seeks answers to complex and uncharted family dynamics, helped by his younger brothers, his mother, and her second husband, his father’s mountain partner,...

Among the 21 Emmy nominations Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” scooped up this year is the seventh career citation for two-time champ Liz Garbus, who is nominated for directing the show’s season 4 finale, titled “The Wilderness.” “I was really lucky to helm that very special episode, and I’m so pleased that it’s resonated for people,” the director says in response to her individual recognition from the TV academy. In our exclusive video interview (watch above), Garbus talks through the preparation process for the aforenamed installment, the psychological crux of June’s (Elisabeth Moss) arc, and the intimate nature of Fred’s (Joseph Fiennes) salvaging.

The series is based on Margaret Atwood‘s 1985 novel of the same name, which is set in a dystopian near-future America, where women are enslaved as ‘handmaids’ due to plummeting birth-rates and forced to bear children for the ruling class in the new authoritarian Gilead theocracy.

Last Year’s Winner: “The Apollo”

Still Eligible: No.

Hot Streak: After Netflix took home back-to-back trophies in 2016 and 2017 (“13th”), HBO has rattled off three consecutive wins in the Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special category: “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling” (2018), “Leaving Neverland” (2019), and “The Apollo” (2020). HBO remains the most-awarded network in the category’s 23-year-history, with 11 total wins.

Fun Fact: This year, 78 documentary or nonfiction specials made the Emmy ballot, falling just three submissions shy of qualifying for an additional nomination. Due to the sliding scale the Emmys instituted last year, categories with 20-80 submissions will nominate five projects, while categories with 81-160 submissions will nominate six projects. Had a few networks known an extra nomination was that close, perhaps they would have scrounged up three more documentaries for the ballot.

Notable Ineligible Series: “Hemingway” (the three-episode PBS documentary is running in the Documentary Series category); “My Octopus Teacher,...

The documentary awards race always begins at Sundance, where “Flee” (Neon) and “Summer of Soul” (Searchlight) broke out as Oscar frontrunners; Tribeca debuted high-profile “The Lost Leonardo” (Sony Pictures Classics) and “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” (Focus), while Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Underground” (AppleTV+) and “Val” (A24/Amazon) played well at Cannes.

Every September, the Toronto International Film Festival documentary lineup introduces more top non-fiction titles to the list of Oscar contenders — and this year, without many clear frontrunners, TIFF’s influence will be greater than ever. In the good old days when the TIFF selection was a sprawling smorgasbord, Thom Powers lead the TIFF documentary programmers through an enormous number of submissions to cull 22 selections. In the slimmed-down pandemic era, his team had to winnow TIFF Docs down to 13 features (announced so far)..

“Every year it’s a painful part of the process,” Powers told IndieWire, who is able...

The documentary awards race always begins at Sundance, where “Flee” (Neon) and “Summer of Soul” (Searchlight) broke out as Oscar frontrunners; Tribeca debuted high-profile “The Lost Leonardo” (Sony Pictures Classics) and “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” (Focus), while Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Underground” (AppleTV+) and “Val” (A24/Amazon) played well at Cannes.

Every September, the Toronto International Film Festival documentary lineup introduces more top non-fiction titles to the list of Oscar contenders — and this year, without many clear frontrunners, TIFF’s influence will be greater than ever. In the good old days when the TIFF selection was a sprawling smorgasbord, Thom Powers lead the TIFF documentary programmers through an enormous number of submissions to cull 22 selections. In the slimmed-down pandemic era, his team had to winnow TIFF Docs down to 13 features (announced so far)..

“Every year it’s a painful part of the process,” Powers told IndieWire, who is able...

Archewell Productions, the Netflix-based shingle launched by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, is getting into the animation business. Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, is the creator behind “Pearl,” described as a “family series that centers on the adventures of a 12-year-old girl, who is inspired by a variety of influential women from history.”

Credited as The Duchess of Sussex in the release, Markle will executive produce “Pearl” (which is a working title) with David Furnish, Carolyn Soper, Liz Garbus, and Dan Cogan. Amanda Rynda has been tapped as showrunner and executive producer.

“Like many girls her age, our heroine Pearl is on a journey of self-discovery as she tries to overcome life’s daily challenges,” Markle said in a statement. “I’m thrilled that Archewell Productions, partnered with the powerhouse platform of Netflix, and these incredible producers, will together bring you this new animated series, which celebrates extraordinary women throughout history.

Emmy voters had a song in their hearts when they went to vote in the 2021 documentary categories. Of the projects nominated for outstanding documentary or nonfiction special, three out of five focused on superstar musicians: “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” “Tina” and “Framing Britney Spears (The New York Times Presents).”

HBO’s look at the Bee Gees led the music documentary crop in overall nominations, with six. Besides outstanding doc, the film about the Brothers Gibb is also up for direction, writing, editing, sound editing and sound mixing in the documentary/nonfiction division.

HBO was also behind the Tina Turner doc “Tina,” which landed three total nominations. It’s up in directing and sound mixing categories on top of its outstanding documentary bid.

“Framing Britney Spears,” which focused on Spears’ private-life travails and not her music, was destined to get fewer nods than competitors, with...

As Britney Spears’ legal battle ravages on, the buzzy television documentary surrounding the pop star’s conservatorship and the #FreeBritney movement has been nominated for two Emmys.

“Framing Britney Spears,” which was produced by the New York Times for FX and Hulu, has been nominated for outstanding documentary or nonfiction special and picture editing for a nonfiction program.

The Emmy nominations for “Framing Britney Spears” come just one day before Spears is expected to appear in court on July 14 for her latest hearing in her ongoing conservatorship saga.

Spears is currently fighting to have her father, Jamie Spears, removed from and terminate the conservatorship altogether. The singer is currently in talks with a major Hollywood power lawyer, who she hopes the court will approve to represent her on the ongoing matters, as she works to terminate the conservatorship that she has been under for 13 years. In 2008, her father became the...

Is Questlove’s “Summer of Soul” a concert film with sequences that put the music in the context of race relations in the late ’60s, or is it an examination of a crucial time in American history that has one hell of a soundtrack?

It’s both, and it’s neither. The feature directorial debut of Ahmir Thompson, who goes by the name of Questlove in his position as leader of the band the Roots, is a documentary in which politics and music are inextricably linked, in which culture flows from the church to the street to the concert stage.

You can come for the music and stay for the politics, or vice versa; either way, it’s a vibrant document of an inspiring event that never loses sight of what that event meant for a community, a city and a culture.

The film was one of the opening-night presentations...

Some of the documentary features vying for 2021 Emmys may seem familiar. That’s because a bunch of them pushed through the ultra-long Oscar season last year, and some landed on the Oscar shortlist of 15, only to be left off the final five nominations. Last year’s revised Emmy rules dictate that no Oscar nominees will be chasing one of two Primetime Emmy Award categories for features, Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special or Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. That’s why you can count out of the Emmy running the Oscar-winning “My Octopus Teacher” (Netflix) and four nominees “Collective” (Magnolia), “Time” (Amazon), “Crip Camp” (Netflix), and “The Mole Agent” (Gravitas Ventures).

Last year, the Television Academy forged a stronger divide between the Emmy Awards and the Oscars to clear up some of the confusion that has reigned as movies have double-dipped from one to the other. The Academy has done its...

Some of the documentary features vying for 2021 Emmys may seem familiar. That’s because a bunch of them pushed through the ultra-long Oscar season last year, and some landed on the Oscar shortlist of 15, only to be left off the final five nominations. Last year’s revised Emmy rules dictate that no Oscar nominees will be chasing one of two Primetime Emmy Award categories for features, Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special or Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. That’s why you can count out of the Emmy running the Oscar-winning “My Octopus Teacher” (Netflix) and four nominees “Collective” (Magnolia), “Time” (Amazon), “Crip Camp” (Netflix), and “The Mole Agent” (Gravitas Ventures).

Last year, the Television Academy forged a stronger divide between the Emmy Awards and the Oscars to clear up some of the confusion that has reigned as movies have double-dipped from one to the other. The Academy has done its...

The life and career of Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, is the subject of an upcoming feature from National Geographic Documentary Films, the production company announced Monday.

The film simply titled “Fauci” is directed by Emmy winners John Hoffman and Janet Tobias (“Unseen Enemy”). The movie is also produced by Dan Cogan (“Icarus”) and Liz Garbus and Story Syndicate.

“Fauci” gives a look at the professional career of Dr. Fauci up through his experience in the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of those interviewed for the film will include President George W. Bush, Bill Gates and Bono.

Dubbed “America’s Doctor” by The New Yorker, Dr. Fauci has become America’s most unlikely cultural icon, with his signature blend of scientific acumen and candor in the face of Covid-19. He’s been spoofed by Brad Pitt on “SNL” and memorialized by Fauci fans who’ve put his face...

Dr. Anthony Fauci was a respected and dedicated public servant, but one who could walk the streets without turning heads or being recognized.

Then Covid-19 hit. Fauci became a vital source of information during the pandemic, with his “just the facts” style acting as a necessary counter to President Trump’s blind insistence that ‘one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” Fauci found himself on coffee mugs and t-shirts, as well as spoofed on “SNL.” He was a hero for those who supported applying a science-based approach to dealing with a worsening public health crisis, but not everyone was a fan. Fauci has also had contend with death threats and the ire of some far-right talking heads.

Now, Fauci will be the subject of a new feature length documentary, “Fauci,” from Emmy winners John Hoffman (“Sleepless in America”) and Janet Tobias (“Unseen Enemy”). Academy Award winner Dan Cogan...

While Netflix draws so much awards attention each year because of its robust slate of movies from top-tier directors, it was Amazon Prime Video that actually became the first streaming platform to ever win an Oscar for a narrative feature. Back at the 2017 ceremony, Amazon won three Academy Awards — two for “Manchester by the Sea” (Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay) and one for the international feature “The Salesman.” (Netflix won its first Oscar that year for the documentary short “White Helmets.”)

Netflix has dominated the conversation in the years since — last year, the service received 24 Oscar nominations, the most for any studio — but Amazon is back again this season with a major Best Picture contender in “One Night in Miami” and several other potential nominees.

Ahead, the new movies on Amazon Prime Video in January that are serious awards contenders.

January 2021

“One Night In Miami” (January 15)

The feature directorial...

With an ambitious slate of contenders already, Netflix has shown no signs of slowing down its awards season output in the early days of 2021.

The streaming giant has a pair of new movies that could contend at the 2021 Oscars in April: the heartrending drama “Pieces of a Woman” (out January 7) and the thriller “The White Tiger” (out January 22).

Those Netflix movies join an already impressive roster of features vying for Academy Awards attention in 2021, including “Mank,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” and “The Prom.”

Should one of those features win the Oscars’ top prize, it would be a historic moment. Netflix has yet to win an Oscar for Best Picture, but the studio has become a dominant force in the awards conversation over the last few years. In 2020, Netflix received more Oscar nominations (24) than any other studio, including 10 for Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman”: Best Picture,...

Six top film documentary directors will reveal the secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with key 2021 guild and Oscar contenders this month. Each person will participate in two video discussions to be published on Tuesday, December 15, at 5:00 p.m. Pt; 8:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Daniel Montgomery and a group chat with Daniel and all of the group together.

RSVP today to this specific event by clicking here to book your reservation. Or click here to RSVP for our entire ongoing panel series. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

This “Meet the Experts” panel welcomes the following 2021 guild and Oscar contenders:

“All In: The Fight for Democracy” (Amazon Prime): Liz Garbus

Garbus is a two-time Oscar nominee for “What Happened, Miss Simone?...

Tribeca has long been a difficult thing to understand. First came the nonprofit Tribeca Film Institute and the namesake festival, founded in the wake of 9/11 with a mission to revitalize lower Manhattan’s arts economy. Then came Tribeca Enterprises, a for-profit offshoot that quickly took over festival-producing duties. For nearly as long as Tribeca has been a brand, it’s held numerous identities — some overlapping, many conflicting.

Freed from its New York mandate, Tfi flourished over two decades to become a prominent funder and mentor of independent filmmakers across the globe. More visibly, Tribeca Enterprises grew, too, building out the Tribeca Film Festival and branded-content agency Tribeca Studios — both of which were powered by deep-pocketed companies seeking something different with their ad budgets.

While remaining legally separate, the two disparate entities were shepherded by some of the same people and together created the Tribeca brand. New York civic pride. Worldwide filmmaker funding.

Georgia politician Stacey Abrams is “the cat’s pajamas … one of the great females on the planet and somebody who has our best interests at heart.” That’s according to Whoopi Goldberg, who interviewed Abrams about the documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” which screened at the 2020 New York Film Festival and is available to watch on Amazon Prime. Watch their in-depth chat above.

Abrams rose to national prominence when she ran for governor of Georgia in 2018. She was up against Brian Kemp, who was not only her opponent but the secretary of state in charge of overseeing the election he was running in. Kemp won by a narrow margin amid allegations that he had used his power to suppress Black votes in the state, and since then Abrams has been an outspoken advocate for voting rights.

SEECan ‘Nomadland’ follow its Golden Lion grand prize in Venice with a Best Picture Oscar?...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

58th New York Film Festival

An annual celebration in the finest cinematic offerings, the New York Film Festival has been a treasure trove of the latest work from seasoned auteurs along with new discoveries throughout its storied history. Now in its 58th year, the festival’s slate will be available to a wider audience than ever before. Due to the pandemic forcing theaters in New York to continue with their shutdown, Film at Lincoln Center has reimagined the event, offering nationwide virtual screenings with limited rentals as well as drive-in screenings in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. We’ve shared 20 films to watch and stay tuned for coverage here.

“The whole world ’bout to testify,” Janelle Monáe promises on the song and music video for “Turntables.” It is the multifaceted artist’s first song since 2019’s “That’s Enough,” for the Disney+ live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp.

The song is featured in All In: The Fight for Democracy. Directed by Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés (The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion), the Amazon Studios documentary is about voter suppression which is being released in tandem with the studio’s #AllInForVoting bipartisan campaign. The campaign intends to inspire voter turnout during the 2020 presidential election season. And what is more inspiring than a Janelle Monáe song? Her last album, Dirty Computer, which was released two years ago, ended with the anthemic “Americans.”

Working with long-time collaborator Nate “Rocket” Wonder, Monáe amplifies the voices of people putting themselves on the front line. Directed by Child, the song’s accompanying emotion...

Janelle Monáe has been gerrymandered. Back when Atlanta’s Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was running for office in 2017, last-minute changes to where she qualified to vote kept her from casting a ballot for Bottoms. Stacey Abrams’ widely contested gubernatorial race against Brian Kemp a year later proved triggering for Monáe as 300,000 Georgians were incorrectly deemed ineligible to vote.

“I saw Brian Kemp steal the election,” she says, calling from Los Angeles where she currently resides. Thankfully, her voting status had been sorted out before Abrams ran against Kemp so Monáe...

Throughout Emmy season, IndieWire will be evaluating the top contenders for TV’s most prestigious prize, and it all starts here. At the bottom of this page are IndieWire TV Critic and Deputy Editor Ben Travers’ predictions for Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special. This article will be updated throughout the coming months, along with all our predictions, to reflect an up-to-the-minute state of the race. Make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest coverage on the 2020 Emmys, including breaking news, analysis, interviews, podcasts, FYC event coverage, reviews of all the awards contenders, and more. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be given out the week of September 14. The 72nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will take place virtually on Sunday, September 20. (See our awards calendar for a more detailed breakdown of important dates.) ABC is broadcasting the ceremony.

Last Year’s Winner: “Leaving Neverland”

Still Eligible: No.

Hot Streak: In the last 10 years,...

Stacey Abrams never intended to become a documentarian. However, after the former tax attorney and Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives lost the 2018 election for Governor, with likely voter suppression orchestrated by winner Brian Kemp, it’s safe to say she was angry. And when it comes to the passion necessary to produce a documentary, angry isn’t the worst place to start.

“I am always angry,” she said in a phone interview. “If you remember Bruce Banner in ‘The Avengers’ movie, when he’s in the midst of a fight against the aliens and Captain America says, ‘We need you to get angry,’ he says, ‘That’s my script, Captain: I’m always angry!”

But Abrams is angry “in a righteous indignation, not a hostile way,” she said. “It fuels my passion and my drive to get to engage people and give them the tools to build the world they want.

Stacey Abrams never intended to become a documentarian. However, after the former tax attorney and Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives lost the 2018 election for Governor, with likely voter suppression orchestrated by winner Brian Kemp, it’s safe to say she was angry. And when it comes to the passion necessary to produce a documentary, angry isn’t the worst place to start.

“I am always angry,” she said in a phone interview. “If you remember Bruce Banner in ‘The Avengers’ movie, when he’s in the midst of a fight against the aliens and Captain America says, ‘We need you to get angry,’ he says, ‘That’s my script, Captain: I’m always angry!”

But Abrams is angry “in a righteous indignation, not a hostile way,” she said. “It fuels my passion and my drive to get to engage people and give them the tools to build the world they want.

With the United States presidential election only 53 days away, talk of voter fraud and mailboxes being torn away from communities are dominating media headlines. An outline of the history of voter suppression is timely, urgent, and sobering for every American citizen claiming to care about voter safety and protection of our democratic rights, which makes Amazon’s release of a new documentary detailing these issues all the more vital. Co-directed by Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortes (Precious), All In: The Fight For Democracy is the perfect civics lesson for the current moment.

The film precedes as a series of talking-head interviews where prominent figures like Eric Holder, Robert Young, and Carol Anderson narrate and take us through American history. Serving as the central subject of the documentary and also one of its producers, the film begins with Stacey Abrams, a long-time advocate for voter’s rights who is also interviewed throughout the film,...

Janelle Monáe calls out injustice on the new single “Turntables.” This is her first piece of original music since releasing her Grammy-nominated 2018 album Dirty Computer.

For “Turntables,” Monáe worked with some of her most trusted collaborators: Nate “Rocket” Wonder, Roman GianArthur and George A. Peters II. “The table ’bout to turn,” she repeats as the song opens. As the track progresses, she calls America “a lie,” adding that “the whole world ’bout to testify” against it.

The song is featured in All In: The Fight for Democracy, a new documentary...