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The legacy of heroin kingpin Frank Lucas, whose story was dramatized in the 2007 narrative feature American Gangster, is the focus of a forthcoming documentary film.

Pusherman explores Lucas’ life through the lens of the lore surrounding Black gangsters and is set for DVD release from Mvd Entertainment Group on June 24. Documentarian and author Legs McNeil directs and narrates the movie.

The film features interviews with Mark Jacobson, the journalist whose New York magazine story initially shed light on Lucas’ operation. Other figures included in the project are crime writer Michael Daly, hip-hop historian Fab 5 Freddy and culture pundit Darius James. Pusherman will delve into how Lucas helped to redefine the drug trade, in addition to what his story said about New York City power structures and how he was embraced by the music community.

“Pusherman is the best Behind the Music episode ever done about a non-musical figure,” says Jacobson.

The Daily Beast’s Washington bureau chief has quit just five weeks after being hired, Hot Source has learned, leaving the site without a political editor just months before the election. His departure comes as most unionized journalists at the publication are preparing to flee at the end of next week after taking generous buyouts.

Martin Pengelly joined The Daily Beast last month from The Guardian, where he had served for 20 years. The well-regarded editor had become known as “the books guy” thanks to his almost uncanny ability to snag copies of buzzy books before their publication dates. Pengelly resigned from his new post late last week, but chief content and creative officer Joanna Coles and publisher and CEO Ben Sherwood (known to staffers as “Boanna”) begged him to keep the news from colleagues and continue working until next Friday, when nearly two dozen staffers who accepted the buyout are expected to leave the publication.

Directed by D.W.Young, ’Uncropped’ rediscovers the work of a New York photographer billed as one of the great chroniclers of the cultural history of America

Vienna-based Autlook Filmsales has acquired world rights, excluding the US and Canada, for the feature-length documentary Uncropped, exec produced by Wes Anderson, in advance of the film receiving its world premiere as the Centerpiece presentation of the Doc NYC festival on November 11.

Directed by D.W. Young, whose credits includeThe Booksellers, the film rediscovers the work of James Hamilton, one of the great chroniclers of the cultural history of the US. Working as a...