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Abramorama, an independent distribution company, has nabbed U.S. rights to the documentary “Chasing Childhood.”

The film, centering on the rapidly changing landscape of contemporary childhood and parenting, is having its online premiere on June 24 followed by a panel discussion. It will be available to rent on digital platforms starting on June 25.

“Chasing Childhood” explores the growing trend for children to be overscheduled, overburdened and overprotected, yet still unprepared for the modern world. It features interviews with psychology professor Peter Gray, “How to Raise an Adult” author Julie Lythcott-Haims, public school advocate and former superintendent Michael Hynes, and Lenore Skenazy, who created the “Let Grow” nonprofit that advocates for children’s independence.

The documentary, which was directed by Margaret Munzer Loeb and Eden Wurmfeld, first screened at the Doc NYC Film Festival and later played at the Annapolis Film Festival, Portland International Film Festival and other regional events.

“We hope...

American children have become increasingly over-scheduled, overworked, and over monitored in recent years. “Chasing Childhood” aims to change that with a simple, but earnest message: Let kids be kids. Margaret Munzer Loeb and Eden Wurmfeld’s upcoming documentary film takes a stand against helicopter parenting and, as one of its subjects states, notes that “when you mortgage your kid’s childhood, it’s a debt that can never be repaid.” The film explores the root causes of helicopter parenting and possible solutions for eschewing harmful parenting strategies and empowering the nation’s youth.

The “Chasing Childhood” synopsis notes that the film “explores a phenomenon affecting kids from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Free play and independence have all but disappeared, supplanted by relentless perfectionism and record high anxiety and depression. What’s lost goes well beyond our idyllic conceptions of childhood past. When kids don’t play unsupervised by adults,...

“Chasing Childhood,” an upcoming documentary on raising children in America, has released a new trailer. The 80-minute film is set to premiere on Nov. 11 via online screening from Doc NYC.

The trailer opens with a scene of an elementary school classroom, in which students share their after-school activities with their teacher, such as hip-hop dance classes, basketball practice and French lessons. The clip also introduces a number of families who open up about their parenting experiences and growing up in a high-pressure family home. Through clips of the interviewees’ childhoods, the film examines how over-parenting across the country — meticulously overseeing everything from kids’ extracurricular activities to academic performance — has resulted in an environment that negates childhood.

In response to growing helicopter parenting and college admission pressure, directors Margaret Munzer Loeb and Eden Wurmfeld follow the lives of families who receive guidance from education professionals on restoring joy and freedom to their children.

Doc NYC, America’s largest documentary festival and staple of the New York film community, announced the lineup for its 11th edition, running online November 11-19 and available to viewers across the US. The program includes new films about John Belushi, Pope Francis, Bill T. Jones, Jamal Khashoggi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Frank Zappa, and many more. The 2020 festival lineup includes 107 feature-length documentaries among over 200 films and dozens of events. Included are 23 World Premieres, 12 international or North American premieres, and 7 US premieres. Fifty-seven features (53% of the lineup) are directed or co-directed by women and 36 by Bipoc directors (34% of the feature program).

World Premieres at the festival include Nelson G. Navarrete and Maxx Caicedo’s “A La Calle,” Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s “The Meaning of Hitler,” Gong Cheng and Yung Chang’s “Wuhan Wuhan,” Sian-Pierre Regis’s “Duty Free,” Noah Hutton’s “In Silico,” Nancy Buirski’s “A Crime on the Bayou,...

Exclusive: Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, the Ric Burns documentary about the famed neurologist and author that the premiered this fall at the Telluride Film Festival, has been acquired by Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber. As part of the U.S. rights deal, the pic will open theatrically in May 2020 at Film Forum in New York, followed by a national rollout.

The documentary, which counts American Masters Pictures among its producers, will have its exclusive U.S. broadcast premiere in 2021 on PBS’ American Masters series.

Burns explores Sacks’ life and work as the renowned thinker shares details of his battles with drug addiction, homophobia, and a medical establishment that accepted his work only decades after the fact. It features exclusive interviews with Sacks done just weeks after he received a terminal cancer diagnosis, and months prior to his death in August 2015.

“We were very impressed by the sensitivity...