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The dynamic Kim Gordon had the formidable Sun Ra and His Arkestra in support at the Subaru Music Series in the Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage concert in Central Park on June 13, 2024 (the New York stop of her Live Nation worldwide tour for The Collective). Photo: Ed Bahlman, Anne Katrin Titze

From Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Stanley Nelson (co-founder of the multiple award-winning Firelight Media with Marcia Smith), executive producer on Christine Turner’s stellar documentary Sun Ra: Do The Impossible (a highlight in the 24th edition of the Tribeca Festival) was joined by music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman for a conversation on the creative force known as Sun Ra.

James Hamilton’s stunning 1981 portrait of Sun Ra in New York City Photo: James Hamilton

Two memorable SummerStage concerts in Central Park are the ones Sun Ra and His Arkestra opened for Sonic Youth on July 4, 1992 and...

The weather is just right for another season of the Rooftop Films Summer Series. The beloved annual festival is back, with IndieWire exclusively debuting the 2025 lineup. This year’s Summer Series will run from May 16 through August 22, and will include over 40 events, featuring new independent feature films, short film programs, family screenings, and live performances.

The U.S. premiere of Sean Byrne’s horror film “Dangerous Animals” is a highlight for the Rooftop Films slate; “Dangerous Animals” will have its world premiere during Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes before screening stateside at the Summer Series, with an in-person Q&a featuring director Byrne and cast members Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison, and Josh Heuston on Thursday, May 22.

Non-profit Rooftop Films annually celebrates independent films and filmmakers with one of the world’s longest running and largest outdoor festivals for indie film. The screenings take place in outdoor venues across New York City’s five boroughs,...

PBS’s “Nova” tackles a critical and timely issue this Wednesday with “Critical Condition: Health in Black America.” This special feature-length documentary, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson, takes a hard look at the dramatic health disparities between Black and White Americans. This isn’t just about statistics; it’s about the human stories behind them. Why do […]

Nova: Critical Condition: Health in Black America...

Funk music has been around since the 1960s, developing out of gospel, R&b and soul, with a distinct emphasis on “syncopated bass lines and steady, infectious drum grooves,” according to one description. But that’s an awfully academic way of putting it.

The most important thing: Funk makes you want to dance.

We Want the Funk!, a new documentary premiering Tuesday night on PBS stations, will have you moving in your recliner, on your living room dance floor or wherever you watch it. Directors Stanley Nelson and Nicole London join the latest episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to explore the music and its key innovators including James Brown, George Clinton and Sly Stone.

Doc Talk co-host John Ridley calls We Want the Funk! “perhaps the most joyous” cinematic work of the year. In addition to its broadcast premiere, the documentary is available on the PBS app and the PBS YouTube channel.

It’s an elusive dream for so many docmakers: to impact legislation, to find justice, to make a difference. To change the world. With Free Leonard Peltier, filmmakers Jesse Short Bull (Lakota Nation vs. United States) and David France (How To Survive a Plague) achieved their eponymous goal: Seven days before the world premiere of their film at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in January, President Joe Biden, in his last act before leaving office, issued a clemency order, commuting Peltier’s sentence to home confinement.

The Native American activist had served nearly 50 years in a federal prison, having been convicted of murder of two FBI agents in a shootout at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. Peltier’s attorneys and supporters would wage a decades-long battle through appeals, writs and petitions to circuit courts, federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and three U.S. presidents, alleging numerous...

The 27th edition of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, launching on April 3, will feature a lineup of 34 feature documentaries and 15 short docs. The Durham, N.C.-based, four-day doc film fest will kick off with Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe’s “Prime Minister, “about the life of former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

“Prime Minister” debuted at Sundance 2025, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award. The film is one of 16 Sundance feature docs screening at Full Frame this year. Others include U.S. Grand Jury Prize winner “Seeds,” “The Librarians,” “Preditors, “Nat. Geo’s “Sally” and “The Perfect Neighbor,” which Netflix recently acquired.

Often referred to as “a filmmaker’s festival,” Full Frame is not a premiere or market-focused fest. Instead, it’s known within the doc industry as a well-organized, intimate gathering that gives well-received docs out of Sundance, Camden Intl. Film Festival and the...

“The Alabama Solution” is one of the most powerful exposés of the inhumanity of the American prison system I’ve ever seen. Directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, the movie is a scalding portrait of life on the inside that exerts a grip worthy of a thriller. It’s an investigative documentary, filmed over five years, much of it in and around the Easterling Correctional Facility in Southeast Alabama, that doesn’t merely show us the chronic abuse of prisoners. It uncovers a culture of sanctified lawlessness. And the way “The Alabama Solution” reveals this, peeling away layers of a systemic cover-up, becomes as dramatic as the crimes it’s about.

The movie follows in the incendiary footsteps of documentaries like Ava DuVernay’s “13th” and Liz Garbus and Jonathan Stack’s “The Farm: Angola, USA” and Stanley Nelson’s “Attica,” building on their insights. And it infiltrates the...

Exclusive: The PBS series Voces has acquired U.S. broadcast and streaming rights to Slumlord Millionaire, the David vs. Goliath story of people fighting back against the skyrocketing cost of rent in New York City.

The film – winner of the Audience Award at Doc NYC in November — will open in theaters next spring, before the Voces streaming and broadcast launch on PBS in summer 2025. Steph Ching and Ellen Martinez directed the feature documentary, with Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Stanley Nelson and Emmy nominee Marcia Smith and Voces‘ Sandie Viquez Pedlow serving as executive producers.

“Slumlord Millionaire is an intimate portrait of the people profoundly impacted by the rapid gentrification sweeping across New York City,” notes a description of the film. “As these neighborhoods undergo transformation, the film highlights the struggle of a group of fearless residents, activists, and nonprofit attorneys across the city waging the fight for the fundamental...

The long-running New York Film Festival, now in its 62nd year – one of the longer film festivals, with a span of more than two weeks — is showcasing some of the longest documentaries on record.

My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, directed by Julia Loktev, measures almost 5.5 hours long. Taken together, Wang Bing’s Youth (Homecoming) and Youth (Hard Times), both playing at NYFF, run over 6 hours. That’s brief compared to exergue, the documentary directed by Dimitris Athyridis that clocks in at 14 hours.

Exergue, which premiered at the Berlinale in February before playing at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece, explores the 14th iteration of Documenta, the quinquennial event that is considered the most important contemporary art exhibition in the world.

“There’s something about the way that film really digs into this extremely fascinating process of making an art exhibition,” says Dennis Lim, artistic...

At the Camden International Film Festival, a capital for documentary filmmaking, a group of documentary producers presented its best practice guidelines for using Generative AI in non-fiction filmmaking, also announcing further educational efforts.

The Archival Producers Alliance (APA) — founded in 2023 and made up of over 300 researchers, producers, and award-winning filmmakers — has outlined industry guardrails for the ethical use of AI as it relates to the usage of archival materials, like historical photographs to video footage, commonly used in non-fiction filmmaking.

The group has previously presented its guidelines in a working format, soliciting feedback from fellow documentary filmmakers, but is now presenting its final recommendations. Among other points, the best practices include a push for the use of primary source materials, but, when AI is used, considerations for algorithmic bias and usages of a watermark or other clear disclosures for audiences when an image was generated using AI.

In addition to releasing the guidelines,...

The 44th running of the Hawaii International Film Festival presented by Halekulani will open with “Tinā,” an uplifting drama film that marks the feature directorial debut of Miki Magasiva, and close with Sori Fumihiko’s “Hakkenden: Fiction and Reality.”

In between, the festival will pack in 92 features and 114 short films, major awards for guests including Jimmy O Yang, Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and documentary filmmaking star Stanley Nelson.

“This year, we have the largest selection of Hawai`i films in competition in the festival’s history, are presenting multiple films that explore Indigenous perspectives, narrative sovereignty, and the nurturing of cultural identity, and additionally, we are launching a new spotlight showcasing the best in television,” said Beckie Stochetti, Hiff executive director.

Hailing from New Zealand, with dialog in English and Samoan, “Tinā” sees Anapela Polata’ivao (“Our Flag Means Death”) portray a well-respected and gifted vocal coach endure family tragedy...

The Native American Media Alliance has revealed the selections for its fifth annual Native American Showrunner Program. See the list below.

Sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal, Cherokee Film and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Native American Showrunner Program is a multi-month intensive that offers mentorship from television showrunners and series creators to experienced Native American writers. The program has expanded to include Native American producers in unscripted as well.

Program fellows take part in several meetings with assigned showrunner mentors who offer guidance on furthering the fellows’ writing and producing careers and provide creative feedback on current projects. The program consists of weekly one-on-one mentoring to develop the writers’ and producers’ abilities, offer advice as it pertains to producing for television and provide overall insight into running a television series.

The Native American Showrunner Program is designed to propel experienced Native American writers to the highest levels of television writing and producing.

Sffilm has announced the winners of the juried Golden Gate Awards competition and the Audience Awards at the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival (Sffilm Festival). The awards serve as a launching pad for internationally renowned filmmakers who are early in their careers, and they qualify films under 40 minutes for the Oscars. Past Golden Gate Award winners include Panah Panahi, Reid Davenport, Nadav Lapid, Marlon Riggs, Céline Sciamma, Jia Zhang-ke, Stanley Nelson, and Tasha Van Zandt.

This year, the 2024 Sffilm Festival ran five days from April 24 – 28 rather than its usual sprawling two weeks. The Sffilm board opted to pull back conservatively where others would have gone bigger to keep a more expansive footprint. Altogether they brought in 130 filmmakers this year, an excellent global selection of films despite the calendar disadvantage of being caught between Sundance and Cannes.

The big talk at this year’s Sffilm was the news that San...

U.S.-based global distributor PBS Intl. is bringing a squad of sports-themed documentaries to MipTV to tie in with the Olympic Games that’ll run this summer in Paris.

“Olympic Dreams” travels to Sierra Leone, one of the world’s poorest nations, as it struggles to recover from its 11-year civil war. It follows Sanusi Turay, a charismatic ex-Sierra Leonean Olympic sprinter, and his most talented athletes, Sarah Bona and Daddy Alie Bangura, through the trials and tribulations of training for the Games in 2004. Their battles are not just on the track — they must also fight poverty and corruption to achieve their goals.

“Olympic Dreams” was directed by Laura Ashton and Ron Orders. It was produced by Ilona Benjamin for Urban Films and Wgbh/Boston.

“The Boys of ’36” follows the journey of nine working-class boys from the University of Washington, who took the rowing world by storm when their...

Exclusive: Stanley Nelson’s Firelight Films and Hulu have set Julianna Brannum (Now I Lay Me Down), Ivan MacDonald (Breaking the Silence) and Juan Carlos Dávila Santiago (When Reggaeton Was a Crime) as the first filmmakers to benefit from their new Hulu/Firelight Kindling Fund. Through the initiative, each will be awarded $25,000 to develop their original documentary feature or limited series for a first look by the companies.

The mid-career filmmakers, who are alums of Firelight’s artist programs, will be expected to develop their project into a robust treatment, pitch deck, budget, and schedule for the aforementioned first look, and in addition to the financial prize, will receive one-on-one professional development sessions on producing for Hulu with Hulu’s documentary division. Project pitches considered for additional development or greenlight from Hulu will, if selected, be co-produced with Firelight Films, executive produced by Nelson, for streaming on Hulu.

“Firelight Films...

Updated with the addition of The Holly and American Symphony to the FallDocs lineup.

The Holly, Julian Rubinstein’s documentary about conflict over a gentrifying neighborhood near Denver, and Matthew Heineman’s film American Symphony, about Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste, have been added to the IDA’s FallDocs screening series.

American Symphony will hold an in-person screening on Tuesday, Oct. 3 at the Culver Theater in Los Angeles, followed by a live Q&a with Heineman.

The Holly will hold an in-person screening on Tuesday, Nov. 7 at the Culver Theater, followed by a live Q&a with Rubinstein, main participant Terrance Roberts, and Aqeela Sherrills, anti-violence activist and co-founder of Community Based Public Safety Collective.

Earlier: Exclusive: The International Documentary Association announced the lineup for its prestigious FallDocs 2023 program, featuring a slew of Oscar contending nonfiction films as well as more than two dozen films that haven’t yet nailed down distribution.

Stanley Nelson and Valerie Scoon’s Sound of the Police is an exhaustive exploration of the oppositional dynamics between African Americans and law enforcement, from slavery right up to today. Through a wealth of archival imagery, interviews with academics, authors and assorted deep thinkers of various backgrounds and colors as well as an ear-catching soundtrack, the veteran filmmakers make a compelling case that any relationship built on the […]

The post “We Didn’t Want an Audience Member To Be Able To Say, ‘Oh, That Was Just One Bad Cop’”: Stanley Nelson and Valerie Scoon on Sound of the Police first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Stanley Nelson and Valerie Scoon’s Sound of the Police is an exhaustive exploration of the oppositional dynamics between African Americans and law enforcement, from slavery right up to today. Through a wealth of archival imagery, interviews with academics, authors and assorted deep thinkers of various backgrounds and colors as well as an ear-catching soundtrack, the veteran filmmakers make a compelling case that any relationship built on the […]

The post “We Didn’t Want an Audience Member To Be Able To Say, ‘Oh, That Was Just One Bad Cop’”: Stanley Nelson and Valerie Scoon on Sound of the Police first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Exclusive: Lucy J. Mukerjee has joined Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith’s media company Firelight Media, geared toward nonfiction cinema by and about communities of color, as the new director of its flagship Documentary Lab.

An 18-month fellowship that provides emerging filmmakers of color with customized mentorship from prominent leaders in the documentary world, as well as funding, professional development workshops and networking opportunities, the Documentary Lab has thus far helped to advance the careers of over 100 filmmakers, including Dawn Porter, Yoruba Richen and Peter Nicks.

Mukerjee succeeds Sabaah Folayan, who for the past year has served as the Lab’s Interim Director. She comes to Firelight Media with over 20 years of experience producing films, programming festivals, and overseeing artist development programs. Her previous roles include Senior Programmer at Tribeca Festival, Director of Programming at Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival, Outfest Fusion Qtbipoc Festival and NewFest New York’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival,...

“Seven Winters in Tehran,” about a 19-year-old Iranian woman sentenced to death for killing the man who tried to rape her, will open the 34th annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival on May 31 in New York City.

The festival, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center, will feature 10 documentaries about humanitarian challenges around the world. This year’s edition spotlights themes and topics including the Ukraine conflict (“When Spring Came to Bucha”), climate gentrification and justice (“Razing Liberty Square”), women’s rights (“Draw Me Egypt”) transgender rights (“Into My Name”) freedom of the press (“The Etilaat Roz”) and access to health care in the United States (“Pay or Die”).

“From the war in Ukraine to women’s rights and bodily autonomy, to environmental gentrification and freedom of the press, these films span some of the most pressing human rights issues of our time,” says John Biaggi,...

Savanah Leaf’s feature debut “Earth Mama” is starting to look like an early awards season prospect for distributor A24. After successful premieres at both Sundance and New Directors/New Films, the drama about a young Black mother’s fight to wrest her kids from the foster care system just won the Audience Award at Sffilm, also known as the San Francisco International Film Festival. “Earth Mama” is notably a Bay Area-grown production, with former Olympian athlete turned filmmaker Leaf casting non-professional actors for the feature.

IndieWire shares the full list of Golden Gate Award winners out of Sffilm, now in its 66th year and which ran from April 12 through 23, below.

The prize winners range from narrative features to documentaries and shorts. The awards are also notable as a qualifier for films under 40 minutes for the Oscars. Previous Golden Gate Award winners include Panah Panahi, Reid Davenport, Nadav Lapid, Marlon Riggs,...

Sundance documentary “Stephen Curry: Underrated” and SXSW television premiere “I’m a Virgo” will open and close Sffilm, the 66th annual San Francisco International Film Festival.

Sffilm unveiled the full lineup for the fest along with the openers and closers. The Bay Area film festival, which screens in theaters across San Francisco as well as Oakland and Berkeley, will host 50 feature film programs (includes Workshop and “mid-lengths”), 46 shorts, and one TV screening (“I’m a Virgo”). Both directors behind “I’m a Virgo” and “Underrated” — Boots Riley and Peter Nicks — grew up in the Bay Area, more specifically in Oakland. Other films from Bay Area filmmakers whose projects will screen include W. Kamau Bell’s “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed,” Savanah Leaf’s “Earth Mama,” and Babak Jalali’s “Fremont.”

“It is Sffilm Festival season once again and I cannot wait to share this year’s program with local audiences,” Jessie Fairbanks, Sffilm’s director of programming,...

Exclusive: 2x Emmy nominee Matt Walsh (Veep) has signed on to star alongside Alejandro De Hoyos (The Man from Toronto), Chelsea Rendon (Vida), Francisco Ramos (Gentefied), John Kaler (The Wrong Guy) and Jason Konopisos-Alvarez (Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay) in the action-comedy The Unexpecteds from writer-director Alejandro Montoya Marín.

Pic follows Gary (Walsh) and a group of his best friends as they seek revenge against a social media influencer who has scammed them of their life savings. De Hoyos is producing for Alta California Pictures, with Kaler, Jasmin Espada, Walsh and Pedro Pano co-producing.

Related Story Cph: Dox Sets 2023 Lineup; Rubicon TV Hires New Exec; ‘The Ark’ Inks German Distribution — Global Briefs Related Story 'Bolt From The Blue': Filming Wraps On Kate Flannery & Matt Walsh Sci-Fi Related Story Apple's Lincoln Assassination Limited Series 'Manhunt' Finds Its Dr. Mudd In Matt Walsh

Walsh is repped by UTA,...

BET’s new four-part documentary series Black + Iconic, which celebrates Black pioneers across fashion, music, film and dance, kicks off Saturday with the first installment, “Style Gods.” Narrated by Emmy, Tony and Grammy Award-winning actor Billy Porter and executive produced by Emmy Award-winner Stanley Nelson, the two-hour film explores the impact Black creatives have historically had in the fashion industry and how current tastemakers are continuing — and expanding — that legacy.

“I was really excited to tell this story,” Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter. He explained that his father was passionate about channeling sophistication through his garments, which left a lasting impression on the producer. “He always felt that, to keep the world at bay, one of the things that he could do was dress.”

The film, directed by Lynne Robinson, is broken down into segments focusing on the impact of specific entertainers’ styles (Beyoncé and Rihanna both get the spotlight...

Entertainment companies like Disney find themselves in a challenging situation. They need to invest in new and growing platforms like Disney+ and Hulu, while continuing to keep the linear lineups of networks like National Geographic and ABC filled.

To help fill that gap, they have increasingly turned to new, in-house documentary studios, meant to help keep lineups fresh, and to funnel original docs to streaming services.

ABC News launched its effort, ABC News Studios, last year. That initial slate included 4 films and 15 docuseries, including a spinoff of Nightline and projects from Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos, among others.

A source close to the division tells The Hollywood Reporter that it is already profitable, feeding a pipeline of feature films and docuseries to ABC, Disney+, Hulu, Nat Geo, and other platforms.

“I am so proud of the extraordinary progress and impact we’ve made in the streaming space in such a short amount of time,...

BET has announced a new documentary film, “Black + Iconic: Style Gods,” starring Billy Porter and produced by Stanley Nelson and Firelight Films. The documentary is part of the new four-part “Black + Iconic” series that will showcase the legacy and cultural impact of Black icons across music, film, fashion and dance.

Porter will narrate, host and executive produce the first documentary in the series, with Lynne Robinson directing. Connie Orlando and Jason Samuels developed the series with supervising producer Steven Ramey.

“We’re thrilled to be working with BET again after the success of our first project together, ‘Through the Fire: The Legacy of Barack Obama,’” said Nelson, who is also a Firelight Films co-founder, in a statement. “I couldn’t think of a better home for this series celebrating Black icons via the numerous mediums through which Black creatives have made an indelible mark on the culture.”

The two-hour first...

Exclusive: Ryan Heller has been promoted to Executive Vice President, Film & Documentary at Topic Studios, the award-winning studio from First Look Media.

In his new role, he will continue to lead the feature film group, while adding feature-length documentaries to his purview, formalizing an area in which he had already been operating. He will oversee the doc arena with Vice President, Nonfiction, Christine Connor, continuing to report to CEO Michael Bloom.

A key player in the launch and critical successes of Topic Studios, who has since 2018 built and managed its feature film slate through development, financing, production and distribution, Heller most recently served as Senior Vice President of Film and Acquisitions.

He has long been a champion for new directorial voices, in recent years shepherding such breakout projects as the psychological horror Nanny and the acclaimed buddy comedy, The Climb. The former title from rising star director Nikyatu Jusu was...

The Directors Guild of America has nominated Tár‘s Todd Field, Top Gun: Maverick‘s Joseph Kosinski, Everything Everywhere All at Once‘s Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, The Banshees of Inisherin‘s Martin McDonagh and The Fabelmans’ Steven Spielberg for the top feature film prize at its 75th annual DGA Awards.

Related: DGA Awards Sets TV, Documentary And Commercials Nominations For 75th Anniversary Edition

While women were shut out of the marquee race, the DGA nominated four for its First-Time Feature Film Prize: Alice Diop (Saint Omer), Audrey Diwan (Happening), Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic (Murina) and Charlotte Wells (Aftersun). John Patton Ford also is nominated, for Emily the Criminal.

Winners will be announced during the guild’s awards ceremony February 18 at the Beverly Hilton.

Related: 2022-23 Awards Season Calendar – Dates For The Oscars, Grammys, Guilds & More

“The work recognized this year represents the amazing power of film in the hands of...

Exclusive: Firelight Media has today named its latest cohort of Fellows for its flagship mentoring program, the Firelight Documentary Lab, which is now in its thirteenth year.

The participants and projects set for the 18-month program, taking place from 2022-2024, are Neelu Bhuman (Chiragu (Wing)), D.A. Bullock (Mister Backlash), Silvia Castaños & Estefania Contreras (Hummingbirds), Naveen Chaubal (Pinball), Paulina Davis (The Co-op: The Kids of Dorie Miller), Athena Jones (Sisters’ Keepers), Logan Rozos (What Will I Become?), Juliana Schatz Preston (Providencia), Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (Untitled Scientist Project), Tsanavi Spoonhunter (Holder of the Sky), Lendl Tellington (…that’s why He made momma), Reveca Torres (Untitled (Art and Disability Culture)) and Raven Two Feathers (Indigenous Genders).

This year’s set of Documentary Lab projects include stories of transgender and nonbinary protagonists in search of supportive communities; profiles of politicians and activists seeking to reform racially biased policies and practices in housing and policing...

Exclusive: In a competitive situation, Topic Studios has secured the rights to Amanda Montell’s book Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism for adaptation as a television docuseries.

Published by Harper Wave in June of 2021, Montell’s second book, following Wordslut, dissects how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.

The docuseries will be a powerful and timely deep dive into how cults maintain their power, per producers. According to Montell, whose own father escaped from a cult as a teenager, “we’ve been thinking about cults in completely the wrong way. While there have long been dark, dangerous cults (such as the Manson Family), fanatical groups actually fall along a spectrum, from Heaven’s Gate all the way to SoulCycle and Taylor Swift stans. Using an incisive, compelling and often funny tone, Cultish will unpack what cult influence looks,...

Exclusive: Mercury Studios has completed work on a documentary about the co-founder of one of the greatest rock n’ roll bands of all time.

Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd explores the enigmatic Barrett, who wrote Pink Floyd’s first two hits and even came up with the band’s name (a mashup of obscure blues players Pink Anderson and Floyd Council). In 1968, only a few years after the group’s founding, Barrett was forced out of Pink Floyd when his bandmates became alarmed about his mental stability and use of psychedelic drugs.

Barrett recorded a couple of solo albums before exiting the business.

Musician-artist Syd Barrett, co-founder of Pink Floyd

“Barrett dropped out of music, returning home to Cambridge for the last 30 years of his life and his first love of painting,” according to a release about the documentary. “Poignantly, some of...

Click here to read the full article.

Meadowlark Media, the content studio founded by former ESPN president John Skipper and ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard, wants a sports content franchise to call its own.

And so the production company is launching its most ambitious content effort yet, a multi-platform series called Sports Explains the World.

“We are putting a stake in the ground that we are going to be a storytelling company,” Skipper tells The Hollywood Reporter. “When we launched the company, what we wanted to do overwhelmingly is to tell stories. Both in the number of podcasts we do and in our video. And one of the great ways to tell a story is to have an anthology series in which to put those.”

Sports Explains the World is Meadowlark’s “bold statement” that it is playing to win. “When we launched 30 for 30 [at ESPN], people knew it was quality,...

Manhattan’s Downtown Community Television Center celebrated the opening of the media arts center’s long-anticipated nonprofit, 67-seat movie theater, Firehouse: Dctv’s Cinema for Documentary Film, on Tuesday.

The only movie theater in New York City dedicated to screening documentaries, Firehouse is an official Academy Award-qualifying theater that will screen first-run films and curated programs.

On Sept. 23, Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ self-distributed “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” about the growing inequalities in America and better pay for Disneyland cast members, will be the inaugural docu to play at Firehouse cinema. The week-long screening will serve as the film’s qualifying run in New York. Disney is set to appear in person for opening weekend Q&As.

Abigail Disney, Jon Alpert and Kathleen Hughes attend Firehouse Dctv’s Cinema for Documentary Film ribbon-cutting ceremony. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, Disney said,...

The Oscar race came into sharper focus at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, with actors like Brendan Fraser and Michelle Yeoh cementing their lead contender status, and big-budget studio efforts like The Fablemans and Glass Onion premiering to raves.

The fall superfecta – Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York – is the traditional launchpad for the prestige dramas that go on to vie for Best Picture. But for documentaries, it’s a different story.

Analyzing the last 10 years of Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Feature, most premiered early in the eligibility year, typically at Sundance. But a fortunate few have launched as late as the fall, arriving with such noise and momentum that they rise to the top and earn one of the five slots among the year’s most prestigious nonfiction films.

Stanley Nelson’s Attica accomplished that last year, launching at TIFF in 2021. A second Oscar nominee,...

When PBS announced in 2017 that vaunted documentarian Ken Burns was hard at work on a four-part docuseries about Muhammad Ali, to debut in 2021, the news was greeted with much anticipation: one of the film world’s greats on the Greatest. The only hint of criticism came from some who thought Ali’s life was already well-trod territory. But four years later — in the wake of a racial reckoning in America that had the film industry, like so many others, reevaluating its commitment to diversity — the docu community had become considerably less welcoming of the project. With public chatter about a lack of representation and opportunity for people of color reaching a peak, a coalition of 140 documentary filmmakers sent an open letter to PBS in March 2021, slamming the choice of Burns to helm what was being positioned as the definitive doc on Ali.

“Your commitment to diversity at PBS is not borne out by the evidence,...

Dctv’s new documentary-dedicated theater, “Firehouse: Dctv’s Cinema for Documentary Film,” will open its doors Sept. 23. Located in Dctv’s historic Chinatown firehouse building in New York, the nonprofit theater will begin its opening week with an exclusive screening of Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.”

“I’m so excited that my new documentary, ‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,’ will kick off the opening of Dctv’s Firehouse Cinema,” Disney said in a statement. “I can’t wait to meet the first audiences who will be enjoying and shaping this vital new addition to New York City’s arthouse film scene.”

In addition to “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,” Firehouse will also run such documentaries as Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There” and Nina Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power,” which premiere Sept. 30 and Oct. 21 respectively.

“The documentary form...

ABC News has launched ABC News Studios, a premium, narrative nonfiction originals producer and commissioner of feature documentary films, series and specials. David Sloan has been tapped as senior executive producer and creative lead of the venture.

The studio already has three feature docs and 15 series in production across ABC, Hulu, Disney+ and National Geographic. Its current slate features projects from filmmakers Dawn Porter, Irene Taylor, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Stanley Nelson.

Also Read:

Roland Emmerich to Direct Gladiator-Themed Epic ‘Those About to Die’ at Peacock

In an announcement to ABC News staff, president Kim Godwin congratulated Sloan on the new role, which will include overseeing production and completion on ABC News Studios programming. He will report to Mike Kelley, ABC News Studios lead, who reports to Reena Mehta, senior vice president of streaming and digital content.

Throughout Sloan’s tenure at ABC News, the exec has received nine Emmys,...

ABC News Studios unveiled a slate of narrative non-fiction projects as part of its official launch, with three feature documentaries and 15 series and specials in production.

Plans are to produce more than 100 hours of programming for ABC, Hulu, Disney+, National Geographic and other platforms in 2022. Dawn Porter; Irene Taylor, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard; and Stanley Nelson are among those attached to projects.

Reena Mehta is senior vice president of streaming and digital content, and Mike Kelley, the vice president and ABC News Studios lead, will oversee the creative and business direction of the unit.

David Sloan will serve as senior executive producer and creative lead of ABC News Studios, while Jacqueline Glover is head of documentary for Onyx Collective and oversaw the initial slate of feature documentary films for ABC News Films.

“We’ve been creating longform for quite a while, but we are really formalizing it under the ABC News umbrella,...

Click here to read the full article.

ABC News is doubling down on documentaries and docuseries, launching a new non-fiction division called ABC News Studios.

The studio already has 15 series in various stages of production, as well as 3 feature-length documentaries, which will live under the ABC News Films banner.

“It really felt like there was a much bigger opportunity for ABC News to really scale the narrative non-fiction storytelling that we were doing,” ABC News Studios head Mike Kelley tells The Hollywood Reporter, noting that the studio will significantly expand ABC News’ presence in streaming. “In particular, to lean into the narrative non-fiction space that is rooted in journalism, but entertaining at its heart. Those are the stories that we want to tell.”

Kelley says the studio wants to play in the long-form documentary film space; the limited series space; the formatted anthology space; and will produce one-off specials. “From a genre perspective,...

George Stephanopoulos is known at ABC News for his turns co-anchoring “Good Morning America” and the Sunday public affairs program “This Week.” As Hollywood’s streaming wars intensify, however, he may soon be recognized for something else.

Stephanopoulos will be at the center of a new political documentary series slated to appear on Hulu that will examine the upcoming midterm election along with important races and key issues. The program is one among many currently in the pipeline at ABC News Studios, a new effort by the Disney-backed news organization to centralize its efforts to produce documentary programming aimed at fueling the fortunes of Disney properties.

“We want to leverage our intellectual property that is generated across the news division in service of entertaining narrative storytelling. That is an absolute priority for us,” says Mike Kelley, vice president and head of ABC News Studios, in an interview. “We know that...

Exclusive: Emmy nominee Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid’s Tale) has signed on to star alongside Peyton Kennedy, Anjali Bhimani, Jeremy Radin, Akilah Hughes and Ben Gleib in the indie Pruning.

In Lola Blanc’s psychological horror film, which is currently in production in the Los Angeles area, a far-right political commentator Sami Geller (Brewer) discovers that her rhetoric has inspired a mass shooting. She must then contend with the part of herself that has a conscience.

Blanc is directing from the script she wrote with Jeremy Radin, with Nick Paskhover and Chris Beyrooty producing. David Lawson, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead will also produce under their Rustic Films banner, with Brewer, Deric A. Hughes and Elia Petridis serving as EPs. Brewer is represented by CAA and Schreck Rose Dapello.

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Exclusive: Leticia Peguero has been appointed as Senior Vice President at Oscar-nominated documentarian Stanley Nelson’s (Attica) Firelight Media.

Peguero comes to...

Exclusive: Los Angeles Media Fund has landed rights to Andrew DeYoung’s novel The Temps in a competitive situation with plans to develop it for television. Gabriel Bisset-Smith (The Last Hours of Laura K) will serve as the show’s creator.

The Temps was release by Turner Publishing on March 29th and sold out its first print run. Its synopsis is as follows:

They’re underemployed. Underpaid. And trying to survive the end of the world while trapped inside an office complex. Who knew temp work could be this dangerous?

Jacob Elliot doesn’t want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents’ basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphi’s outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex.

Exclusive: UTA has signed award-winning writer, director and producer Andre Gaines (After Jackie), as well as his production company Cinemation Studios, for worldwide representation in all areas. The agency will now look to help expand his business across film, television, podcasts and gaming, also working with him on several hosted programs based on popular brands.

Most recently, Gaines directed and executive produced the feature documentary After Jackie, in partnership with LeBron James and Stanley Nelson. The film examining the second wave of Black professional baseball players who followed Jackie Robinson’s trailblazing path is set to premiere on The History Channel on June 18, as part of the network’s Juneteenth celebration programming.

Gaines previously directed and produced Showtime’s The One and Only Dick Gregory, in partnership with Kevin Hart and Lena Waith. The doc on legendary comedian and activist Dick Gregory, featuring appearances by Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart,...

Click here to read the full article.

The Peabody Awards have today announced their fourth round of winners, which include Hulu’s Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul, Netflix’s Emmy-winning Bo Burnham: Inside and Amazon’s Emmy-nominated limited series The Underground Railroad.

Other notable winners include Netflix’s animated series City of Ghosts, HBO Max’s documentary series Exterminate All the Brutes and PBS’ documentary Mayor.

Winners were announced each day this week through Thursday, with celebrities virtually presenting each of the winners online in short video clips. A full list of nominees is available here, and previous winner announcements were posted Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Peabody Awards are organized by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

A full list of Thursday’s winners, alongside comments from the jurors, follows.

Arts

Summer of Soul: (…Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised...

Melissa McCarthy, Morgan Freeman, John Legend, Kevin Bacon, Ethan Hawke, Jon Stewart, Hasan Minhaj, Riz Ahmed, LeVar Burton and H.E.R. are among the presenters who are confirmed for this year’s 82nd Annual Peabody Awards. Those stars and others will be on hand to introduce and award this year’s 30 Peabody Award winners, which will be announced across four days next week.

The Peabody Awards will announce winners every day between June 6 and June 9, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Pt every morning on Peabody’s Twitter account (@PeabodyAwards), Instagram (@PeabodyAwards), Facebook page (Peabody Awards) and website (https://peabodyawards.com/). Users can also find the presentations via the hashtags #PeabodyAwards and #StoriesThatMatter.

Every morning, a celebrity presenter will announce each winner; the short videos will include those introductions and acceptance speeches.

The full list of presenters for the 82nd Annual Peabody Awards includes Riz Ahmed, Christiane Amanpour, Kevin Bacon,...

Alexandra Chando (The Lying Game) and Ben Rappaport (Younger, For the People) are falling in love as the stars of NBC’s untitled drama pilot based on the Dutch series A’dam – E.V.A., our sister site Deadline reports.

The potential series “chronicles the love and lives of two complete strangers whose multiple run-ins begin to defy coincidence and lead both to believe in fate,” per the official synopsis. It will pair “a serialized, stand-up-and-cheer romantic comedy with the wildly diverse and often unexpected human stories of anyone who finds themselves six degrees from Adam and Eva.”

More from...

History Channel has set the premiere date and launch plan for its original documentary “After Jackie,” a look at the second wave of Black professional baseball players who followed the trailblazing Jackie Robinson.

History Channel will premiere the two-hour documentary from LeBron James’ Uninterrupted production imprint, director Andre Gaines (“The One and Only Dick Gregory”) and producer Stanley Nelson on Saturday, June 18 at 8 p.m. Nelson’s Firelight Films also produced in association with Major League Baseball and in consultatin with the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

History Channel disclosed the launch plan on Friday to coincide with the 75th anniversary of Robinson’s history-making move to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball. On April 15, 1947, Robinson started at first base with the Brooklyn Dodgers, marking the first time a Black man played in the modern Major Leagues and breaking the color barrier in the sport.

“When the Hall of Famer...

The History Channel has set a premiere date for its upcoming documentary about the Black Major League Baseball players who came after Jackie Robinson in honor of the 75th anniversary of the iconic athlete breaking the color line in the League.

“After Jackie” will premiere on June 18, the network announced Friday — which marked three-quarters of a century since Robinson’s historic first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Prior to that game, the sport had been segregated for more than 50 years.

The two-hour documentary is executive produced by another sports legend: LeBron James. James is producing the doc through his production company, Uninterrupted, with Maverick Carter, alongside Stanley Nelson, Andre Gaines and in association with the MLB.

“After Jackie” will tell “the often overlooked story of the second wave of talented Black baseball players after Jackie Robinson,” according to a statement from The History Channel. Those players include Bill White, Curt Flood and Bob Gibson,...

The 2022 Oscar Winners and Nominees Winners & Nominees Actor In A Leading Role Winner Will Smith King Richard Nominees Javier Bardem Being the Ricardos Benedict Cumberbatch The Power of the Dog Andrew Garfield tick, tick…Boom! Denzel Washington The Tragedy of Macbeth Actor In A Supporting Role Winner Troy Kotsur Coda Nominees CIARÁN Hinds Belfast Jesse Plemons The Power of the Dog J.K. Simmons Being the Ricardos Kodi Smit-mcphee The Power of the Dog Actress In A Leading Role Winner Jessica Chastain The Eyes of Tammy Faye Nominees Olivia Colman The Lost Daughter PENÉLOPE Cruz Parallel Mothers Nicole Kidman Being the Ricardos Kristen Stewart Spencer Actress In A Supporting Role Winner Ariana Debose West Side Story Nominees Jessie Buckley The Lost Daughter Judi Dench Belfast Kirsten Dunst The Power of the Dog Aunjanue Ellis King Richard Animated Feature Film Winner Encanto Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer Nominees Flee Jonas Poher Rasmussen,...

Sunday’s 94th Academy Awards take place at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.

Heading into Sunday’s (March 27) 94th Academy Awards, Netflix’s psychological western The Power Of The Dog leads the nominations on 12, followed by Legendary/Warner Bros’ sci-fi Dune on 10.

The Power Of The Dog directed by Jane Campion and Apple TV+’s Coda directed by Sian Heder have been the joint favourites for the best picture prize with Coda possibly edging ahead after recent wins at the PGA and WGA awards. Focus Features’ Belfast from Kenneth Branagh is just behind the two frontrunners and it remains to be...