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When the National Geographic Society published the first issue of its namesake magazine in September of 1888, it was, in the words of the publication, “a very staid affair.” There were no photos (those didn’t arrive until 1905), and the articles were more akin to what you might find in a scientific journal than a popular magazine.

Suffice it to say National Geographic evolved over the years, eventually leaning into photography and exploration, bringing the natural and human world to its readers every week during the heyday of magazines, and then every day amid the digital revolution.

Now, National Geographic is embarking on what it is calling one of its most ambitious efforts yet: A new multi-platform list to highlight and celebrate 33 individuals (in honor of the 33 founders of the Society) “whose imaginative ideas and unstoppable drive are making the world a better place.” The inaugural National Geographic 33 will be featured...

It’s time to dive into thought-provoking docs and series curated by Magnolia Pictures.

It was the documentary “Super Size Me” that opened my eyes to the power of documentary filmmaking. Until then, the only docs I watched were the boring ones in school. But “Super Size Me” was different – it was entertaining, funny, and – most importantly – incredibly revealing about a topic I was really interested in while in high school… you guessed it, fast food. To this day, I love a great doc that is as entertaining as it is informative. If you’re the same, and looking for an affordable streaming service that will give you access to those kinds of documentaries, look no further than Dox — a streaming service dedicated to all things documentary.

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With “Wild Life,” the filmmaking team of Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi prove yet again — after “Meru,” Oscar-winning “Free Solo,” and “The Rescue” — that they are nonpareils at delivering consistently stunning visuals and provocative non-fiction content. Unlike most documentary filmmakers these days, they had a juicy NatGeo budget to film in the wildest areas of Chile and Argentina and the opportunity to screen their movie theatrically via Picturehouse before winding up on Disney+ May 26.

The directing duo choose their subjects carefully. In this case, at the center of this dramatic decades-spanning story is Kristine McDivitt Tompkins who, having risen to CEO of Patagonia after 23 years at the company, abruptly left to marry billionaire eco-philanthropist Doug Tompkins and join his mission to save millions of acres of wildlands in Chile and Argentina. In 2015, after he died in a kayak accident, she took on his mission and in 2018 donated 10 million acres as national parkland.

The filmmaking couple Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin have earned a reputation for making documentaries about people who accomplish the unthinkable – the no-ropes climber Alex Honnold in the Oscar-winning Free Solo, or the divers of The Rescue who, against all odds, saved a group of Thai kids stranded in a flooded cave.

As it happens, the heroes of their best-known films have been men, but in their latest documentary, Wild Life, the focus shifts in large part to a woman, the conservationist and former Patagonia CEO Kris Tompkins.

L-r Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Kris Tompkins, Jimmy Chin

“It was really nice to make a film where there’s a woman at the center,” Vasarhelyi remarked at Cph:dox in Copenhagen, where the film screened last month. Wild Life, from National Geographic and Picturehouse, just expanded to theaters in Southern California, including Los Angeles, as well as the San Francisco Bay area...

With their new film Wild Life, two top filmmakers focused on the outdoor world — Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the directors of well-regarded climbing docs Meru and the Oscar-winning Free Solo — decided to make a film about icons of that very culture. And it felt a little messy at first, as they explain.

“I was really hesitant to make this film,” says Vasarhelyi, noting that her husband and co-director Chin — himself a world-class climber — deeply respected the film’s core subjects, former Patagonia CEO and conservationist Kris Tompkins and climbers and entrepreneurs Doug Tompkins, Yvon Chouinard and Rick Ridgeway. Moreover, as then-former and current company owners, the subjects were “used to making the decisions,” Vasarhelyi says, while the couple’s stringent filmmaking process would require them to cede control over the telling of their story.

Ultimately, though, the filmmakers overcame their misgivings (and the subjects of the film agreed to take part,...

EntertainmentWhile Shah Rukh Khan was listed in the ‘Icons’ category, Rajamouli was featured in the ‘Pioneers’ category. Novelist Salman Rushdie also found a spot in the 2023 list of icons.Two loved and celebrated personalities from Indian cinema –Actor Shah Rukh Khan and Director SS Rajamouli– each grabbed a spot in Time magazine’s 2023 list of 100 influential people in the world. While Shah Rukh Khan was listed in the ‘Icons’ category, Rajamouli of Rrr fame was featured in the ‘Pioneers’ category. Booker prize-winning Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie was also featured in the Icons category. Rushie recently survived a brutal attack in August 2022, when he was stabbed more than 10 times, damaging the optic nerve, and resulting in loss of sight in the right eye. In his interview with Time, speaking about his health, the author said, “...The eye is lost. The hand which was badly damaged is recovering quite well with a lot of therapy.

At Tuesday’s New York City premiere of Nat Geo’s documentary “Wild Life,” Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, shed light on his 2022 decision to donate the entire apparel brand, worth $3 billion, to a trust dedicated to fighting the climate crisis.

“I’m kind of pessimistic about the fate of this planet,” Chouinard said. “We’ve been giving one percent of our sales for a long time. We’ve given away $200 or $300 million over the years, but I’m always thinking, ‘What more can I do?”

Directed by Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “Wild Life” chronicles the decades-long efforts by conservationist Kris Tompkins and her late husband and the North Face founder, Doug Tompkins, to create national parks throughout Chile and Argentina. The couple helped Chouinard, who appears in the doc, create and run Patagonia.

Chouinard, who joined Vasarhelyi, Chin and Tompkins onstage after the MoMA screening,...

Oscar-winning documentary duo Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi come together to cover another couple in their most recent feature, “Wild Life”. Here, they follow the story of eco-philanthropists Douglas and Kris Tompkins. The story is as American as they come. Before the two met each other, Douglas and Kris lived humble lives as outdoor aficionados. The two gradually built their fortune on outdoor gear companies in the 1960s-70s: Douglas co-founded The North Face and Esprit, while Kris managed Patagonia, Inc. as the CEO. Everything changed after they ran into each other at a remote Argentinian village, however. After a whirlwind romance, an epiphany about the emptiness of their current lives and the urgency of climate change, the newly-weds uprooted themselves from their comfortable lives in the US and moved to a remote cabin in Chile. Once there, they do what any other good American with $150 million would do: they buy land.

Doug and Kris Tompkins’ dream sounded like a fanciful one. Seduced by a region of ravishing South American wilderness in which they found particular sanctuary, and wishing to protect it from any insensitive or unseemly development, they landed on a solution both simple and absurd-sounding: Why not simply buy as much of it as possible? Backed by the fortune they’d collectively amassed from the clothing industry — Doug as the founder of Esprit and The North Face, Kris as the former CEO of Patagonia — the couple successfully parlayed business tycoon status into an unprecedented scale of eco-activism: As one talking head notes in “Wild Life,” Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s soaring documentary tribute to the Tompkins’ romance and shared conservationist mission, they “could do anything, and chose to do anything.”

Not all Chileans, however, take such a rosy view of incoming billionaire Americans buying up vast swathes of...

With Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love earning a well-deserved Oscar nomination and Laura McGann’s The Deepest Breath getting a buzzy Sundance bow, the documentary subgenre of romances forged against photogenic and death-defying backdrops (sometimes featuring real-life tragedy) continues to thrive.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who won an Academy Award for Free Solo, one of the best films of this type, are back on tangentially similar terrain with Wild Life, an SXSW premiere that will get a brief theatrical run before hitting NatGeo. Less an adrenaline-filled suspense piece than Free Solo, Wild Life is a sad and inspiring love story, as well as a portrait of great wealth put to humanity’s common good, even if it glosses over a number of ethical head-scratchers. It’s still beautiful to look at, but I most enjoyed Wild Life as a complicated procedural about land use (don’t expect...

Hollywood is dead. At least that’s the language lately around the movie industry telling us the Golden Age of film is over. Too many superhero movies, too many reboots, remakes, reimaginings of movies made 20 years ago. A phrase I hear often is that there just aren’t any new ideas anymore. While I find that hard to believe, people who do have those new ideas aren’t finding a seat at the table. We all know the world has changed, and Hollywood is just another industry still learning to navigate new terrain. The Golden Age of Hollywood may be over, but I believe another, new, better kind of age is just ahead.

Growing up, I had limited access to film and television, but one of my first introductions to the film world was when I was 17 and saw “The Matrix.” It was fitting, really, that the film depicted a...

Outdoor sports apparel company Patagonia is continuing its mission of giving back to environmental causes in a huge way. This move will be much more substantive than just tweeting a photo of a landscape on Earth Day and not much, like many other brands are guilty of.

Yvon Chouinard, a rock climber, philanthropist and entrepreneur who founded the company in the 70s, announced in a statement on the Patagonia website yesterday that he will be giving the company away and transforming it into a nonprofit dedicated to fighting climate change.

He said in his statement that he was proud of what the company has previously done, including committing 1 of sales to environmental causes. However, given the increased number and severity of climate disasters worldwide, their efforts were not enough.”

“We needed to find a way to put more money into fighting the crisis while keeping the company’s business intact,...

Yvon Chouinard, the founder of apparel brand Patagonia, is handing over his company, valued at 3 billion, over to trusts and non-profit organizations focused on fighting climate change. The unprecedented move makes his family some of the most charitable business owners in the U.S.

“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Chouinard told The New York Times. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are...

Exclusive: Rocket Science has boarded worldwide sales on The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez, a film lifting the veil on one of surfing’s most enigmatic heroes, which will be introduced to potential buyers at the 2022 Cannes Market.

While most famously known as “Mr. Pipeline” for his mastery of one of the most dangerous waves in surfing, Gerry Lopez wrestled with a profound internal conflict; his fight to become the best surfer in the world with his dedication to yoga and Buddhist teachings. Gerry’s aggressive, unscrupulous surfing was in stark contrast to his calm demeanor in the tube. And this Zelig-like quality made Gerry wholly unique.

Gerry Lopez is as Zen as he is radical, and he transcends categorization. He’s an apex predator in the surf, one of the most influential surfers and surfboard shapers of all time, an entrepreneur, a family man, a movie star and a lifelong yogi.

“Free Solo” Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are already at work on their next documentary project while back in the awards conversation for their Thai cave doc “The Rescue.” As reported by Variety, the filmmaking duo are now in the edit suite on their upcoming big-screen effort, set as a love triangle that spans decades, and touches on everything from business to romance and, per their usual beat, the great outdoors.

The yet-to-be-titled documentary, eyeing a 2022 launch, will track the complex relationship involving Yvon Chouinard, the rock climber and conservationist who also founded the popular apparel company Patagonia; Douglas Tompkins, the co-founder of North Face and Esprit; and Kristine McDivitt, the former Patagonia CEO who went on to marry Tompkins.

“It’s kind of a love triangle,” Vasarhelyi told Variety. “It’s a big love story with a major female protagonist, which is a big step for us.

While their most recent doc “The Rescue” – which has a market screening this week at IDFA – continues its festival and award-circuit run, directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin have been at work in the edit suite prepping their next big-screen effort – a decades spanning love story mixing business, philanthropy, and the great outdoors.

Speaking with Variety, Vasarhelyi offered new details of the long-in-the-work project, which had previously gone by the title “Tompkins.” Produced by National Geographic and aiming for a mid-2022 launch, the still-untitled doc will follow the complicated relationship between conservationist and climber Yvon Chouinard, founder of apparel brand Patagonia, Douglas Tompkins, co-founder of the North Face and Esprit brands, and Kristine McDivitt, the former Patagonia CEO who later married Tompkins.

“It’s not a proper love triangle, but it’s kind of a love triangle,” says Vasarhelyi. “It’s a big love story with a major female protagonist,...

Robert Redford has come on board to executive produce the feature documentary Public Trust with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and his Patagonia Films.

No Man's Land director David Garrett Byars is behind the doc about America's public lands. Through the work of Montana investigative journalist Hal Herring, Public Trust focuses on three land-based conflicts: the slashing of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah; the potential permanent destruction of the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota; and the de facto sale of one of the last wild places in America, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

Using extensive research and ...

Robert Redford has come on board to executive produce the feature documentary Public Trust with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and his Patagonia Films.

No Man's Land director David Garrett Byars is behind the doc about America's public lands. Through the work of Montana investigative journalist Hal Herring, Public Trust focuses on three land-based conflicts: the slashing of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah; the potential permanent destruction of the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota; and the de facto sale of one of the last wild places in America, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

Using extensive research and ...

In May 2017, Ryan Zinke, the 52nd United States secretary of the Interior, traveled to Utah on a four-day fact-finding mission. A Montana native and former Navy Seal, Zinke carries himself with the sort of distinctly American brand of swagger that Donald Trump, who favors Cabinet picks “out of central casting,” must have swooned over: a macho trifecta of cowboy, soldier and lifelong jock. He’s tall, and his voice, an adenoidal purr, has just a hint of John Wayne. He could wear a Stetson without looking ridiculous.

Zinke had come...

Even if you haven’t visited the Patagonia website this week, it’s highly likely that you saw a photo of the brand’s homepage. The outdoor retailer wrote the now-viral message “The President Stole Your Land” on its website and social media platforms as a reaction to President Donald Trump’s action to reduce the size of two Utah national monuments.

On Monday the President announced that he would reduce the size of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by 85 percent and reduce the size of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante by half and said that this action will fix...

This past April, when 9-year-old Robbie Bond learned that one of his favorite places, the world’s largest protected marine area — the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii — was among 27 national monuments threatened by the Trump administration, the Honolulu fourth-grader did more than get angry. He took a stand.

Robbie, now 10 and homeschooled, decided to launch Kids Speak for Parks to inspire other young people to speak up and convince their families and neighbors to sign a petition to save America’s parks and monuments for future generations. Thus far, more than 2,000 signatures have been collected and Robbie has personally...

Santa Monica — It's been really easy for the media to talk about "Birdman" and Michael Keaton's award-winning performance in terms of being a "comeback," and of course, the meta angle of playing an actor who formerly starred as a superhero is just begging for attention. On one hand it's a fortunate hook to help sell the movie, but on the other, it's been a pretty simplistic reduction, not necessarily one that Keaton has had a big problem with, but one that could certainly be discussed with a little more nuance. You might have to go back to the late '90s for examples of the actor's work that really landed culturally, but in the time since, while he's certainly taken a few breathers, he's worked very consistently. He's done TV spots on popular shows. He's starred in acclaimed TV movies like "Live from Baghdad" and the TNT miniseries "The Company.