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Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, has attacked the BBC after claiming the British broadcaster rejected his Benjamin Netanyahu exposé The Bibi Files.

The Going Clear director accused the BBC of bending the knee to the Israeli prime minister in its coverage of the war in Gaza.

He produced The Bibi Files, which draws upon leaked videos of the police interrogation of Netanyahu on charges that he accepted gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for political favors.

Netanyahu attempted to block the feature’s release, according to the filmmakers, which include director Alexis Bloom (Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes).

“BBC won’t show “The Bibi Files” because it is critical of Netanyahu. Israelis in film accuse him of prosecuting an endless brutal war in Gaza to avoid bribery conviction,” Gibney said on X/Twitter. “BBC doesn’t want to allow that Pov on TV.

Exclusive: Benjamin Netanyahu doc The Bibi Files has secured distribution in multiple territories, flying in the face of the controversial Israeli prime minister’s attempts to block the film.

The work, directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney, gives unprecedented insight into the backstory of Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, through never-before-seen footage of police interrogations of the politician as well as his wife sara and son Yair.

In Europe, the doc has sold to Benelux (September Film), France (Dulac Distribution), Poland (Against Gravity), Spain (Filmin) and the UK (Dogwoof).

It has also been acquired for Australia & New Zealand (Madman), Indonesia (Pt Falcon), and the Middle East and Turkey (Teleview).

Thoms Powers, Alexis Bloom, Alex Gibney

Goodfellas boarded sales on the doc on the eve of the Toronto International Film Festival, where it screened as a work in progress, one day after an attempt by Netanyahu’s lawyers...

The 15th annual Doc NYC festival unveiled the titles in its Short List sections, an early precursor lineup in advance of the Oscar nominations next January in the categories of Best Documentary Feature and Documentary Short.

America’s largest documentary festival, based in the Chelsea and Greenwich Village neighborhoods of New York City, launches on Nov. 13 with the opening night premiere of “Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story.”

The titles in the Short Lists include Benjamin Ree’s “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida,” Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and “No Other Land,” directed by a four-person collective of Israeli and Palestinian artists.

Additional films, nearly all screening with filmmakers in person for Q&As, include “Will and Harper,” about the friendship between Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, “The Last of the Sea Women,” produced by Nobel Peace Prize winner...

Fifteen-year-old Doc NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, has revealed its influential 15-film Short List. The festival will run its main lineup of 111 features, 32 world premieres, 24 U.S. premieres, and 129 short films in-person November 13-21 in New York City’s IFC Center, Sva Theatre, and Village East by Angelika and continue online until December 1 with films available to viewers across the U.S. All the films will have theatrical screenings at the festival, often with the directors in person.

Historically, most of the Doc NYC shortlist titles overlap with the Academy’s official 15-film Oscar shortlist. With the notable exception of Netflix’s Oscar-winning “My Octopus Teacher,” for 12 years, the festival has screened the documentary that went on to win the Academy Award, including “20 Days in Mariupol,” “Navalny,” “Summer of Soul,” “American Factory,” “Free Solo,” “Icarus,” “O.J.: Made in America,” “Amy,” “Citizenfour,” “20 Feet From Stardom,” “Searching for Sugar Man,...

Alexis Bloom’s “The Bibi Files,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” and Johan Grimonprez’s “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” are among the 15 documentary films that have received a coveted spot on Doc NYC’s feature shortlist.

Launched in 2012, the Doc NYC feature shortlist, which this year includes several streamer-backed docs as well as films with minimal or no distribution, has become known for being an award season bellwether. The last three feature docus that garnered an Oscar — “20 Days in Mariupol”, “Navalny” and “Summer of Soul” — made the Doc NYC shortlist.

In all the Doc NYC film festival has screened 53 of the last 60 Oscar-nominated documentary features. The feature shortlist election process is overseen by fest’s artistic director Jaie Laplante and director of special projects Thom Powers, who also serves as the lead documentary programmer at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

“We start thinking about the...

SXSW organizers on Monday announced the Audience Award winners for the festival’s recently wrapped 31st edition.

The list includes Tracie Laymon’s dramedy Bob Trevino Likes It, which prevailed in Narrative Feature Competition, and the action thriller Monkey Man marking Dev Patel’s directorial debut, which dominated the Headliner section. Other notable winners included A24’s Sing Sing starring Colman Domingo, which won out in Festival Favorite, and Kyle Hausmann-Stokes’ dark veteran dramedy My Dead Friend Zoe, starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales and Ed Harris, which won in Narrative Spotlight.

“We are beyond grateful to all our filmmakers, audiences, and volunteers for creating one of the most exciting SXSW Film & TV Festivals ever,” said Claudette Godfrey, VP Film & TV. “We knew our audiences would flip for our program filled with explosive studio films, surprising indie dramas and comedies, riveting TV, powerful documentaries, gripping gems from around the world, and groundbreaking Xr,...

HBO Documentary Films is in production on Stax, a multi-part documentary series exploring the Memphis-based record label Stax Records, which featured R&b stars Otis Redding, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and Sam & Dave.

The series, which documents the meteoric rise and fall of the label, is directed by “Ailey” filmmaker Jamila Wignot, and executive produced by Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow (“Oj: Made In America”) of Laylow Pictures and Nigel Sinclair and Nicholas Ferrall of White Horse Pictures. It’s presented in association with Concord Originals, Polygram Entertainment and Warner Music Entertainment.

“In both the sound that fueled its rise and the events that triggered its demise, Stax Records manifested the soul of America,“ Edelman said in a statement. “There is no better person to bring this quintessential American story to HBO’s viewers than Jamila Wignot, whose work I’ve long admired.

Exclusive: Stax Records, the label responsible for hits such as Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” and Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” is getting the docuseries treatment.

HBO is behind a new multi-part series telling the story of the fabled Memphis-based label.

Jamila Wignot — who directed Ailey, a portrait of the legendary choreographer Alvin Ailey, and has worked on HBO’s Axios — is directing, with Oj: Made in America helmer Ezra Edelman and producer Caroline Waterlow exec producing. Nigel Sinclair and Nicholas Ferrall of White Horse Pictures, the company behind Martin Scorsese’s doc No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, also are EPs.

The series will explore the rise and fall of the label, which was founded in 1957 by Jim Stewart. Stewart, a country music fan, and his sister Estelle Axton, who mortgaged her house to afford recording equipment, released “Fool in Love” by the Veltones under its original name Satellite Records.

Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election is examined in the new trailer for Agents of Chaos, Alex Gibney’s two-part HBO documentary out September 23rd.

Ahead of the upcoming 2020 election, the film aims to interpret what really happened in 2016, untangling all the conspiracies, confusion and public reaction. In the trailer, Russian President Vladimir Putin is asked if his country is attempting to influence the 2016 election. “Here, I’ll tell you a secret,” he says. “Yes, we will absolutely be doing that.”

The film features previously unseen footage captured inside...

Alex Gibney, the Emmy and Oscar winning documentary filmmaker who has previously investigated everything from Scientology to Theranos, will pull back the curtain on Russian collusion in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Dubbed “Agents of Chaos,” the two-part film will debut on HBO on Sept. 23 in advance of the 2020 presidential contest. The second installment will air on Sept. 24. Gibney previously collaborated with HBO on the likes of “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and “The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon Valley.”

“The was a Herculean effort that was reminiscent of the cleaning of the Augean stables in terms of difficulty,” Gibney told Variety. “While a lot has been written about certain aspects of this story, much of it was done in such a superficial way that it was hard for people to penetrate. We felt there was value in presenting this as one all-encompassing narrative.”

The resulting film...

Rolling Stone will premiere a documentary series on the infamous rise and takedown of the world’s most elusive drug kingpin, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera.

Five-episode USA v. Chapo: The Drug War Goes on Trial, directed by Bernardo Ruiz, from Rolling Stone and Jigsaw Productions, also gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at how Rolling Stone and Sean Penn came together to publish that needle-moving El Chapo interview.

USA v. Chapo will premiere on March 11 exclusively on Facebook Watch. New episodes will be available every Monday on the show page.

The docu follows El Chapo’s horrific crimes and cinematic prison breaks from the early ‘90s to the recent conviction in the U.S. Featured are interviews with the DEA agents who tracked him down, El Chapo’s defense attorneys in Mexico and the U.S., former Mexico President Felipe Calderón, Rolling Stone Editor Jason Fine and veteran investigative journalists...

Imagine you’re neighbors with a film-world colleague. With that unmistakable, breathless post-postproduction glow, he asks you to take a look at his new short film – and while it’s certainly slick, with grist for conversation to spare, there are a few things you can’t help but think could have been done differently. The film is a head-on tackle of an intrinsically repugnant (some would say “problematic”) genre, the rape-revenge picture. It turns tables on audience expectation by pitting a witless pickup artist (Joe Mischo) against a woman he meets at a bar (Kara Elverson) who, duly, kidnaps and ties him […]...

Imagine you’re neighbors with a film-world colleague. With that unmistakable, breathless post-postproduction glow, he asks you to take a look at his new short film – and while it’s certainly slick, with grist for conversation to spare, there are a few things you can’t help but think could have been done differently. The film is a head-on tackle of an intrinsically repugnant (some would say “problematic”) genre, the rape-revenge picture. It turns tables on audience expectation by pitting a witless pickup artist (Joe Mischo) against a woman he meets at a bar (Kara Elverson) who, duly, kidnaps and ties him […]...