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Fashion documentaries have been going downhill ever since Unzipped. Douglas Keeve’s 1995 portrait of Isaac Mizrahi, a box office smash and critical hit, remains the pinnacle of what so many since have attempted. Like Madonna: Truth or Dare, from which it took much inspiration, that riotously funny glimpse into Mizrahi’s world full of design, famous friends, creativity and wickedly self-depreciating neurosis was a perfect storm of sorts between personality, fashion and celebrity that a film about this sort of person ought to be.

Every year brings us several of these sorts of documentaries. Like the majority of them, Sandy Chronopoulos’ debut feature, House of Z, is easily digestible and barely raises a sweat; a work of celebrity portraiture that fans won’t regret watching, but which offers little beyond what is promised on the tin. Taking the same narrative hook as Unzipped of a talented young designer’s comeback...

Filmmakers listen up: Can’t find distributor after a film festival? Look for your target demo and cut a deal with a publisher to show it on one of their magazine’s websites. The feature documentary House of Z which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, is being distributed by Condé Nast Entertainment (CNÉ) which acquired the first window rights to Sandy Chronopoulos' doc. Featuring Zac Posen, and produced by Jana Edelbaum and Rachel Cohen of iDeal Partners, the film…...

Conde Nast Entertainment has moved into the acquisitions space by buying first window rights to the Zac Posen documentary House of Z. CNE will distribute the film exclusively for rent on Vogue.com in September to coincide with New York Fashion Week.

The Sandy Chronopoulos-helmed film marks the first feature-length acquisition for CNE, which has been making an aggressive push to expand the breadth of content distributed on its various magazine-branded platforms, including VanityFair.com and NewYorker.com, as well as exploiting the publisher's library of 60,000 articles into movie and TV projects. The move also reunites Posen and Vogue, given that the...

Comeuppance does the trick in Sandy Chronopoulos's House of Z, a rise-fall-rebirth portrait of dress-designing wonderboy Zac Posen. Fashionistas will obviously appreciate this undishy but intimate doc, which is especially strong in its account of the designer's flowering as a creative teen. But civilians they drag along with them will also find it visually stimulating and fleet enough to justify their time.

Raised in 1980s SoHo by New Yorkers who prized creativity (father Stephen was a painter, mother Susan a corporate lawyer), Zac started dressing things as a toddler. Discarded fabric from manufacturers could still be found on the street,...

Oren Moverman's Time Out of Mind and The Dinner star Richard Gere Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Tribeca Film Festival will open this Wednesday, April 19, with the World Premiere of Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives at Radio City Music Hall, followed by performances with Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, and Earth, Wind & Fire. A transformative Cate Blanchett in Julian Rosefeldt's Manifesto; Sandy Chronopoulos's exposé on Zac Posen, featuring Lola Kirke, André Leon Talley, Stella Schnabel, Paz de la Huerta, Claire Danes and Naomi Campbell in House of Z; Richard Gere (Joseph Cedar's Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer), Laura Linney, Steve Coogan and Rebecca Hall in Oren Moverman's The Dinner; Rachel Israel's Keep The Change with Brandon Polansky and Samantha Elisofon are four of this year's feature highlights.

An episode spoofing Spike Jonze and Viceland with Emmy Harrington...