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YouTube is to launch Susan Sarandon-fronted thriller Viper Club theatrically after partnering with Roadside Attractions.

The Google-owned company has struck a deal with the Manchester By The Sea and Winter’s Bone distributor to launch Maryam Keshavarz’s drama in theaters on October 26 ahead of its debut on its YouTube Premium service in 2019.

The move marks a slight shift in strategy for YouTube, which has previously focused on launching titles online. While, for instance, it booked short runs for the Barbara Kopple doc This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous that it picked up, it had previously dismissed full theatrical runs for acquisitions.

Written by Iranian-American filmmaker Keshavarz and Jonathan Mastro, Viper Club, which has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, stars Sarandon alongside Matt Bomer (Normal Heart), Lola Kirke (Gone Girl), Adepero Oduye (The Big Short), Sheila Vand (Argo) and Edie Falco (The Sopranos).

The film,...

YouTube Red is taking a tentative step toward becoming more like Amazon Studios with the announcement of an in-house production that it says will see a theatrical release.

Directed by Iranian-American writer-director Maryam Keshavarz (“Circumstance”), “Vulture Club” stars Susan Sarandon as an ER nurse whose co-workers have no idea that her journalist son has been taken hostage by terrorists. The film also stars Julian Morris (“Pretty Little Liars”), Edie Falco, and Matt Bomer. Producers are J.C. Chandor, Anna Gerb, and Neal Dodson.

While YouTube Red announced that principal photography is complete, details on how it plans to release it in theaters are slim.

“We don’t have any news to report on a theatrical partner at this stage, a YouTube Red representative said. “Perhaps later once we identify a partner.”

This would represent a significant strategy shift for the streaming service. Last year, YouTube Red booked its own one-week runs...

By Glenn Dunks

The massive Doc NYC festival wrapped up in New York City last week, having showcased over 250 films and events. We have already looked at a documentary about a David Lynch classic as well as a series of films about the cities around us. We conclude with a wrap-up diving into some of the human portraits that will hopefully be making their way to cinemas, festivals and VOD over the next year.

A Murder In Mansfield

Barbara Kopple won an Academy Award for her first two films. That those two documentaries, Harlan County USA and American Dream were made 14 years apart becomes an even more impressive statistic when you consider just how prolific she has become since the late 1990s, often averaging two projects a year. This year is no different as she follows This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous with A Murder in Mansfield. YouTube stars and true...

Gigi Gorgeous wants everyone to know that it doesn’t take much to celebrate Transgender Awareness Week. The model and internet personality, who is the subject of the documentary “This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous,” told TheWrap that the one-week celebration is all about increasing the community’s visibility. This year, Transgender Week spans Nov. 14 through Nov. 20. “I think it’s a lot simpler than people think it is,” Gorgeous said. “Transgender Awareness Week is literally what it says: It’s to bring awareness to the transgender community. You don’t need to be transgender, your best friend doesn’t need to be transgender.

by Nathaniel R

"Jane," now in theaters, took the top prize at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards

Perhaps if I'm too stay in the Bfca (home to the "Critic's Choice Awards") I should run for actual office within them. Why? Well, change from within. I literally never understand their decisions like awards ceremonies where there are no rules as to how large a category is or isn't. They have this same problem in their main movie awards to a small degree but their documentary competition is even more unruly/nonsensical. These awards, held last night in Brooklyn, had (pause for shuddering) 16 nominees for Best Documentary Feature but 10 nominees for Best Director and only 6 nominees for Debut Documentary and so on and so on. No rhyme or reason! 

But herewith, this year's winners (links go to reviews if we've covered them). All of the feature film winners are on Oscar's long...

One hundred seventy features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 90th Academy Awards. That’s 25 more than 2016. Assuming they all book their qualifying runs in New York and Los Angeles, the members of the documentary branch have just a few more weeks to see as many films as possible and file their votes for the shortlist of 15 to be announced in December. They’re each supposed to watch an assigned list of about 20 films, plus as many more as they can.

Read More:2018 Oscar Predictions: Best Documentary Feature

It’s possible for documentaries to also vie for Best Picture, although it is rare. Among this year’s most lauded features are “City of Ghosts,” “Faces Places,” “Jane,” “Kedi” and “One of Us.”

The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:

“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”

“Aida’s Secrets”

“Al Di Qua”

“All the Rage...

One hundred seventy features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 90th Academy Awards. That’s 25 more than 2016. Assuming they all book their qualifying runs in New York and Los Angeles, the members of the documentary branch have just a few more weeks to see as many films as possible and file their votes for the shortlist of 15 to be announced in December. They’re each supposed to watch an assigned list of about 20 films, plus as many more as they can.

Read More:2018 Oscar Predictions: Best Documentary Feature

It’s possible for documentaries to also vie for Best Picture, although it is rare. Among this year’s most lauded features are “City of Ghosts,” “Faces Places,” “Jane,” “Kedi” and “One of Us.”

The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:

“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”

“Aida’s Secrets”

“Al Di Qua”

“All the Rage...

There are crime shows on TV, but few of them follow the quote “It’s not about the journey, it’s about the destination” quite as literally as “Do You Want to See a Body?” The Rob Huebel-hosted mini-journeys around Los Angeles with some of the biggest names in comedy has a fresh batch of episodes premiering next month, and YouTube Red has a sneak peek.

John Cho, Terry Crews, Adam Scott, Judy Greer, Justin Long, Alexandra Daddario, and more are all along for the ride as Huebel takes them on dangerous trips to see/be haunted by/stumble upon/generally desecrate a dead body. Some of these trips to crime scenes involve bodily harm, threatened pride, and — by the looks of things with Mr. Cho — a little bit of light quicksand.

Read More:These Days, Rob Huebel Deliberately Tries to Be Out Of His League

Other guest stars include...

YouTube has been fairly quiet about the viewership its YouTube Red originals have received, but during the video site’s yearly address at VidCon, it provided an update about the audience its paywalled shows are attracting. It claimed the 37 YouTube Red originals released so far have earned 250 million views, and teased the 13 additions to that catalog that have either launched in 2017 or will launch later this year.

The first YouTube Red originals premiered in February 2016, which means that the video site’s premium lineup has been averaging about 15.6 million views per month. It’s hard to quantify how good of a start that is, but YouTube has remained bullish on the results it is seeing from its $9.99-per-month subscription platform.

A slew of new shows will surely add more views to YouTube Red’s tally. The originals that have launched so far include BuzzFeed’s Squad Wars and the documentary This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous,...

This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous portrays the intimate journey of Gigi Lazzarato, a fearless young woman who began life as Gregory Lazzarato. Watch the incredible transition in this documentary from Barbara Kopple and Adam Wescott.

Whatever Gigi wants, Gigi gets… and what Gigi wanted was more time to make her documentary “This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous.” Speaking in front of an audience at TheWrap’s Emmy Screening Series Wednesday night, director Barbara Kopple whispered in Gorgeous’ ear, asking if she should share a story about how they convinced the suits at YouTube Red to give them more time to make their film. “Ohhh! Yes, oh my god, so good,” said Gorgeous, as she recalled the moment. Also Read: Gigi Gorgeous Is Ready To Show the Good, Bad and Ugly of Her Transgender Transition YouTube had asked Kopple to turn.

Gigi Gorgeous said that her new film, “This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous,” helped clear misconceptions about her life as a transgender woman and showed that she’s a real woman, not just a “glamorous, perfect person with no problems.” A strong part of peeling back the curtain on her life was how director Barbara Kopple portrayed Gigi’s father, David Lazzarato, a man who everybody that has seen the film has fallen in love with. “People would say, I want a father like that — so sweet, so understanding, so loving. Even though he probably didn’t understand any of it,...

Emma Watson, Moonlight and all of the winners at the 2017 MTV Movie & TV AwardsEmma Watson, Moonlight and all of the winners at the 2017 MTV Movie & TV AwardsAdriana Floridia5/8/2017 11:24:00 Am

It's 2017, and so MTV decided to literally mix up their annual awards show.

For the first time, the MTV Movie Awards became the MTV Movie & TV Awards, and categories combined both mediums into one. As movie lovers, we're not quite sure that the two are comparable, though we obviously recognize the rise of quality television.

Not only that, but MTV just became the first awards ceremony to neutralize gender in the acting categories. Instead of splitting up Best Actor and Best Actress, which is typical of all awards shows, the MTV Movie & TV Awards simply had "Best Actor in a Movie" and "Best Actor in a Show", where men and women performances competed against each other. It's worthy to...

Rain or shine or hail, apparently, you can't stop the MTV Movie & TV Awards!

The red carpet may have been marred by inclement weather in normally sunny Los Angeles, but the annual awards show carried on Sunday night, as your favorite movies and TV shows were honored with that iconic Golden Popcorn statuette.

Read on for the all winners (in bold).

More: MTV Movie & TV Awards Opens With Fiery, Star-Studded 'Beauty and the Best' Musical Number

Movie Of The Year:

Beauty and the Beast

Get Out

Logan

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The Edge of Seventeen

Best Actor In A Movie:

Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out

Emma Watson – Beauty and the Beast

Hailee Steinfeld – The Edge of Seventeen

Hugh Jackman – Logan

James McAvoy – Split

Taraji P. Henson – Hidden Figures

Show Of The Year:

Atlanta

Game of Thrones

Insecure

Pretty Little Liars

Stranger Things

This Is Us

Best Actor In A Show:

Donald Glover – Atlanta

Emilia Clarke – [link...

MTV on Sunday went where no Movie Awards ceremony has gone before, giving TV shows and stars an opportunity to snag a golden popcorn statue of their very own.

VideosTeen Wolf Sneak Peek: A New Enemy Hunts Scott’s Pack in Season 6B Teaser

And just as you’d expect, the MTV Movie & TV Awards‘ unorthodox blending of mediums resulted in some truly ridiculous face-offs; I’m still wrapping my brain around Grant Gustin (playing The Flash, the fictional protector of Central City on The CW) going toe-to-toe with Taraji P. Henson (playing Katherine Johnson, the real-life mathematician from...

MTV is launching a brand new awards show, the Movie & TV Awards, which debuts on May 7. Taking the place of the network’s iconic Movie Awards, the ceremony takes some bold risks by mixing genders, TV, and film nominees within categories. It’s an interesting blend, with many IndieWire favorites up for awards, including “Get Out,” “Stanger Things,” “Atlanta,” “I Am Not Your Negro,” and many more. Check out the full winners list, which was updated in real time as the ceremony was hosted Adam DeVine at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Read More: MTV Realizes Film Isn’t Enough Any More: After 25 Years, TV Invades Its Renamed Movie Awards

Best Actor in a Movie

Emma Watson – “Beauty and the Beast”

Taraji P. Henson – “Hidden Figures”

Daniel Kaluuya – “Get Out”

Hugh Jackman – “Logan”

James McAvoy – “Split”

Hailee Steinfeld – “The Edge of Seventeen”

Best Actor in a Show

Millie Bobby Brown...

YouTube Red may have an award-winning film on its hands: This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous has been nominated for an MTV Movie Award in the Best Documentary category.

The film, which premiered on YouTube Red last February, was helmed by Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple and executive produced by Adam Wescott and Scott Fisher of SelectNext. This Is Everything explores the gender transition of its titular star, and received favorable reviews from critics.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Gigi Lazzarato, better known to her fans as Gigi Gorgeous, has a few words to say about President Donald Trump‘s new bathroom ruling rolling back protections for transgender children.

Lazzarato, 24, tells People she “was absolutely devastated that Trump decided to step back all the work that Obama did. We’d come so far. Trans kids were seeing love and support where they needed it. They needed to feel welcome in their schools and it really disappoints me that we’re back at square one in a lot of places after putting in so much work.”

The YouTube star, who...

If Grumpy Cat is the blockbuster franchise of cat videos, “Kedi” is the “Citizen Kane” of the genre. Though technically a sophisticated, artful documentary from Turkish filmmaker Ceyda Torun, “Kedi” will automatically find devout fans among anyone who delights at all things feline. (I’m an unapologetic member of that club.) Shot throughout the streets of Istanbul, the movie takes the inherent appeal of its subject and goes beyond the call of duty.

Cat lovers may be content with a mashup of feline faces bounding around the city, but hell, YouTube’s got that covered. “Kedi” isolates the profound relationship between man and cat by exploring it across several adorable cases in a city dense with examples. The result is at once hypnotic and charming, a movie with the capacity to elicit both the Omg-level effusiveness of internet memes and existential insights. Torun interviews a variety of locals about their bonds with the creatures,...

The thing about fascism is that it forces people to figure out who they are; it’s us vs. them, and anyone who tries to feign indifference or bury their head in the sand is only ceding ground to the armies of violence. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” goes Edmund Burke’s famous maxim, but how — in the face of such monstrous villains — could men who do nothing possibly be thought of as good?

Perhaps it’s a matter of semantics, but the movies would seem to argue that it’s more accurate to say “All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do something.” Oskar Schindler, to pick but one famous example, was not a good man until the empirical reality of genocide goaded him into becoming one. A more subtle (though perhaps more...

The Oscar for best animated short film may not generate nearly as much attention as other categories, but it strikes an exciting contrast with the more traditional forms of storytelling found throughout other categories.

These films usually celebrate animators from around the world — including a number of up-and-comers — who apply a range of visual techniques and sophisticated concepts only possible in the animated medium. This year is entirely North American, but still features a lot of different approaches — and yet, ironically, the frontrunner in the category is a very familiar name: Pixar.

Read More: 2017 Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts Review: Humanity Prevails in This Politically Charged Group

Fortunately, the company’s latest short deserves the hype. Of course, just landing a nomination helps bring additional attention to these titles, and anyone seeking them out will discover an exciting range of experiences. While this isn’t the strongest list of nominees in recent years,...

YouTube Red has unleashed its latest documentary about the life of an online video star. The platform that hosted A Trip To Unicorn Island and The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire is now the home of This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, an intimate look at the life of the titular beauty content creator.

This Is Everything, from veteran documentarian Barbara Kopple, uses a combination of YouTube clips, interviews, home videos, and new footage to tell the story of its subject, who first gained fame under the name Gregory Gorgeous before coming out as a transgender woman in 2014. The film examines how Gigi’s gender transition has affected her relationships with her family and the YouTube audience at large.

While some documentaries about YouTube stars have been criticized for serving as easily-digestible fluff, This Is Everything has been commended for painting a fuller portrait of its central figure, with outlets...

Sundance is over and the prizes are won. People have dispersed to their homes and the realities that await them there.

This was a Sundance like no other I can remember, and I have attended every single one since 1986! The cold was extreme; and the political engagement and disgust was extreme. Not only did we have the Inauguration the first day, but the Women’s March the second day had probably 6,000 people marching and on that day the first of many deplorable executive orders (this one against women of the world and their control over their own bodies) began flying off the desk of our current president, who has continued to issue at least one every day, each one more despicable than the previous. Politics and women took center stage.

Chelsea Handler leads the women’s march in Park City, Utah. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

The Sundance slant...

After coming out as gay male in her teens and later as a transgender female, Gigi Lazzarato thought she was done coming out.

But that all changed when the YouTube sensation known as Gigi Gorgeous, 24, met model and activist Natalia “Nats” Getty, also 24, last February.

“It’s crazy how life takes you on these roads that you’d never expect,” Lazzarato says in the current issue of People of coming out as a lesbian to her 2.4 million YouTube channel subscribers in September. “I never thought I’d fall for a girl. But I wouldn’t change it for the world.

“I Am Not Your Negro” (Magnolia), Raoul Peck’s acclaimed documentary on author James Baldwin, opened extremely well this weekend to achieve an elevated position among this year’s Oscar Documentary Features. It also defied the usual strategy for specialized releases, documentary or otherwise, with a wider that usual first week opening.

It joins the Iranian “The Salesman” as a perfectly timed late-stage release. Asghar Faradi’s film expanded in its second weekend to about the same number of theaters showing “Negro.” They stand out as fresh blood in a period when multiple longer running Oscar nominees are still thriving, including a rare trifecta of three Best Picture nominees in the Top Ten: “Hidden Figures,” “La La Land” and “Lion.”

The first two Sundance 2017 films debuted theatrically, both with near-term home viewing prospects. Barbara Kopple’s “This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous” (on YouTube Red this Wednesday) and “Oklahoma City” (on...

Two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple made Sundance history last month when her documentary “This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous” became the first YouTube Red original film to premiere as an official selection at the festival.

Read More: Two-Time Oscar Winner Barbara Kopple: ‘Miss Sharon Jones!’ Director Says This Is the Golden Age of Documentaries

The story of transgender internet star Gigi Gorgeous, “This Is Everything” chronicles the transformation of Gigi Lazzarato, a courageous young woman who began posting beauty and fashion videos on YouTube as a Toronto high school student when she was still known as Gregory Lazzarato. The film opens Friday for one-week runs at the IFC Center in New York and at Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles before premiering on YouTube Red on February 8.

Lazzarato’s rise to internet stardom came after years of encouraging her YouTube viewers to express themselves in the face of bullies and online harassment.

One of Barbara Kopple’s great gifts as a documentarian is that she can turn any subject into a story. Whether she’s doing celebrity portraiture (as in her 2006 Dixie Chicks tour film Shut Up & Sing or her recent Miss Sharon Jones!) or she’s on the front-lines of organized labor disputes (as in the Oscar-winning Harlan County, USA and American Dream), Kopple always looks for the strong narrative line, so she can explore bigger issues through the natural pull of everyday drama. Her filmography is so eclectic that it’s sometimes hard to put her work into any particular category or genre. She’s never been exclusively a “verité” director, or a political polemicist. She mostly just tries to connect two sets of human beings: the ones on her screen and the ones watching.

With This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, Kopple had the challenge of documenting someone ...

An explosion of digital distribution means that it’s a beautiful time to be an independent filmmaker, filmmakers such as Barbara Kopple (“This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous”) and writer-director Marti Noxon (“To the Bone”) said Monday at TheWrap’s Sundance Industry Panel. Producers and executives revealed that the rise of digital alternatives to theatrical release combined with crowdfunding and social media channels has given storytellers options to push content in broad or very narrow fields. But as Noxon noted, it’s even more important for creators to refine their material before taking advantage of new distribution and funding opportunities: “Just because you can make.

Every year, Hollywood invades Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival.

This year, celebrities like John Legend, Jon Hamm and more are making the most of their time in the snowy small town by rubbing elbows with their fans and hitting up the festival’s biggest parties – and People is there to capture all the fun moments.

Saturday, Jan. 21

Noon – Novitiate‘s Dianna Agron had a very important question to ask the Google Home on display at the Variety Studio presented by Orville Redenbacher: “What sound does a giraffe make?”

1 p.m. – After leading a crowd of about 8,000 people...

YouTube will once again have a big presence at the best-known film festival in the United States. The world’s top video site will host several initiatives at the Sundance Film Festival, where it will premiere This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, an upcoming documentary that will be available through YouTube Red.

This Is Everything will follow its titular subject, who has gone on an inspirational journey as YouTube’s most popular transgender creator. The documentary, which comes from veteran filmmaker Barbara Kopple, will be the first-ever YouTube Red project to premiere as an official selection at Sundance, though the video site did highlight several other Red programs during last year’s festival.

“YouTube is committed to actively supporting the work of risk-taking storytellers worldwide, and we’re incredibly proud that Sundance Film Festival audiences will be the first to watch Barbara Kopple’s searing vision of a courageous young woman...

The 2017 iteration of the Sundance Film Festival commences in just a little over a month on January 19, 2016 in Park City, Utah. And, like in year’s past, the celebration of independent-film-turned-celebration-of-independent-film-plus-star-studded-party-and-brand-scene will continue to be composed of a growing amount of digital programming.

Not only will Netflix premiere a slate of no less than seven original films, documentaries, and series (as part of its 2017 initiative to double its original programming), but the world’s largest video sharing site and a comedy community founded by Michael Cera, Tim & Eric, Sarah Silverman, and Reggie Watts will have their own first performances, too.

YouTube will debut This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, a documentary about the Streamy Award-winning beauty and fashion star who began her career on the site as Gregory Gorgeous and is now in possession of more than 2.4 million YouTube subscribers and 2.2 million followers on Instagram. The film was originally announced as...