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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.

On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit‘s Thursday, October 24 episode, “Divide and Conquer,” a couple (Emily Jackson and Adam Aalderks) have their NYC dinner party interrupted by a brutal home invasion and assault by masked men. What makes the episode special, however, is the first guest appearance this season by Amanda Rollins (fan-favorite Kelli Giddish) in her new job as a sergeant working for the NYPD’s Intelligence Unit. The unit is quite a change for Rollins, since executive producer David Graziano has explained, that it has cops stationed in lots of countries around the world. She’ll travel, but so far her marriage to Ada Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino) seems solid. Rollins believes the crime is likely linked to her investigation into an international ring of thieves, aka “crime tourists,” who fly into large cities, commit several robberies, and leave within 48 hours. As their violence escalates, the pressure is...

When "Stargate" debuted in 1994, it was a modest hit. Roland Emmerich's film made $196 million on a $55 million budget, turning a decent enough profit and establishing what would become a surprisingly long-running franchise. That franchise would not play out on the big screen, however. Instead "Stargate" spawned a slew of TV shows, which focused on Stargate command sending out various crews to explore forgotten and mysterious corners of the universe using the titular portals.

The first, best-known, and longest-running of these series was "Stargate Sg-1," which tapped MacGuyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson, to play Special Operations Colonel Jack O'Neil — the role played by Kurt Russell in Emmerich's movie. Show creators Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner also brought in Amanda Tapping to play the United States Air Force captain Samantha Carter — a member of O'Neil's crew tasked with exploring the universe and fending off assorted alien threats.

The Sci-fi channel, now "SyFy,...

Wishing that your feature films inspired by true events were of a very recent nature? More so than last week’s Richard Jewell (23 years), or those docudramas from last month, Dark Waters and The Report, both from the early part of this decade. Here’s one that reaches back about three years, and it’s still happening, although not dominating the media as it did. Last year a terrific documentary, Divide And Conquer: The Story Of Roger Ailes from director Alexis Bloom, pulled back the curtains on the cable TV goliath Fox News, giving us an unflinching look at the history of it and its founder, Ailes. A big part of that film concerned his on-air talent with stories of the lawsuits leveled against him and his staff which added fuel to the “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements. Now comes the big-screen treatment, from a celebrated director and...

Add an Emmy to the growing list of acclaim for the documentary on the life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “Rbg.” Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s film on the current Supreme Court justice was previously nominated for an Oscar back in January. In a rare category tie, Rudy Valdez’s HBO film “The Sentence,” which focuses on federal and state mandatory minimum sentencing laws, also shared the victory in this year’s category.

To take home the prize for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, “The Sentence” and “Rbg” bested “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” another film that was nominated at this year’s Oscars as well. This is Valdez’s first year as an Emmy nominee. Cohen and West, first-time nominees as well, were also nominated in the Best Nonfiction/Documentary Directing category.

“Rbg” was one of a pair of films to air on CNN that were recognized in this category,...

The Creative Arts Emmy Awards are upon us, and with them, they bring a whole host of questions, not the least of which include: The Emmys are tonight? Why can’t I find them on TV? Why isn’t “Stranger Things” nominated? I bet my house on Outstanding Period Costumes, did I make a mistake?

While some of those queries will remain a mystery, here are a few things to keep an eye on headed into two nights of honoring the best of what television has to offer.

Watch the ‘Thrones’

Every Emmy story this year seems to boil down to “Game of Thrones.” At the Creative Arts Emmys, the question is if the HBO behemoth can break the single season record for Emmy wins before the Primetime Emmys even begin. While it’s not likely, it is possible, with the series boasting 18 nominations in 16 separate categories, this weekend alone.

Photo credit: Lionsgate/Hilary Bronwyn Gayle

Starring Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron (Megyn Kelly), Academy Award® winner Nicole Kidman (Gretchen Carlson), Academy Award® nominee John Lithgow and Academy Award® nominee Margot Robbie (Kayla Pospisil), based on the real scandal, Bombshell is a revealing look inside the most powerful and controversial media empire of all time; Fox News, and the explosive story of the women who brought down the infamous man who created it. Directed by Emmy® Award winner Jay Roach and written by Academy Award® winner Charles Randolph.

Bombshell also stars Emmy® Award winner Kate McKinnon, Golden Globe® nominee Connie Britton, Emmy® Award winner Mark Duplass, Emmy® Award nominee Rob Delaney, Golden Globe® nominee Malcolm McDowell and Academy Award® winner Allison Janney.

Here are some companion pieces to consider before Bombshell opens this December.

Showtime recently aired their seven-part limited series “The Loudest Voice” about Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News.

Imagine someone in the news business, a television producer, who wasn’t concerned about truth. That apparent anomaly describes Roger Ailes, the late Fox News chief, according to filmmaker Alexis Bloom.

“He never said truth was important to him, in terms of Fox News. It was all about entertainment and messaging,” Bloom tells Deadline. “He never said ‘factual accuracy is what we’re all about.’ He didn’t.”

Bloom delved deeply into Ailes’ life and impact on news media and politics for her Emmy-contending documentary Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes. The film from A&e is nominated for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, an exclusive category determined by select members of the TV Academy’s Nonfiction Peer Group.

To understand Ailes’ conservative worldview, Bloom dialed back to his childhood in small town Warren, Ohio.

“Growing up where he did inculcated in him a sense of patriotism and American...

A&E IndieFilms and Sundance Institute have selected four recipients for their inaugural “Brave Storytellers Award,” an honor that is intended to provide financial support for documentary filmmakers. The winners are Cecilia Aldarondo, Jemka Autry, Margaret Brown, and Yoruba Richen.

Each honoree will receive $25,000 in seed funding, as well as year-round mentorship from staff of the Sundance Institute, a non-profit filmmaking organization. A&E IndieFilms will then work with Sundance Institute to support the recipients’ projects through development, production and distribution.

The projects being supported by the grants cover a range of subjects. Richen’s “American Reckoning” will grapple with the FBI’s recent series of investigations into hundreds of unsolved civil rights era murders. Autry’s “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” examines the prosecution of the jazz singer on drug charges. And Aldarondo’s “You Were My First Boyfriend” reexamines life in high school.

Brown’s project is dubbed “Africatown,...

Showtime is cooking up its own take on Roger Ailes, The Loudest Voice in the Room, starring Russell Crowe as the disgraced Fox News CEO and chairman who was brought down when at least 20 women, including network stars Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly, called him out for sexual harassment. Director Jay Roach has a film in play, Fair and Balanced, in which John Lithgow will portray Ailes with Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie costarring as women in his predatory orbit. Forced to resign in July 2016 amid charges of sexual misconduct,...

Most documentaries don’t start the way they finish. But two Magnolia Oscar contenders, “Rbg” (CNN Films) and “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes” (A&E Indie Film), adapted as the world moved around them. Both films took advantage of new perspectives with the Trump presidency and the surging #MeToo movement.

South African documentarian Alexis Bloom (“Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds”) initially began to research, for Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Prods., a dynasty story on the Murdoch family. But she soon realized that Fox News czar Roger Ailes, who started out as a presidential campaign guru to then-candidates Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump — was the more-interesting story. Arguably, Ailes not only permanently altered the media landscape but coarsened our national political discourse. And then, in 2016 he was brought down at Fox News by a series of sexual-harassment accusations.

When Bloom began,...

Most documentaries don’t start the way they finish. But two Magnolia Oscar contenders, “Rbg” (CNN Films) and “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes” (A&E Indie Film), adapted as the world moved around them. Both films took advantage of new perspectives with the Trump presidency and the surging #MeToo movement.

South African documentarian Alexis Bloom (“Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds”) initially began to research, for Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Prods., a dynasty story on the Murdoch family. But she soon realized that Fox News czar Roger Ailes, who started out as a presidential campaign guru to then-candidates Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump — was the more-interesting story. Arguably, Ailes not only permanently altered the media landscape but coarsened our national political discourse. And then, in 2016 he was brought down at Fox News by a series of sexual-harassment accusations.

When Bloom began,...

Would you like to blame Bill Gates for Roger Ailes creating Fox News? You could harbor that grudge if you so desired after watching Alexis Bloom’s bracing biopic documentary “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes,” because it’s one of the fascinating tidbits of speculative psychology in the grand narrative of a dark-hearted, power-thirsty mogul’s stranglehold on our divisive political discourse.

It seems that in the mid-90s, flush from his many years helping Republican candidates like Mitch McConnell get elected, Ailes was content to be a talk-show magnate, running his brainchild America’s Talking, a CNBC spinoff network that was the first real attempt to launch an all-chat-show channel with a wide audience reach.

But when NBC partnered with Bill Gates to start MSNBC, they gave the software billionaire the transponder used for America’s Talking, effectively ending Ailes’ baby. Steamed and spiteful, according to the documentary,...

It’s the final month of 2018, which means a great deal of catching up on the best films of 2018 so far, along with a handful of films in theaters to check out. This month brings some last-minute hopeful awards contenders as well as a selection of festival favorites, a few promising blockbusters, and some oddities.

Matinees to See: Ben is Back (12/7), Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes (12/7), Mary, Queen of Scots (12/7), Bird Box (12/13), Mortal Engines (12/14), Capernaum (12/14), Aquaman (12/21), Bumblebee (12/21), Mary Poppins Returns (12/19), On the Basis of Sex (12/25)

15. Vice (Adam McKay; Dec. 14)

Considering the official embargo isn’t up yet, we can’t give our reviewer’s thoughts on Vice yet, but they are… less than kind. However, I still have some morbid curiosity when it comes to Adam McKay’s cartoonish-looking depiction of the Bush era. With a physically transformative performance from Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, we’ll...

“It surprised me that somebody could be head of a billion-dollar corporation and be so chronically paranoid. An intern on our project had to have higher mental health standards than he had,” reveals director Alexis Bloom about the subject of her documentary “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes,” which opens December 7. The film follows Ailes’s dramatic rise and fall: he started as a TV producer and eventually became a kingmaker in Republican politics as the chairman and CEO of Fox News until a sexual harassment scandal led to his ouster from the organization in 2016. He died the following year. Watch our exclusive video interview with Bloom above.

The film doesn’t present a flattering portrait of Ailes by any means. “I don’t think he comes out well, and I hope he doesn’t because he was a right shit-bag at the end,” says Bloom. But she...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This week […]

The post This Week In Trailers: Iron Sky: The Coming Race, Divide And Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, The Bisexual, Capernaum, Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 10 appeared first on /Film.

If Roger Ailes, the late chairman and CEO of Fox News, were still alive as President Donald Trump's divisive campaign on behalf of the midterm election congressional candidates came to a thundering close, would he have doubled down on all the unsupported charges Trump made?

Alexis Bloom, who directed the new documentary Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, which Magnolia will release Dec. 7 and which will eventually air on A&E, considers the question a moment before responding. "I don't know. Only Roger could answer that," she says. "But the one thing we do ...

If Roger Ailes, the late chairman and CEO of Fox News, were still alive as President Donald Trump's divisive campaign on behalf of the midterm election congressional candidates came to a thundering close, would he have doubled down on all the unsupported charges Trump made?

Alexis Bloom, who directed the new documentary Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, which Magnolia will release Dec. 7 and which will eventually air on A&E, considers the question a moment before responding. "I don't know. Only Roger could answer that," she says. "But the one thing we do ...

A total of 166 films have been submitted for consideration in the documentary feature category for the 91st Academy Awards.

Notable titles up for the gold include “Rbg,” “Three Identical Strangers,” “Free Solo” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — which have performed strongly at the box office. Fred Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” has grossed $22.6 million domestically.

Nine of the 10 titles named as finalists for the International Documentary Association’s top feature are on the list, including “Crime + Punishment,” “Dark Money,” “Free Solo,” “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” “Minding the Gap,” “Of Fathers and Sons,” “The Silence of Others,” “United Skates” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences noted that several of the 166 films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying runs. A shortlist of 15 movies will be announced on Dec. 17.

Nominations...

Last year, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 166 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others for the first time on a single date this year: December 17.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume until last month, when they received a batch of 77, with more to come. It’s a burden to watch them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list. Give the advantage to early box office hits that were made available in the summer such as “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Rbg,” and “Three Identical Strangers,” as well as September’s list including critically hailed “Dark Money,...

Last year, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 166 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others for the first time on a single date this year: December 17.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume until last month, when they received a batch of 77, with more to come. It’s a burden to watch them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list. Give the advantage to early box office hits that were made available in the summer such as “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Rbg,” and “Three Identical Strangers,” as well as September’s list including critically hailed “Dark Money,...

Was former Fox News chief Roger Ailes a genius, a monster or both? That’s a question posed by the new documentary “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes.”

“It’s easy to make somebody into a monster. It’s hard to see that you’re on that path too,” says former Fox News personality Glenn Beck in the first trailer for the film.

Directed by Alexis Bloom and executive produced by Alex Gibney, the doc tells the life story of Ailes, from coaching Richard Nixon as a media advisor to his sexual harassment scandal at Fox News prior to his death. The film describes him as a Shakespearean figure who was “more important than America,” who “was profoundly paranoid” and who used power and manipulation as tools to build his media empire and shape a nation.

Also Read: 'Rbg' and 'Won't You Be My Neighbor?'...

A whopping 166 documentary features have been submitted to the academy for consideration at the 2019 Oscars. That is down by four from last year’s record 170 submissions. Among these contenders are all of the highest grossing documentaries of the year including “Free Solo,” “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

To winnow the entries down to the 15 semi-finalists that will be announced on December 17, the academy is sending monthly packages of the newly eligible documentary feature screeners to all 400 or so members of the documentary branch. While all members are encouraged to watch as many of these as they can, one-fifth of the voters are assigned each title. In late November, each branch member will submit a preferential ballot listing their top 15 choices.

See 2019 Oscars: Foreign-language film entries from A (Afghanistan) to Y (Yemen)

All of these ballots will be collated to determine the 15 semi-finalists. Branch members will then be...

In a year that has seen multiple documentaries find mainstream success, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the list of 166 docs that have been submitted for Oscar consideration this year.

Among the films on the list are Michael Moore’s anti-Trump polemic “Fahrenheit 11/9,” as well as CNN Films’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg biography “Rbg” and Focus’ Mister Rogers retrospective “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

Other films considered frontrunners include “Three Identical Strangers,” the wild story of triplets who were separated at birth by a bizarre experiment, “Free Solo,” which documents the first ever attempt to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without any climbing gear, and “Dark Money,” an investigative report into the influence of billionaires on American democracy through the lens of a Montana congressional race.

Also Read: Sorry, Oscar Documentary Voters: Your Workload Just Doubled

The contender field is slightly less than last year’s record field of 170 but does include,...

Roger Ailes not only has a Showtime limited series starring Russell Crowe and a Jay Roach-directed feature film starring A-listers galore, but the disgraced Fox News boss also has a new documentary tracing his rise and fall coming to theaters later this year.

Read More: Charlize Theron Has Flawlessly Morphed Into Megyn Kelly On The Set Of Jay Roach’s Upcoming Roger Ailes Film

And in the first trailer for “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes,” we see exactly why one man can not only become one of the most powerful men in media but the subject of so many upcoming major film and TV projects.

Continue reading ‘Divide And Conquer’ Trailer: Disgraced Fox News Boss Roger Ailes Gets Profiled In New Doc at The Playlist.

In June, a mere five months before the American Film Institute’s 32nd annual film festival, Michael Lumpkin took over the reins from fest director Jacqueline Lyanga, who exited after eight years at the helm.

Despite the short turnaround time, Lumpkin, already head of the AFI Docs festival in Washington, D.C., was determined to make this year’s Los Angeles-based fest a diverse mix of cinema with a focus on new auteurs, international filmmakers, the best work from 2018’s earlier festivals and, of course, potential Oscar players. He didn’t disappoint.

From 4,000-plus submissions, the fest will screen 83 features, four episodic shows and 47 shorts for a grand total of 134 titles from 45 countries. Selected films are dispersed into eight categories that include galas, world cinema and cinema legacy.

The festival — which kicks off Nov. 8 at Tcl Chinese Theatre — boasts five world premieres: Susanne Bier’s “Bird Box,” Mimi Leder’s...

Magnolia Pictures has released the first trailer for the upcoming documentary Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes.

The trailer begins with archival footage of a young Ailes, the late former CEO of Fox News and Fox Television, saying, “I don’t believe anyone will ever be elected to a major public office again without the skillful use of television.”

The trailer goes on to explore the many accomplishments and different roles that Ailes had in his lifetime, included being a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The trailer then moved ...

Magnolia Pictures has released the first trailer for the upcoming documentary Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes.

The trailer begins with archival footage of a young Ailes, the late former CEO of Fox News and Fox Television, saying, “I don’t believe anyone will ever be elected to a major public office again without the skillful use of television.”

The trailer goes on to explore the many accomplishments and different roles that Ailes had in his lifetime, included being a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The trailer then moved ...

Members of the Academy’s documentary branch received a generous gift from AMPAS on Friday: 77 new films that had qualified in this year’s Best Documentary Feature category.

And it turned what had been a modest year for docs — with a total of 83 films included in June, July, August and September groups — into one in which the number of eligible films that voters would need to watch nearly doubled.

The Academy also promised voters in the branch to expect a final batch of films in early November — which, if it hits double digits, will set a new record in the category.

Also Read: 'Free Solo' Leads Critics' Choice Documentary Awards Nominations

The previous high, set last year, was 170 films. With 160 already on the Oscar eligibility list and one additional (though likely small) batch yet to come, this year’s crop will give voters a lot of work to do before...