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Alex Winter’s “Zappa” is an odd, occasionally jarring documentary, but it wouldn’t make sense for it to be anything else. The film about the iconoclastic musician Frank Zappa sometimes feels like an autobiography from beyond the grave, sometimes playing like a heartfelt tribute and sometimes adopting Zappa’s rhythms and style to be purposefully disorienting. It’s a Zappa-esque concoction — which, of course, is exactly what it ought to be.

The movie was originally scheduled to premiere at South by Southwest in March, but it was pushed back when that festival was canceled. It now opens in theaters and on-demand on Nov. 27 after a special theatrical event on Nov. 23; instead of being the first film in a busy 2020 for Winter that also included directing the HBO documentary “Showbiz Kids” and acting in “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” it’s the last.

It’s also the most hyperkinetic...

Gunpowder & Sky is seeing some major growth. They are expanding their unscripted game with their newly announced Anne Loder the VP of Unscripted Development. Jason Goldberg has also been named as Director of Scripted Development. The company have also inked three major deals. Prophets Films, founded by Vikram Gandhi, and Geoffrey James Clark, formerly president of Futurism Studios, have each signed production deals. Meanwhile, Donny Tourette, former BBC and Sky Vision executive has signed a development deal for Unscripted and Music programming.

“So far, our business has been able to push forward during uncertain times, and as our slate has grown exponentially since we launched a few years ago, now is the perfect time to add some more restless creatives to the team who will keep pushing us to innovate and elevate our game,” said Van Toffler, Gunpowder & Sky CEO. “We are also stoked to have production deals with...

For the last few years Alex Winter has been making a mark in the world of documentary filmmaking taking on stories of technology and corruption and Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain is the latest entry into Winter’s fascination with technology. The thing that distinguishes him from other documentarians that cover the subject is his belief that technology is essentially good - if it’s not misused.

In Trust Machine, Winter takes on blockchain; providing an easily digestible history of the underlying technology of bitcoin, before exploring various ways in which that same technology is being applied and used by a variety of different groups to help with everything from running grocery stores in refugee camps and providing identification for refugees moving a...

"All I want is for people to understand the human implications." Some may known him as Bill S. Preston, Esq. Others may known him as the director of the acclaimed technology documentaries Downloaded, Deep Web, The Panama Papers, and Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain. His name is Alex Winter (you can follow him on Twitter @Winter), and he's an actor, a writer, a filmmaker, a producer, a journalist, and much more. I have become a big fan of Winter's documentaries over the years, he's one of a few filmmakers who actually understands the internet, and presents it in an intelligent and digestible way. Last year, two of his new documentaries premiered - The Panama Papers, about all the journalists who reported on the Panama Papers leak; and Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain, about the origins and implications of blockchain (aka encrypted digital distributed ledgers), the latest technology fad that's sweeping the world.

Many actors have survived the intensity of Hollywood fame with second careers, but few have followed a trajectory as fascinating as Alex Winter’s. After skyrocketing to stardom as Bill S. Preston opposite Keanu Reeves in 1989’s “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and its 1991 sequel, Winter grew disillusioned with the movie business. He grew sick of the pressures of the spotlight and, as he would reveal decades later, still contended with trauma of sexual assault experienced in his childhood. But Winter escaped through twin obsessions that would form his career: filmmaking and the internet.

Nearly 25 years after Winter gave up on professional acting, he’s enjoying a new life as a serious documentarian, with movies that untangle some of the thorniest questions surrounding modern technology. Following the Napster-focused “Downloaded” and the dark web portrait “Deep Web,” Winter has completed two new documentaries that reveal the intensity of his obsessions.

Documentarian Alex Winter is solidifying his place within the tech world as a storyteller willing to look at modern systems stymying the old guard and exciting the new before helping to disseminate what they mean for the world at-large. He looked back at how Napster disrupted the music scene in Downloaded (something the movie and television industry faces today to the point where a sequel in the next five to ten years wouldn’t be far-fetched) and took us beneath the surface of buzzwords and indictments surrounding Tor and the dark web with Deep Web. Much like the latter’s central through line Ross Ulbricht, Winter’s latest Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain focuses on educating outsiders by humanizing a disruptor targeted by those working to maintain status quo.

He goes one further this time too by using his subject — blockchain technology — as the source of his art. The...

"The internet is now a tool of central power, but blockchain says 'no way!'" SingularDTV + Futurism have released the official trailer for a documentary titled Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain, formerly known as Decentralized. This is the latest doc made by actor-turned-filmmaker Alex Winter, who also made the excellent other tech docs Downloaded and Deep Web previously. This time he tackles the hot new tech trend of the day - blockchain. Trust Machine is the first blockchain-funded, blockchain-distributed, and blockchain-focused documentary, exploring the evolution of cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin), blockchain and decentralization, including the technology's role in addressing important real-world issues. Featuring narration by Rosario Dawson. I am a big fan of Winter's docs, and I'm looking forward to watching this. Official trailer (+ poster) for Alex Winter's doc Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain, on YouTube: In his newest documentary Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain, filmmaker Alex Winter drills down on blockchain,...

Actor Alex Winter isn't just sitting around, waiting for Bill & Ted 3 to get made. While he hopes for that hugely anticipated sequel to finally lift off, he's been busy making a new tech documentary. And it looks intense and somewhat scary. Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain has just delivered its first trailer, and it explores the strange new world of a future that is barreling at us at full speed.

Trust Machine is opening October 26 in New York, and November 16 in Los Angeles. And it looks like another enthralling tech dive by former Lost Boys star Alex Winter, who has made quite a name for himself in the world of documentaries this past decade.

In his newest film, Alex Winter drills down on blockchain, the decentralized technology that supports cryptocurrencies. Why are banks terrified while Unicef Ventures embraces it to help refugee children? Winter follows tech innovators striking a...

‘Bitcoin matters, but blockchain is really where the changes are going to come.’

SingularDTV has set an October 26 New York release for Alex Winter’s Trust Machine: The Story Of Blockchain its first feature-length documentary.

Kim Jackson of SingularDTV is producing alongside Geoff Clark of Futurism Studios, and Winter’s Trouper Productions. SingularDTV finances the feature and executive producers are Zach LeBeau, Arie Levy-Cohen, Alex Klokus and Joseph Lubin.

Trust Machine: The Story Of Blockchain explores blockchain, the decentralised technology that supports among other things cryptocurrencies.

The documentary asks why banks appears so wary of blockchain while it has been...

A top executive at the blockchain specialist SingularDTV said the company is “very optimistic” it will gain regulatory approval to enable crowdfunding through its platform.

Letting members of the company’s online community directly invest in film, TV and music projects would close a key loop, said Kim Jackson, co-founder and head of entertainment for the company. During a keynote session at a New York conference sponsored by the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance, she said crowdfunding would complement tools for producing, distributing and tracking projects. The whole enterprise, she said, can be managed with new technology that offers far greater ease and transparency than with any current method, though regulators have expressed some wariness.

“We’re working with SEC lawyers and working very closely with regulators to be able to show them the functionality of this application,” Jackson said. “It will really be able to be a transparent ledger, so...