News

Los Angeles music obsessive Amy Berg still remembers what it was like to be a Jeff Buckley fan back in her twenties. “Grace” “changed my life,” she told me during a recent interview. “I would see every single heavy grunge punk band that came through Los Angeles: I was at Nirvana’s first show in L.A. at Jabberjaw. When I heard this album, it settled me. It was Ok to be in your body, but Jeff made it all Ok to feel.”

“It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley,” the latest documentary from Berg, is not as dark as her exposés “Deliver Us from Evil” (2006), “West of Memphis” (2012), and “An Open Secret” (2014), or her definitive Janis Joplin portrait, “Janis: Little Girl Blue” (2015).

Mostly, it’s a celebration of Buckley’s life and music, primarily the only album he ever released, “Grace,” in 1994, lauded by David Bowie as one of ten...

Last fall, 27 years after Jeff Buckley died, the singer-songwriter best known for his haunting cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” reached a surprising new chart peak. Propelled mainly by teenage girls using the track as the backdrop for their moody musings, “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” a plaintive breakup tune from Buckley’s 1994 studio album, Grace, became the 19th most popular song on the TikTok Billboard top 50. “Ugh the Og yearner ,” reads an appreciative comment on a black-and-white video of Buckley performing the song that has been liked 640,000 times. “Imagine getting a song like this written about you like ,” reads one from another wistful admirer.

To older generations of Buckley fans, these youthful reactions are entirely understandable. “You hear that song, and you feel the most romantic feelings you could feel,” says documentarian Amy Berg, 54, who first had her own moody Buckley moment in the ’90s.

Several years before...

Sure, this is a TV Watch List, but this week the emphasis is on the movies, with seemingly more must-watch features than the last few months in the theater combined. From a steamy new thriller with Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, to a movie where renegade ice skaters transport goods across a frozen body of water to a thriller starring Jesse Plemons, Lily Collins and Jason Segel, this week really does have a stellar line-up of new movies. Plus shows starring Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson and Jake Johnson.

On with the television!

Apple TV+

“WeCrashed”

Friday, March 18, AppleTV+

If you haven’t had your fill of starry prestige dramas based on real-life con artists, then have we got a starry prestige drama based on a real-life con artist! In this case, it’s “WeCrashed,” focusing on Adam Neumann (played by Jared Leto) and his wife Rebekah (Anne Hathaway), a...

In the last several years, following terrific docs like “An Open Secret” “Prophet’s Prey,” and “West Of Memphis,” filmmaker Amy Berg has quickly become one of the premier documentarians in the field of abuse cases and injustices, often centering around stories of female exploitation and abuse. Her latest is HBO’s “Phoenix Rising,” a two-part documentary produced and directed by Amy Berg (“The Case Against Adnan Syed”), follows actress and activist Evan Rachel Wood (“Westworld”) as she takes her experience as a survivor of domestic violence to pursue justice, heal generational wounds, and reclaim her story.

Continue reading ‘Rising Phoenix’ Trailer: HBO’s Two-Part Abuse Doc Featuring Evan Rachel Wood Debuts March 15 at The Playlist.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival may have pivoted to a virtual festival because of Omicron Rising (which feels like the title of a movie or a new Pink Floyd record), but it is moving full-steam ahead regardless. Today, the festival added two new late-edition titles to the line-up. Both are documentaries, and the first title is “Phoenix Rising,” directed by Amy Berg on actress and activist Evan Rachel Wood.

Continue reading Amy Berg’s Documentary ‘Phoenix Rising,’ Chronicling Evan Rachel Wood’s Experience As A Domestic Abuse Survivor Added To Sundance at The Playlist.

Bizparentz Foundation, the nonprofit organization that’d been advocating for child actors and their parents since 2004, has relaunched its website, featuring more than 100 articles – and over 1,000 links to support them – on a variety of issues affecting child performers, including taxes, tips on avoiding talent scams, navigating union contracts and money held in trust for child actors in Coogan accounts.

Other new features on the site include Covid-19 resources for kids, details about the new sexual harassment training required for child actors in California and the Foundation’s latest inductees to its “A+ List” – 237 former child actors “who grew up to impact society in a positive way.”

Bizparentz, which is also one of the leading sources of information about child predators in the film and TV industry, played a key role in the making of An Open Secret – Amy Berg’s 2015 documentary about pedophiles in the entertainment industry. Co-founders Anne Henry...

Director Bryan Singer has released a statement denying the allegations that he raped a 17-year old boy in 2003. This isn't the first time that allegations of sexual misconduct and minors have shown up in Singer's past and the director has denied all of the past allegations as well. But it seems that those past allegations might have been the tipping point for Singer getting fired from Bohemian Rhapsody, which he also denies. Bryan Singer is a notorious for creating a hostile work environment, so many assumed that was the real reason that he was fired, but Singer has his side of the story.

Bryan Singer's lawyer, Andrew Brettler, released a statement to TMZ, denying that the director had raped a then 17-year old Cesar Sanchez-Guzman in 2003. In the statement, Brettler attacks the alleged victim and basically calls the lawsuit a sham. He had this to say.

"Bryan categorically...

Bryan Singer has had a ruinous week. On December 4, 20th Century Fox fired Singer from the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” for abandoning the London set; on December 6, the studio announced Dexter Fletcher as his replacement. In a statement, Singer ascribed his absence on “Bohemian Rhapsody” to caring for an ailing parent, but Fox also declined to renew its long-term deal with Singer’s production company, while his longtime publicist cut ties a few months ago.

Read More:Fox Fired Bryan Singer, but It Won’t Be Able to Remove Him as the Director of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

And then, on December 7, Singer hit the news cycle again: In a lawsuit filed by attorney Jeff Herman, Cesar Sanchez-Guzman accused Singer of sexually assaulting him in 2003, when Sanchez-Guzman was 17.

All of this represents a tremendous comedown for Singer, a blockbuster director whose films have made over $1 billion in domestic release alone.

The long gestating Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody has been in trouble for years. There were many starts and stops, but the movie's future finally looked bright when Rami Malek signed on to play iconic singer Freddie Mercury and X-Men director Bryan Singer agreed to direct earlier this year. Now, the movie is trouble again. There were only a few weeks of filming left, but 20th Century Fox has decided to fire Singer. The studio blames Bryan Singer's termination on his chaotic and erratic work ethics. As well as his tendency to suddenly disappear without notice. The filmmaker doesn't agree with this assessment, and has released his own statement on the matter.

In shorter words, Singer is putting the full blame for his termination on Fox. He claims the studio would not allow him to care for his ailing parent. Bohemian Rhapsody production was halted indefinitely last week. At the time,...

Production on “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the forthcoming biopic about Queen frontman Freddie Mercury starring Rami Malek, has been suspended so that director and producer Bryan Singer, 52, can tend to what his representative described as “a personal health matter,” the BBC News reports.

Read More:‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ First Look: Rami Malek Resurrects Freddie Mercury For Queen Biopic

In its own statement, distributor Twentieth Century Fox made no reference to Singer’s health, stating: “Twentieth Century Fox Film has temporarily halted production on Bohemian Rhapsody due to the unexpected unavailability of Bryan Singer.” Although the film’s December 2018 release date remains, the studio offered no timeline for his return.

However, Singer’s representative told the BBC that there was “a personal health matter concerning Bryan and his family,” and added this statement: “Bryan hopes to get back to work on the film soon after the holidays.” According to the outlet, “Both Singer and...

In October 2009, Kater Gordon’s writing career came to a sudden end. In the space of a year, she went from Matt Weiner’s personal assistant on “Mad Men” to his Emmy-winning co-writer of the season finale. Then, less than a month after standing next to Weiner on the Nokia Theatre stage, she was fired. Or, as a show insider put it: “Matt has reluctantly decided that their relationship has reached its full potential.” That awkward rationale highlighted the “Mad Men” narrative: It was Weiner’s show, and his whims were law.

“Mad Men” continued for six more critically lauded seasons as Gordon faded from the news cycle and from the industry. Now imagine that story in 2017, with Gordon coming forward with her sexual harassment accusations against Weiner. Her story would have legs; he would be forced to deal with the charges, Peak TV be damned. All of which suggests...

Call Me by Your Name is out in theaters and has a lot of Oscar buzz surrounding it. But Corey Feldman and others are calling out the new movie for glamorizing pedophilia. Rolling Stone magazine has called it the, "most romantic movie of the year," while the New Yorker calls it an "erotic triumph, emotionally acute and overwhelmingly sensual." Call Me by Your Name is a romantic tale about the awakening of homosexual desire in and between a 24-year old man and a 17- year old teenager whose relationship sparks homoeroticism and flirtation, which then turns romantic and sexual. Does the movie promote pedophilia?

Actor Corey Feldman, who has started a campaign to stop a Hollywood pedophile ring, called out Call Me by Your Name for promoting pedophilia. Feldman responded on Twitter to another user who claims that the movie does not contain "grooming" for pedophilia. Feldman had this to say.

Call it “The Weinstein Effect,” but it seems Hollywood and the entertainment industry are not just waking up to the fact that sexual assault and harassment are a very real problem, but that it’s high time to enact measures to both help survivors and out abusers. In the wake of a seemingly unending series of allegations made against such Hollywood heavyweights as Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, Jeremy Piven, Dustin Hoffman, James Toback, Steven Seagal, and Jefferey Tambor, two key organizations of now announced new programs to specifically designed to aid survivors.

As Deadline reports, the Lapd is launching their own task force to investigate such possible crimes. Per the outlet, Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey “has established a special task to force to look into allegations of sexual assault in the entertainment industry. Despite the growing number of allegations, however, no crimes have been referred for...

The film An Open Secret died upon release in 2015, but is seeing a renewed interest online amid a cascade of allegations against Hollywood’s elite

When the documentary An Open Secret tried to lift the lid on child abuse in Hollywood, it billed itself as “the film Hollywood doesn’t want you to see”. The marketing tagline did not exaggerate.

The film died upon release in 2015. There was no theatrical release to speak of, no television deal, no video-on-demand distribution.

Continue reading...

YouTube channel ScreenJunkies has released new content for the first time since creator Andy Signore was fired almost three weeks ago for alleged sexual misconduct. ScreenJunkies film critic and producer Dan Murrell, “The ScreenJunkies Show!” host Hal Rudnick, “ScreenJunkies News” editor-in-chief Roth Cornet, and “Honest Trailers” writers Spencer Gilbert and Joe Starr released a solemn, respectful, 11-minute video on Oct. 26 where they vowed to rebuild trust in the community and thanked fans for their continued patience.

“We’ll be approaching some semblance of normalcy slowly,” said Starr. “I think we all agree that it would feel fake if tomorrow we just gave you a ‘Geostorm’ review.”

Read More:ScreenJunkies and Honest Trailers Remain Dark Following Andy Signore’s Dismissal

While Hollywood was reeling over the first allegations against Harvey Weinstein, multiple women on social media accused Signore of inappropriate behavior, including telling one woman that he masturbated to her picture and...

Harvey Weinstein is suing his former studio, The Weinstein Company, in order to gain access to his personnel file and his work email account. Weinstein has been accused of sexual harassment by over 60 women since the first report from The New York Times was published on October 5. Actresses Rose McGowan, Asia Argento, and Natassia Malthe have accused Weinstien of rape, as has former production assistant Mimi Haleyi.

Read More:Ashley Judd Speaks Out on Harvey Weinstein: ‘I Love You, and I Understand That You’re Sick and Suffering’

The suit was filed in Delaware. The former studio head says The Weinstein Company has rejected his attorney’s requests for his personnel file. The studio, meanwhile, is trying to obtain numerous files from Weinstein as it investigates an independent search into the many sexual harassment claims. Variety reports The Weinstein Company is even seeking access to Weinstein’s personal cell phone.

“An Open Secret” sounds like the perfect title for a brand-new documentary addressing the entertainment industry’s sexual harassment and assault epidemic, which in recent weeks has uncoupled Harvey Weinstein, Roy Price, and Andy Signore from their companies (and caused James Toback, President George H.W. Bush, Oliver Stone, Ben Affleck, and Mark Halperin to confront their own allegations). However, the documentary — which focuses on the abuse male managers, agents, and publicists inflict on young, male clients — premiered at Doc NYC in November 2014 and had a small release the following June (IndieWire awarded it an A-).

Despite its current 93 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, director Amy Berg — who’d previously investigated sexual abuse in “Prophet’s Prey” and “Deliver Us from Evil,” for which she earned a 2007 Best Feature Documentary Oscar nomination — was unable to find a distributor. “An Open Secret” producer Gabe Hoffman claims the film was even accepted,...

Actress Jordana Grolnick has become the second woman to accuse former President George H.W. Bush of sexual harassment. The actress says she met Bush in August 2016 on the set of a Maine production of “Hunchback of Notre Dame.” He allegedly came backstage during intermission and fondled her while taking a photo with the cast. Grolnick claims Bush told her that his favorite magician was “David Cop-a-Feel” while he was groping her.

“We all circled around him and Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him,” Grolnick told Deadspin. “He reached his right hand around to my behind, and as we smiled for the photo he asked the group, ‘Do you want to know who my favorite magician is?’ As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, ‘David Cop-a-Feel!’”

Read More:Actress Heather Lind Accuses Former President George H. W. Bush of Sexual Assault According to Grolnick,...

The fallout continues from new allegations that journalist Mark Halperin sexually harassed several women. HBO, which had been developing a limited-run series based on an untitled book on the 2016 Presidential election, co-written by Halperin, has now dropped the project.

“HBO is no longer proceeding with the project tied to the untitled book co-authored by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann on the 2016 Presidential election,” the network said. “HBO has no tolerance for sexual harassment within the company or its productions.”

HBO had previously aired a TV version of the book “Game Change,” which chronicled the 2008 United States presidential election and was also co-authored by Halperin. HBO adapted the novel into an Emmy-winning television movie, starring Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin.

Also on Thursday, Showtime said no decision has been made on whether “The Circus,” which includes Halperin as a host, will return for a third season — or what Halperin’s involvement might be.

Hollywood sure loves movies about movies, but when it comes to documentaries exposing their darkest secrets, the industry is much more reserved. Three years ago, Amy Berg directed “An Open Secret,” which explored the sexual abuse of teenage boys by major players in the movie business, and the documentary was barely released, landing in the hands a tiny distributor with limited reach. In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the producer Gabe Hoffman made the film available for free on Vimeo for a week.

Continue reading ‘The Invisible War’ & ‘The Hunting Ground’ Team Making Documentary About Sexual Abuse In Hollywood at The Playlist.

An Open Secret, a documentary about the sexual abuse of teenage boys at the hands of Hollywood big-wigs, generated plenty of publicity a few years ago, but no suitable offers for digital distribution.

Now, with new sexual allegations against Harvey Weinstein and others in the movie and TV industry coming practically daily, the producer of An Open Secret has posted his film online for the first time, free for the next nine days.

"It's so funny to keep seeing headlines about how Harvey's abuse was 'an open secret' in Hollywood, and that's the name of our film," said producer Gabe Hoffman....

A recent interview with Elijah Wood has reignited the conversation on pedophilia in the entertainment business. The Lord of the Rings star later clarified first to The Hollywood Reporter and then on his personal Twitter account that his comments about "something major ... going on in Hollywood" were based not on his own experiences and observations but rather on news reports and the 2015 documentary film An Open Secret. But another former child actor — Corey Feldman, star of such iconic 1980s movies as The Goonies, Stand By Me and The Lost Boys — was not so lucky. In past interviews, his A&E

read more...

Read More: Doc NYC Review: Amy Berg's 'An Open Secret' Is a Devastating Exposé of Hollywood's Sexual Abuse Problem This year's Oxford Film Festival, which will take place between February 17-21, kicks off with a high caliber selection of independent films, including Amy J. Berg's acclaimed "An Open Secret" and Les Blank's "A Poem Is a Naked Person." Although the two biggest names at the festival are documentarians, the event does not shy away from narrative features, hosting the debuts of Tony Bloodworth's "Forced Move," as well as Mark Potts' "Spaghetti Man," among others. The Oxford Film Festival has made a name for itself as of late for continuously growing and expanding its horizons as to the caliber of filmmakers and range of topics it presents in its lineup, recently hosting Q&A's with James Franco and Tim Blake Nelson for Franco's "The Sound...

A singer who, decades after her tragic passing, has been challenged by few singers in terms of sheer power, Janis Joplin did more a lot more than burn bright and fade away. Director Amy Berg ("West Of Memphis," "An Open Secret") paints a fascinating, layered portrait of the blues-rock icon in "Janis: Little Girl Blue," and today we have an exclusive clip from the documentary. Narrated by Cat Power and produced by Alex Gibney, 'Little Girl Blue' presents an intimate, insightful look at a complicated, driven, often beleaguered artist. Joplin’s own words tell much of the film’s story through a series of letters she wrote to her parents over the years, many of them made public in the documentary for the first time. The picture also features numerous interviews, as you'll see in the scene below, with a fellow musician recounting his first meeting with Joplin.

Oscar-nominated for her Catholic sex abuse doc "Deliver Us From Evil" (2006) and acclaimed for "West of Memphis" (2012), her deep-dive into Arkansas' imprisonment of the teenage West Memphis Three, prolific filmmaker Amy Berg has had a busy year.  She debuted at Sundance 2015 her Mormon expose "Prophet's Prey" (September 18, Showtime) and at Doc NYC the controversial Hollywood sex abuse doc "An Open Secret," (June 5, Rocky Mountain Pictures), as well as debuting her first feature, psychological thriller "Every Secret Thing" (April 20, Starz), written by Nicole Holofcener and starring Diane Lane, which was buried in the scrum of indie features these days.  It's easier in many ways to get attention for docs like her latest, the official Janis Joplin documentary "Janis: Little Girl Blue" (FilmRise, November 27) which Berg produced with Alex Gibney. I sat down in Toronto with Berg to discuss her...

Full line-up of the Stockholm film festival includes feature and documentary competition line-ups.Scroll down for full line-up

The Stockholm International Film Festival (Nov 11-22) has unveiled the line-up for its 26th edition, comprising more than 190 films from over 70 countries.

The Stockholm Xxvi Competition includes Marielle Heller’s Us title The Diary of a Teenage Girl and László Nemes’ Holocaust drama Son Of Saul.

It marks the first time Stockholm has a greater number of women than men competing for the Bronze Horse – the festival’s top prize.

The documentary competition includes Amy Berg’s An Open Secret, an investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry; and Cosima Spender’s Palio, centred on the annual horse race in Siena, Italy.

Announcing the programme, festival director Git Scheynius also revealed that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will visit Stockholm for the first time as chairman of the jury for the first Stockholm Impact Award, which...

Read More: Review: Amy Berg's 'An Open Secret' Is a Devastating Exposé of Hollywood's Sexual Abuse Problem Amy Berg's long-gestating Hollywood abuse documentary, "An Open Secret," is one step closer to being available to a wider audience. The Hollywood Reporter shares that the film's producers have "tweaked some scenes" in the film, which is focused on the pattern of abuse and pedophilia in Hollywood circles, in order to earn the feature a PG-13 rating from the MPAA. The film was originally granted an R rating, a move that producer Gabe Hoffman strongly objected to, arguing that "the film tells cautionary tales meant to be learned by teenagers under 17 who wouldn't be allowed to attend without parental supervision had the R-rating stood." The MPAA's concerns were reportedly rooted in the language used in the film, and a few modest snips (per THR, "one word from two different...

A feud between the filmmakers behind An Open Secret, the documentary about pedophilia in Hollywood, has gotten a little nastier, with producer Gabe Hoffman initiating arbitration proceedings against director Amy Berg for a host of alleged transgressions. Hoffman had previously complained that Berg had abandoned a commitment to help market the film and now, according to a letter obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, he's also alleging she delivered the movie late and in poor shape, on a variety of levels. In all, the letter to Berg's Disarming Films from an attorney representing Hoffman's Esponda Productions lists six reasons for arbitration.

read more...

An Open Secret, about the abuse of children in the film industry, has charted the lowest box office figure its distributer has seen in 26 years, as director Amy Berg cites a “busy schedule” as the reason she has refused TV interviews

Related: An Open Secret review – damning documentary takes aim at sexual abuse in Hollywood

The producers of An Open Secret, a controversial documentary about child sex abuse in Hollywood, have criticised their director, Amy Berg, for failing to sufficiently promote it.

Continue reading...

In a rare move, the producers of An Open Secret, the documentary about child molesters in Hollywood that bombed recently at the box office, are blasting the film's director Amy Berg for not supporting it, saying she turned down "dozens" of requests for press interviews. Berg, who gave interviews to many media outlets — including Deadline — didn't do any major broadcast news interviews. It's doubtful, however, that those would have helped the film's prospects much anyway…...

Producer Gabe Hoffman has appealed to the Motion Picture Association of America, saying an R rating will make the documentary inaccessible to the teen audience it seeks to protect

A producer of An Open Secret, a controversial documentary about child sex abuse in Hollywood, has complained to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) after the ratings body gave the film an R classification, “for some descriptions of sexual abuse”.

The documentary explores the systematic grooming and abuse of young actors. It includes testimonials from men who claim they were drugged and coerced into performing sex acts at parties hosted by prominent film-makers.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: SAG-aftra National Executive Director David White recently misled the union's board of directors about the union's attempt to whitewash An Open Secret, director Amy Berg's explosive new documentary about the sexual abuse of child actors in Hollywood. He also misled the board about the union's threat to sue her and the film’s producers. Last Friday, Deadline revealed that the union had threatened to sue Berg unless she removed "all references" to the union from…...

The third time proved to be the charm for Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy, as their newest collaboration Spy took the top spot at the box office over the weekend with $30 million. This marks the first time the duo have landed at number one on the box office chart and the third time the two worked together, after both Bridesmaids and The Heat. Spy, however, wasn’t the only new entry in the top three, as the horror franchise entry Insidious Chapter 3 also landed in third place with a total of $23 million. In between the two was last week’s box office champion San Andreas, as the Dwayne Johnson-starring film took in $26.4 million in its second place finish.

The Doug Ellin feature Entourage was the other new release of the weekend to break the top ten, as the film continuation of the HBO series finished in fourth place with $10.4 million.

Amy Berg’s controversial documentary An Open Secret, which addresses allegations of teen sexual molestation in Hollywood, performed poorly in its initial runs in nine theaters this weekend in Denver and Seattle, distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures said today. “In 26 years, it’s the lowest-grossing film we’ve ever had,” Rocky Mountain’s Ron Rodgers said by phone this morning. “We knew it would be challenging subject matter.” Rodgers said one of the film’s “best showings&#8221…...

All had Metacritic scores of 80 or above, putting them ahead of hits like "Ex-Machina" and "Wild Tales." "Love and Mercy," the story of Brian Wilson told at two different points in his career, went national in a wider break, while World War I English romance "Testament of Youth" played four top New York/Los Angeles venues. Veteran Swedish director Roy Andersson's "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence" had two appropriate Manhattan dates. The results were uneven, with each showing some draw — and "Love and Mercy" showing some initial significant success. We also discuss the unusual initial dates for "An Open Secret," Amy Berg's controversial documentary about young actors being preyed on by older film business power brokers. It showed, to poor results, at several mostly suburban general audience multiplexes in Denver and Seattle. Opening "Love and Mercy" (Roadside Attractions) Cinemascore:...

Leaders of SAG-aftra tried to sanitize director Amy Berg's explosive documentary about the sexual abuse of child actors in Hollywood, threatening to sue her if she didn't remove all references to the union from An Open Secret, which opens in a platform release in three cities beginning today. It may be the first time a Hollywood union has ever threatened to take legal action against a filmmaker over the content of a film. "This firm is litigation counsel to SAG-aftra,"…...

Leaders of SAG-aftra tried to sanitize director Amy Berg's explosive documentary about the sexual abuse of child actors in Hollywood, threatening to sue her if she didn't remove all references to the union from An Open Secret, which opens in a platform release in three cities beginning today. It may be the first time a Hollywood union has ever threatened to take legal action against a filmmaker over the content of a film. "This firm is litigation counsel to SAG-aftra,"…...

This is a reprint of our review from the 2014 Doc NYC Film Festival. Filmmaker Amy Berg is no stranger to chronicling abuses of power, often centered on sex and male hegemony. Berg put the Catholic Church’s myriad sexual abuse scandals in the crosshairs for 2006’s “Deliver Us From Evil,” and she takes the same exacting and carefully considered aim on alleged Hollywood sex rings in the alarming expose “An Open Secret.” A quietly explosive, no-holds-barred look at sexual predators within the Hollywood community—many of them well known industry figures, some of whom are convicted sex offender—Berg’s unsettling and incendiary doc takes a deep dive into what many call Hollywood’s worst kept secret: child sex abuse within its ranks and the blind eye that many choose to turn on the victims. While shocking and devastating, what defines Berg’s respectful documentary from others covering similarly lurid...

“What you see in the film is the tip of the iceberg” says producer Gabe Hoffman on An Open Secret, the documentary from Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg about child sex abuse in Hollywood

A revealing new documentary about the sexual abuse of children within Hollywood is hoping to lift the lid off an alleged network that implicates major industry figures.

An Open Secret, which was shown this week in an out-of-festival screening in Cannes, is a damning new film from Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg, who previously explored paedophilia within the Catholic church in Deliver Us From Evil.

Continue reading...

“What you see in the film is the tip of the iceberg” says producer Gabe Hoffman on An Open Secret, the documentary from Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg about child sex abuse in Hollywood

A revealing new documentary about the sexual abuse of children within Hollywood is hoping to lift the lid off an alleged network that implicates major industry figures.

An Open Secret, which was shown this week in an out-of-festival screening in Cannes, is a damning new film from Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg, who previously explored paedophilia within the Catholic church in Deliver Us From Evil.

Related: An Open Secret review – damning documentary takes aim at sexual abuse in Hollywood

Related: Ferguson documentary American Race crowdfunded by Oscar nominee

Continue reading...

Amy Berg’s revealing look at child molestation in the film industry is plainly told but undeniably shocking

It’s been salaciously described as “the movie Hollywood doesn’t want you to see”, and while this sounds like marketing hyperbole, An Open Secret’s rocky road to the big screen suggests it might not be too far from the truth.

The film, a documentary about the sexual abuse of child actors in the entertainment industry, has struggled to gain distribution, been rejected by numerous festivals and received cuts to excise some of the more litigious content. Its Us release is now moving forward this summer to 5 June, and an out-of-festival screening at Cannes took place this week to appeal to international buyers.

Continue reading...

Today's batch of MPAA ratings bulletin begins with an R-rating for the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy from Asif Kapadia (Senna). This one premiered at Cannes to very good reviews and will be hitting theaters in early July. Another Cannes premiere was Woody Allen's Irrational Man, but the reaction to this one was a bit muted, but that isn't stopping me from looking forward to seeing it. Next is the Sundance hit Dope and then Amy Berg's documentary An Open Secret, a doc investigating accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry. Finally we have The Final Girls, which played the SXSW Film Festival and Mike gave it a mezzo-mezzo review and it seems the PG-13 rating might have been the thing holding it back. Check out the complete ratings bulletin below. Amy Rated R For language and drug material. Release Date: July 3, 2015 Dark Horse Rated PG...

With just two feature-length documentaries under her belt, 2006’s "Deliver Us from Evil," an exploration of a Catholic priest sex abuse cover up and 2021’s "West Of Memphis," an examination of failed justice in the case against the West Memphis Three, director Amy Berg has quickly risen to the top of the names working in the field. And if you add two not-yet-released, but equally superb documentaries — “An Open Secret” and “Prophet's Prey,” both coming out later this year — a portrait emerges: one of the best documentary filmmakers working today, period. And she’s branching out, too. Berg’s first narrative effort, “Every Secret Thing,” is a reworking of Laura Lippman’s crime novel of the same name. Adapted to the screen by celebrated filmmaker Nicole Holofcener ("Enough Said," "Please Give"), the thriller is a complex and dense police procedural about how crime impacts a community and offers myriad points of view.

It bills itself as "the movie Hollywood doesn't want you to see." But strategic cuts have been made to the original version of An Open Secret, Amy Berg's explosive documentary about sexual abuse in Hollywood, as it courts foreign buyers in Cannes. Specifically, the film has dropped all references to lawsuits alleging sexual abuse that Michael Egan filed in 2014 against director Bryan Singer and film and TV executives Garth Ancier, David Neuman and Gary Goddard. Egan later dropped them all, and Ancier and Neuman filed suits of their own against Egan and his attorneys for malicious prosecution. Read

read more...

The Tuesday episode was delayed a day as Laremy was caught in Dallas over the weekend, but don't fret, we're still here and we have another 67 minute of ear hole glory to deliver including our usual look at the new DVDs and Blu-rays coming out, a rube submission, a new trailer to explore, a couple of your questions, Laremy on TV and a big ol' batch of games. Hope you enjoy. For those that may be wondering, we didn't intend to skip games today, it just happened that way as we started running out of time, but we'll be getting to them all on Friday so get your submissions in! If you are on Twitter, we have a Twitter account dedicated to the podcast at @bnlpod. Give us a follow won'tchac I want to remind you that you can call in and leave us your comments, thoughts, questions, etc. directly on our Google Voice account,...

Baby Blues: Berg’s Troubled and Troubling Feature Debut

Treated to a chilly reception following its premiere at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival last spring, the feature debut of documentarian Amy Berg will see a theatrical release amidst the encroaching fanfare of her next highly provocative doc concerning teen sex rings in Hollywood, An Open Secret, hitting theaters only a few weeks later. The timing is certainly convenient for Every Secret Thing, perhaps a move to overshadow the critiques of her latest, as Berg seems noticeably less comfortable in the realm of narrative storytelling, especially if you’ve seen her hailed work on Deliver Us From Evil and West Memphis Three, now part of a growing body of work haunted by the specter of sexual transgressions involving preadolescents. This latest is based on a novel by Laura Lippman, a mystery writer who began as a journalist, which seems an inspired...

The ad line for An Open Secret, the new documentary about the sexual abuse of child actors, is "The Movie Hollywood Doesn't Want You to See." After talking to the film's producers, it's easy to see why. Executive producer Gabe Hoffman wouldn't name names, but said, "We went to everybody and anybody at all the biggest companies and got turndowns everywhere." Exec producer Matthew Valentinas told Deadline: "There was major interest in this film at Cannes last year. They'd…...

In Amy Berg’s 2006 Oscar-nominated documentary Deliver Us From Evil, Berg shined the light on the Catholic church and a specific priest in order to call attention to acts of child abuse, molestation and rape. Now Berg is directing her camera at a different institution perpetrating similar acts under the radar: the film industry.

In the trailer for An Open Secret, Berg conducts an in-depth investigation into acts of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry as they strive for fame. Reviews from when the film premiered at Doc NYC fest in November 2014 say that Berg shows great focus and only highlights those accusers willing to speak on camera, acknowledging that this problem is just “the tip of the iceberg”.

An Open Secret is one of three films Berg is releasing this year. We previously shared the trailer for Every Secret Thing, a drama starring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Banks.

The trailer for Amy Berg's documentary on child sexual abuse in Hollywood is here, and it looks pretty terrifying. An Open Secret will tell the story of nearly half a dozen young people who allegedly endured some form of mistreatment by powerful industry players. "It's much bigger than anything about the one case," Berg told one reporter last year, referencing the very public, contentious claims of Michael Egan. "[Abuse] is a huge problem. It's pervasive in Hollywood, and the time to explore it is now." The movie's secured a 20-city release and will screen at Cannes later this month.

The trailer for director Amy Berg‘s controversial documentary about child sex abuse in Hollywood was released on Wednesday. Billing itself as “The Film Hollywood Doesn’t Want You to See,” “An Open Secret” has drawn fire over its inclusion of Michael Egan, discredited for accusations against “X-Men” director Bryan Singer. The film also profiles four other men (Evan H., Nick S., James G. and Chris T). Regarding the controversy, executive producer Gabe Hoffman said, “Michael Egan’s participation in ‘An Open Secret’ is limited to descriptions of the sexual abuse he suffered at the mansion at the hands of Mark Collins-Rector,...