Category Archives: Documentary

“RISE – The Siya Kolisi Story” Documentary Slated For World Premiere At 2023 Tribeca Film Festival

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Today, award-winning athlete, entrepreneur and philanthropist Siya Kolisi announced that his documentary “RISE – The Siya Kolisi Story,” which chronicles his journey as the first black, South African rugby captain who overcame the odds to lead his national team to win the 2019 World Cup, is set to world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 12.

The documentary is more than a sports story and pulls back the curtain on Kolisi’s tumultuous upbringing in South Africa, where he navigated through poverty, systemic racism from apartheid, neighbourhood violence and a complex relationship with his father.

Rugby became Kolisi’s refuge as he honed his craft, becoming the first-ever, Black captain of South Africa’s national team in its 126-year history as well as one of the greatest superstars of his generation. In the process, Kolisi’s leadership on and off the pitch inspired a country that had been plagued by decades of segregation and injustice.

“I’m truly honored to be sharing my story with millions around the world,” said Siya Kolisi. “I hope my journey inspires people to chase their dreams and reminds others to never allow adverse circumstances to define our lives. We are more than products of our environments and we have the potential to change our respective narratives.”

See the trailer here.
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“Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive” World Premiere at ’23 Tribeca Festival on Friday, June 9th

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Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive“Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive follows the magnificent second act of Grammy Winner and global music legend, Gloria Gaynor as she pursues her decades-long dream of writing and recording a gospel album.

For more than fifty years, Gloria has inspired millions around the world with her song, “I Will Survive.” While she always believed in the timeless power of the song’s lyrics; they were never more impactful to Gloria herself until her sixties when she faced major upheavals in her own life.

The poignant documentary chronicles her struggles with ageism and financial ruin and through the power of faith and resilience embarks on a journey to not only ‘survive’ but to truly ‘thrive.’”

“Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive” is directed by Betsy Schechter. Betsy Schechter, David Zieff, Kieran Healy serve as producers.

Here are the public screenings for “Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive”:
Friday, June 9, 2023 at 8:15 PM at Spring Studios/The Indeed Theater
After the Movie: A performance by the one and only Gloria Gaynor.
Saturday, June 10, 2023 at 5:45 PM at Village East Cinema – 03
Saturday, June 17, 2023 at 5:15 PM at Village East Cinema – 07

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“Queenmaker: The Making Of An It Girl” Sets Release On Hulu

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Queenmaker-The-Making-Of-An-It-Girl--On-HuluIn the height of heiress-era NYC, an anonymous blogger infiltrated Manhattan’s elite, brings socialite celebrity to new heights. When the website creator was unmasked, the mastermind was not the one anybody expected.

The documentary follows the early aughts ushered in a golden era for the New York social set, a generation of rich young women desperate to recreate the success of Paris Hilton and Tinsley Mortimer, keener than ever to show off their fortunes and one-up each other on nightly red carpets.

On the surface, “Queenmaker: The Making Of An It Girl” is a fun, nostalgic romp through the mid-2000s pop culture that dominated mainstream media and laid foundation for current reality TV and the influences of the social media generation.

“Queenmaker: The Making Of An It Girl” premieres May 17, only on Hulu.

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Award-Winning Series ‘POV’ Announces 36th Season Lineup

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Award-Winning-Series-POV-Ammounces-36th-Season-LIneuupAward-Winning Series ‘POV’ Announces 36th Season Lineup; Illustrates Commitment to Diverse Voices, Boundary-Pushing Nonfiction Forms of Storytelling

Season premieres with Jon-Sesrie Goff’s After Sherman on June 26; Features 16 titles including recent Oscar®-nominated documentary A House Made of Splinters and Oscar® Shortlisted feature Children of the Mist. POV airs on PBS, Mondays at 10p/9C and free streaming via the PBS App

Multi award-winning series POV, hailed as America’s longest-running non-fiction series on television, enters its 36th season with a slate of 16 feature documentaries with themes devoted to caregiving, transnationalism, activism, childhood aspirations, accessibility, and intergenerational relationships.

The series’ commitment to provide a public platform to showcase bold forms of nonfiction storytelling by filmmakers with diverse voices and perspectives brings audiences unforgettable protagonists with unique points of views. Half of Season 36’s films are directed by women, and over two-thirds by filmmakers of color.

Celebrated films previously announced this season include POV alumni director Simon Lereng Wilmont and producer Monica Hellström’s timely Oscar®-nominated documentary A House Made of Splinters. As the war in Eastern Ukraine takes a heavy toll on families living near the frontline, a small group of strong-willed social workers work tirelessly in a special kind of orphanage to create an almost magical safe space for kids to live in. In Vietnamese first-time director Hà Lệ Diễm’s riveting Oscar® Shortlisted feature Children of the Mist, she details the challenges facing a Hmong girl living in rural Northern Vietnam caught between tradition and modernity.

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“Anonymous Sister” Documentary Sets Release In Theaters June 2

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Anonymous-Sister-Documentary-Sets-Release-In-Theaters-June-2The film is from the Producer of Dick Johnson is Dead, Cameraperson, Charm City, and Trapped. Jamie Boyle’s deeply personal and critically-acclaimed documentary feature From the Producer of Dick Johnson is Dead, Cameraperson, Charm City, and Trapped

Jamie Boyle’s Deeply Personal and Critically-Acclaimed Documentary Feature opens in New York, Friday, June 2 at IFC Center, and Los Angeles on Friday, June 16
at Laemmle Monica Film Center.

Anonymous Sister begins in the 1980s, as the close-knit Boyle family is introduced through home movie footage of their lives in the Colorado countryside. As the years tick by, the youngest family member, Jamie, is drawn to the camera in early childhood, begging to operate it at any opportunity while her older sister, Jordan, embarks on what will become a prodigious figure-skating career.

By the time she reaches her late teenage years Jamie is documenting, in excruciating detail, Jordan and her mom, Julie, as both simultaneously descend into opioid addiction while battling chronic pain. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Jamie was capturing the reality of the opioid epidemic long before it was acknowledged or named, when it entered your home under the guise of healthcare, when those to whom we entrust our lives became the greatest threat to it.

Thirteen years later finds both family members sober and Jordan newly pregnant with her first child. The pregnancy will mark her first major interaction with the medical community since getting off opioids. Jamie once again picks up the camera as her mom and sister face new hurdles in their hard won sobriety. What she sees this time is not just a family, but an entire nation, in turmoil.

Director Jamie Boyle is a two-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker living and working in Brooklyn NY, the unceded land of the Lenape people. In 2019, she was selected to be part of the inaugural Sundance Talent Forum & Catalyst Lab and on DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 list. She was the editor, producer, and cinematographer of Jackson (SHOWTIME), winner of the 2018 News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary. Jackson premiered at the LA Film Festival and was awarded Best Documentary at over fifteen festivals.

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New Trailer For “Living With Chucky” Released

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New Trailer For Living With Chucky ReleasedA new trailer for the Child’s Play franchise documentary has been released.

The film is an official selection on Popcorn Frights Film Festival 2022, Fantastic Fest 2022, and Screamfest Horror Film Festival 2022.

Living with Chucky takes an in depth look at the groundbreaking Child’s Play franchise from the perspective of a filmmaker who grew up within it. Featuring interviews with cast and crew such as Brad Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Alex Vincent, creator Don Mancini, and much more, this personal film recounts the dedication, creativity and sacrifice that went into making the franchise and its long-lasting impact on the horror community.

Storming into pop culture in the late 1980s, the three-foot menace known as Chucky, proved that Child’s Play was anything but. The horror film went on to spawn six sequels, a television series, a reboot, comic books, a video game and merchandise.

Written and directed by Kyra Elise Gardner, daughter of legendary special effects artist Tony Gardner, Living With Chucky looks back at the groundbreaking horror franchise by those there from the beginning. The documentary details the history of the Child’s Play films by the cast and crew, in addition to Gardner’s own relationship with the series and the impact it had on her family. Gardner, who grew up alongside Chucky the killer doll, seeks out other families involved with the Child’s Play films as they recount their experiences working on the franchise and what it means to be a part of the “Chucky” family.

“Living With Chucky” is set for release on VOD on April 4.

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All About Documentary Feature: “A House Made Of Splinters”

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All About Documentary Feature A House Made Of SplintersStarting at Sundance last year, where the film won the Directing Award, “A House Made Of Splinters” has gone on to be nominated for: a Film Independent Spirit Award, IDA Awards for Best Documentary, Best Director and Cinematography, Cinema Eye Honors for Production and Cinematography, and a European Film Award for Best Documentary.

The documentary is a poignant and deeply intimate documentary three kids temporarily removed from their parents find friendship and flickers of hope inside the worn walls of a remarkable orphanage in Eastern Ukraine, as a group of dedicated social-workers create moments of joy and respite from childhoods all but lost.

In this war-worn and impoverished corner of Eastern Ukraine where addiction casts a long shadow, there sits a safe haven for children temporarily removed from their parents. A House Made of Splinters follows three kids awaiting their fate: will they go back or move on to a new home, while as a group of dedicated social-workers create small moments of joy and respite from childhoods all but lost.

The film is ffilmmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont’s follow-up to his acclaimed first feature, The Distant Barking of Dogs, offering a unique look into how the long-term consequences of war on a society already under strain impacts the most vulnerable. His is a poignant and deeply intimate portrait of a remarkable way station filled with care, support, and trust for a group of kids who are in desperate need of more.

See the trailer below for “A House Made Of Splinters”:

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Sundance 2023: “20 Days In Mariupol” Wins Audience Award

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Sundance 2023 20 Days In Mariupol Wins Audience AwardDirected by Ukrainian AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov, the documentary tells the first hand account of early days of invasion in Mariupol, Ukraine.

Mstyslav Chernov is a Ukrainian war correspondent, filmmaker, photographer, and novelist. He is known for his coverage of the Ukrainian revolution; the Russian invasion in Ukraine; the wars in Iraq, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Afghanistan; as well as for his art installations and exhibitions. Chernov is an Associated Press journalist, and the President of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers.

The documentary follows a team of Ukrainian journalists enter the strategic eastern port city of Mariupol on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

During the subsequent siege and assault, as bombs fall, inhabitants flee, and access to electricity, food, water, and medicine are severed, the team – the only international journalists left – struggles to cover the war atrocities and to transmit their footage out. Eventually surrounded by Russian soldiers, they shelter in a hospital, unsure of how they’ll escape.

Ukrainian filmmaker and journalist Mstyslav Chernov offers a window into the practices of conflict zone reporters and an unflinching, anguishing account of the 20 days he and colleagues Evgeniy Maloletka and Vasilisa Stepanenko spent covering Mariupol. Their footage, widely disseminated through news media, not only documents the death and destruction – corpses in the streets and mass graves, the bombing of apartment buildings and a maternity ward, doctors despairing children they couldn’t save – but directly refutes Russian misinformation. Seeing so much death, Chernov wonders how capturing any more could make a difference. But residents implore them to let the world bear witness.

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2023 Sundance Film Festival Awards Announced

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2023 Sundance Film Festival Awards Announced2023 Sundance Film Festival Awards AnnouncedThe Sundance Film Festival, a program of the nonprofit Sundance Institute, returned back in person and across the country online for 2023. Whether you gathered in theaters or are joining us from home, the Festival offers the opportunity to be a part of the discovery of stories and artists that will inspire and entertain us for years to come. The 2023 Sundance Film Festival jurors and audiences have voted with the awards announced today during an event at The Ray Theatre in Park City and updated on Sundance Film Festival’s official social accounts. The award-winning films will screen in person and via the online Festival platform on Saturday, January 28, and Sunday, January 29. Tickets for all award-screening films are available beginning at 1:00 p.m. MT today.

The jury and audience-awarded prizes amplify the fearless and dynamic stories across sections, with Grand Jury Prizes awarded to A Thousand and One (U.S. Dramatic), Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (U.S. Documentary), Scrapper (World Cinema Dramatic), and The Eternal Memory (World Cinema Documentary), and the NEXT Innovator Award presented by Adobe was awarded to KOKOMO CITY.

Voted on by the audience, Radical was granted the Festival Favorite Award. Audience Awards for films in competition were presented by Acura to The Persian Version (U.S. Dramatic) and Beyond Utopia (U.S. Documentary), and presented by United Airlines to Shayda (World Cinema Dramatic) and 20 Days in Mariupol (World Cinema Documentary). KOKOMO CITY won the audience award for NEXT.

“This year’s Festival has been an extraordinary experience,” said Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO. “The artists that comprise the 2023 Sundance Film Festival have demonstrated a sense of urgency and dedication to excellence in independent film. Today’s award winners highlight our programs’ most impressive achievements in the current moment of cinematic arts. I hope you will join me in congratulating our winners, as well as thanking all artists across sections for sharing their stories with the Sundance community.”

“In addition to acknowledging our artists, I want to thank this year’s jurors for their time and thoughtful consideration,” added Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “Their efforts help contextualize our artists’ work beyond the Festival program and elevate their stories to new audiences around the globe. The winners themselves represent a diverse mix of bold storytelling, thought-provoking reflections, and critical representations of our world today.”
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A Record Five Films from The New Yorker Studios Receive Academy Award Nominations

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Record Five Films from The New Yorker Studios Receive Oscar NomsA record five films from The New Yorker Studios have been nominated for the 95th Academy Awards, joining a list of nominees announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this morning.

Every shorts category is represented: “Stranger at the Gate” and “Haulout” were nominated in the Documentary Short Film category; “Ice Merchants” and “The Flying Sailor” were nominated in the Animated Short Film category; and “Night Ride” was nominated in the Live Action Short Film category.

To date, fifteen New Yorker films have been nominated for an Oscar. The Academy Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, March 12th, in Los Angeles.

“We are delighted that The New Yorker Studios has been recognized with a record five nominations,” Agnes Chu, the President of Condé Nast Entertainment, said. “The New Yorker is a trusted and powerful voice, and our team is passionate about producing films that bring its storytelling to life on screen in ways that connect and unite us all.”
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