A documentary about stolen Disney World props and a half-million-dollar animatronic is going global.

BayView Entertainment picked up international rights to Stolen Kingdom, Joshua Bailey’s debut feature that digs into the seedy underworld of Disney theme park theft. The film centers on the 2018 heist of “Buzzy,” an animatronic swiped from Epcot and valued at nearly $500,000.

Bailey co-wrote the doc with Matthew Serrano of Defunctland. It traces the history of mischief and scandal at Walt Disney World, exposing a surprisingly lucrative black market for stolen props.

The film’s had a strong festival run with sold-out screenings at Big Sky, Slamdance, IFF Boston, and Florida Film Festival. Sidewalk Film Festival picked it as opening night. It hit #1 on Apple TV for new documentaries in the U.S. and screened theatrically over 150 times across the U.S. and Canada.

BayView is shopping it to international buyers at MIPCOM this month. The company’s Craig Sussman and Selena Paskalidis called it a “passion project about mischief and misdeeds” they’re eager to bring to global audiences.

Producers include Slater Wayne (Jackass Forever), Brandon Pickering, Colin Alexander, and Sam Fraser. Antenna Releasing handles North America.

For indie docs chasing niche audiences, this one found two massive ones: Disney fans and true-crime junkies.

Long before New Jersey had a film tax incentive, the Garden State Film Festival was already building the state’s indie film ecosystem. Now, as it approaches its 25th anniversary in March 2027, the nonprofit is pushing to raise $10,000 to keep that work going.

GSFF has screened Academy Award-winning documentaries like A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin and Freeheld. This year, two GSFF alumni films, Saverio and Lawyered Up, made it to the international stage at the American Pavilion during the Cannes Film Festival.

The festival runs March 18–21, 2027, across New Jersey venues, expecting about 20,000 attendees. Beyond the fest itself, GSFF operates year-round film clinics for students who’ve never picked up a camera.

“Every great film needs someone to believe in it first. For 25 years, that’s been our job,” the festival wrote in its DAF Day fundraising appeal. “For many New Jersey students, our year-round film clinics are the first place they pick up a camera and realize their stories matter.”

The goal: give independent voices a stage, especially voices that might otherwise go unheard. As production investment accelerates across New Jersey, GSFF connects that growing industry to filmmakers, audiences, and communities who helped build it from the ground up.

A new documentary wants to know: if artificial intimacy feels real, does it matter that it isn’t?

BOT LOVE, from director Tyler Funk, premieres October 21 on CBC and CBC Gem. The film follows real people navigating relationships with AI companions, each for different reasons.

Nick, a young man on the autism spectrum, finds relief in an AI that offers consistency and patience where human relationships require exhausting effort. Denise turns to AI after painful experiences left her struggling to trust people. For both, this isn’t escapism. It’s survival.

The doc also tracks the developers building the systems that make this possible. Eugenia Kuyda created one of the world’s most popular AI companions. Anthony and Bryan Mitchell are fusing gaming, porn, and AI into an interactive sexual experience. Justin Harrison uses AI to reconstruct the dead so relationships can continue after loss.

“I never thought I’d see another technology transform our lives as quickly as the internet did,” Funk says. “AI has arrived with astonishing speed.” One developer told him AI could be “either the biggest existential threat or the most beautiful technology.” That tension runs through every frame.

Funk’s previous film, ANYTHING FOR FAME, premiered on Paramount+ and Showtime in 2024. This one feels more urgent. Millions of people are already using AI as a companion, advisor, or lover. BOT LOVE doesn’t judge them for it. It just asks what happens next.

Clark Duke returns to his Arkansas roots with STRANGLEHOLD, a gritty crime thriller about desperation and bad decisions hitting digital platforms and VOD this Friday.

Ashley Benson stars as Bailey, a small-town Arkansas stripper tired of scraping by. With Christmas approaching and an infant daughter to think about, she hatches a plan to rob the club where she works. Her accomplice? Ex-military husband Tim, played by Jake Lacy. It’s a scheme fueled by Instagram envy and the desire to give their kid something better than barely getting by.

Duke, who made his directorial debut with the Vince Vaughn crime drama Arkansas, co-wrote STRANGLEHOLD with Chandler Duke and Billington Garrett. The cast includes Justin Long, Ron Perlman, Elle King, David Arquette, Brian Posehn, and Chris Redd.

For Duke, this marks his second feature behind the camera. Before directing, he built a career as an actor in projects like The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine, and Kick-Ass. He’s already prepping his third feature, an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s novel You Don’t Love Me Yet.

STRANGLEHOLD arrives at a moment when stories about economic struggle and morally messy characters feel especially urgent. Duke knows this territory, he’s from Arkansas, and he’s not afraid to show the ugly side of chasing the American dream.