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Submarine’s documentary “Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World” has sold North American rights to Topic, the streaming service from First Look Media. It will debut exclusively on the streamer on Oct. 1.

Directed by Hans Pool, “Bellingcat” follows the citizen investigative journalist group as they uncover global information warfare and wide-ranging disinformation campaigns that promote violent and authoritarian ideologies across the globe. The doc covers crucial work exposed by Bellingcat, including the MH17 Malaysian Airlines flight that was shot down over Ukraine in 2014.

“Bellingcat: Truth in a Post Truth World” garnered positive reviews from critics. Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge said the doc “feels like a spy thriller at times” and called it “an exciting look at one such group of self-appointed fact finders.” It won an international Emmy last year for best feature documentary and screened at festivals including SXSW and HotDocs.

“‘Bellingcat’ is a compelling look...

Documentary group Cinema Eye on Thursday unveiled nominations for the 2020 Cinema Eye Honors, with Netflix’s American Factory and Neon’s Apollo 11 leading the way with five nominations each. Netflix tops all distributors with 17 noms, the most ever in a single year.

Winners will be revealed at a ceremony January 6 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

American Factory, which counts Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground among its executive producers, and Todd Douglas Miller’s deep dive into the 1969 moon mission Apollo 11 were nominated in the marquee Outstanding Nonfiction Feature category. They are joined there by For Sama, the PBS/Frontline Syrian drama from Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watt; Neon’s Honeyland, the Sundance-winning Macedonian beekeeper tale from Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevsk; 1901 Media’s Mexico City ambulance industry pic Midnight Family; and Amazon Studios’ Sundance U.S. Grand Jury Prize-winning One Child Nation.

Last year,...

Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, writers on hit Italian drama “Gomorrah,” have signed on to be writers and showrunners on “The Kollective,” another true-life-inspired scripted series.

The show hails from Amsterdam-based producer Submarine. It is inspired by its well-received feature documentary “Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World,” which was directed by Hans Pool. It followed the citizen journalism collective Bellingcat. The series will follow a fictional U.K.-based group called The Kollective, which is at the cutting edge of investigative journalism.

The Fasoli and Ravagli-penned series will trace events after a member of The Kollective dies in mysterious circumstances in Cairo, Egypt. While investigating what happened, his friends and colleagues find themselves trapped in a plot that threatens global democracy. The series will be predominantly English-language and unfold across various international locations.

“We love investigating what is happening in the world around us and tackling difficult questions through our work,...

The first edition of the Croatian gathering dedicated to investigative cinema has proven to be a triumph with the audiences on the island of Rab. The first edition of the Rab Film Festival (Raff), which took place from 23-27 August on the Croatian island of Rab, saw Ladj Ly's Les Misérables, Ken Loach's Sorry We Missed You and Hans Pool's Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World pick up the Raff Frame Awards. The newly established event is dedicated to investigative cinema, and is headed up by investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Robert Tomic Zuber. The selection featured six films in the documentary competition and five in the fiction section. The jury, consisting of Sarajevo Film Festival documentary programmer Rada Sesic, Croatian director Antonio Nuic and actress Tihana Lazovic, gave out the Raff Frame Award for Best Fiction Film to Loach's film, and the Best Documentary Award to the Idfa title.

Deadline is teaming with with the International Documentary Association and Hulu to launch For the Love of Docs, a screening series of 10 feature documentaries that represent the best of the brand. The films will be screened each week at the Landmark Theatre in Los Angeles beginning September 17 and running until December 10. The screenings are free.

The following films were chosen:

Ask Dr. Ruth, directed by Ryan White: A documentary about America’s favorite sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

Bellingcat, Truth in a Post Truth World, directed by Hans Pool: An exciting film about “citizen investigative journalism” tackling issues such as the crash of Mh 17 to the poisoning of a Russian spy.

Halston, directed by Frédéric Tcheng: A captivating documentary about the legendary ’70s fashion designer Halston.

Love, Antosha, directed by Garret Price: A film about the late actor Anton Yelchin, who died in 2016. Told through letters...

Hans Pool’s Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World follows the diehard band of brothers behind the online investigative outfit Bellingcat, founded by a shy Brit determined to unmask some of the media’s most notorious blockbuster stories. Whether that be through geo-location mapping, voice analysis, drone imagery, or even fact-checking legacy organizations like the NY Times (one of several outlets to report a staged car bombing as real), the international collective takes tools once the province of law enforcement and other paid “professionals” to separate fact from fiction in a very 21st century way. Filmmaker spoke with the […]...

Hans Pool’s Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World follows the diehard band of brothers behind the online investigative outfit Bellingcat, founded by a shy Brit determined to unmask some of the media’s most notorious blockbuster stories. Whether that be through geo-location mapping, voice analysis, drone imagery, or even fact-checking legacy organizations like the NY Times (one of several outlets to report a staged car bombing as real), the international collective takes tools once the province of law enforcement and other paid “professionals” to separate fact from fiction in a very 21st century way. Filmmaker spoke with the […]...

Unfolding with the urgency and gloss of a fictional cyber thriller, director Hans Pool’s documentary “Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World” is an engaging and insightful window into the titular open-sourced investigative journalism website and its founder Eliot Higgins, made famous for their investigation into the downing of MH17. While the film is, occasionally, uncritical in regards to Bellingcat’s overall method, it is, nonetheless, a compelling documentary, and a window into the possibilities of democratized journalism.

Continue reading ‘Bellingcat: Truth In A Post-Truth World’ Shines A Light On Open-Sourced Investigative Journalism [Review] at The Playlist.

Professional journalism is in crisis mode. Major consolidation, cost-cutting, and technology shifts are leading to less outlets, less job opportunities, and less coverage of important issues. In this changing landscape, new models built around the unique capabilities of the Internet have come to the fore, including Wikileaks and its highly controversial form of leak journalism. Another model is open source journalism as practiced by an organization called Bellingcat. Although their name is weird, Bellingcat is one of the most innovative journalism groups operating at the moment. As shown in Hans Pool's gripping documentary, Bellingcat - Truth in a Post-Truth World, this group's investigative model has significant --and potentially dangerous -- implications for the future of journalism. Bellingcat, which was founded in 2014 by Eliot Higgins,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Remember when the words “breaking news” used to refer to the thrill of hearing about world events as they happened? These days, it has become the daily sport of autocrats and elected officials alike, who have realized that discrediting once-reputable journalistic sources — quite literally, attempting to break the news — is an effective strategy in not being held accountable to facts. While it can be scary to realize that such misinformation games occur — and often even originate — at the highest levels of government, there is hope in the form of citizen journalists such as those profiled in Hans Pool’s “Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World,” an exciting look at one such group of self-appointed fact finders that presents their innovative research techniques as a kind of cutting-edge spy thriller.

When Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over the Ukraine, sparking vehement denials that Russia had any involvement, Bellingcat went...

Exclusive: New project is a “provocative” look at the Us prison system.

Submarine, the independent film and transmedia production company set up by Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix in 2000, is to co produce American Jail (working title), the latest film from Roger Ross Williams, director of Oscar-nominated Life, Animated (pictured).

Billed as “a deeply personal and provocative film,” the feature doc follows Roger Ross Williams as he sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces at work in America’s prison system.

He embarks on a search for solutions to help the community he came from in Easton, Pennsylvania. Other partners on the project include CNN, BBC and the Why foundation.

Submarine is also producing another provocative new feature doc The Method Bellingcat, about online group Bellingcat (formerly known as The Brown Moses blog), founded by citizen journalist Eliot Higgins.

Leicester-based blogger Higgins attracted a worldwide following for his work identifying the provenance of weapons...

Toronto -- The 28th International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in Montreal is to kick off March 18 with Canadian director Anne-Marie Tougas' "Vivre Avec L'Art... Un Art de Vivre," and close with "Views on Vermeer -- 12 Short Stories," from Dutch director Hans Pool.

In all, FIFA will unspool 230 films from 23 countries during its 10-day run to March 28.

Among the 43 films in competition in Montreal are French director Gerald Caillat's L'Art de Chopin, "David Hockney: A Bigger Picture," from British-based director Bruno Wollheim, and German directors Werber Kohne and Andre Schaefer's "King of Spies -- John Le Carre," a portrait of the popular suspense writer.

Also screening at FIFA is "Juliette Binoche Dans Les Yeux," a biopic of the French actress by sister and French director Marion Stalens, and U.S. director Wendy Keys' "Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight."

The FIFA competition jury comprises German filmmaker Uli Aumueller,...

First Run/Icarus Films

NEW YORK -- This brief documentary from Dutch filmmakers Hans Pool and Maaik Krijgsman is like a mini-academic course in photojournalism. Detailing the backstories behind four iconic photographs, all of them World Press Photo contest winners, "Looking for an Icon" will be of great interest to history as well as media buffs. The film recently received its U.S. theatrical premiere at New York's Film Forum.

The four famed photos under discussion probably are familiar to most viewers. They include the shooting of a Viet Cong guerrilla by a South Vietnamese police chief (1968); the final photo of a slightly ridiculous looking Salvador Allende, taken during the 1973 coup; the unknown Chinese protester single-handedly facing down a tank in Tiananmen Square (1989); and a moving portrait of a soldier grieving for his dead friend during the first Gulf War (1991).

Among those discussing the epochal pictures are some of the photographers who shot them as well as comments from photojournalists, editors, professors and others who provide historical and cultural context.

Running less than an hour, the film doesn't wear out its welcome. Indeed, it whets the appetite for more, with the idea seeming a natural fit for a docu series on an appropriate cable channel.

For this engagement, the feature was cannily paired with "The Day You Love Me", a powerful short film by Leandro Katz centering on the famous photo of the corpse of Che Guevara, his eyes hauntingly open, surrounded by Bolivian soldiers.