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The tragic 2009 boating accident that claimed the lives of former University of South Florida football player Will Bleakley and ex-Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith is now being depicted onscreen by survivor Nick Schuyler.

The new documentary “Four Down” is based on Schuyler’s bestselling 2010 memoir “Not Without Hope,” which details his rescue at sea in the Gulf of Mexico. Schuyler was found near-death 43 hours after the accident, clinging to the engine mount of the capsized vessel 70 miles offshore. Oscar nominee Steven Cantor directs the hybrid documentary, which includes reenactment sequences featuring U.S. Coast Guard members and officers. “Four Down” is executive produced by Mark Wahlberg and Snoop Dogg.

The film includes interviews with Schuyler, members of the NFL community, and the U.S. Coast Guard, which was involved in the massive search and rescue effort. The feature was filmed on location in St. Petersburg, Clearwater,...

“Four Down,” a documentary based on Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman’s best-selling book “Not Without Hope,” will open the 20th edition of the Sunscreen Film Festival on April 24 in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Directed by Steven Cantor, the docu examines Schuyler’s harrowing 2009 rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard, 43 hours after a tragic boating accident in the Gulf of Mexico claimed the lives of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, and Schuyler’s best friend and former University of South Florida teammate Will Bleakley. Schuyler was found near death, clinging to the engine mount of the capsized vessel 70 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 95-minute hybrid doc was filmed on location in St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa, and at Lantica Studios in the Dominican Republic. For the film’s reenactment sequences, Cantor enlisted current commissioned U.S. Coast Guard members and officers. Interviews with Schuyler, members of the NFL community,...

A feature length documentary about the 2021 fatal overdose of TV relationship expert Dr. Laura Berman’s teenage son is in production via Steven Cantor’s Stick Figure Entertainment and Rubber Ring Films.

Berman’s 16-year-old son, Sammy Chapman, died after taking a pill he bought through Snapchat that was laced with fentanyl. A synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine, fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Nih). Chapman’s February 2021 death garnered national attention.

“Nationwide, fentanyl overdoses are the leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 18 and 45 and over 300 people die every day in America from Fentanyl poisoning,” says Sam Chapman, Berman’s husband. “The drug that killed our son Sammy was delivered to a house like a pizza.”

Filmmaker Matthew Mishory, founder of Rubber Ring Films, will direct the docu, which is currently in production.

Mishory will follow...

Leading Web3 entertainment company Gala Film has partnered with the producing team of “Four Down” on an innovative financing and distribution deal for a feature-length documentary helmed by Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Cantor.

Based on The New York Times bestseller “Not Without Hope,” written by Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman, the film recounts the true story of how Schuyler survived 43 harrowing hours atop an overturned boat in the Gulf of Mexico before his rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard. The tragic boating accident claimed the lives of his best friend, former University of South Florida tight end Will Bleakley, and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith.

Gala Film will finance the documentary, and make it available to its online community. Gala Music and Gala Games are supported by similar ecosystems as a means for fans to interact with entertainment projects. In the case of “Four Down,...

Exclusive: Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired North American VOD rights to the Emmy-winning documentary When Claude Got Shot. The film premiered at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival and made its broadcast television debut in May 2022 on the award-winning PBS documentary anthology series Independent Lens. The documentary will be available to rent and own on North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms on September 27 through Freestyle Digital Media.

When Claude Got Shot follows three strangers tragically bound together through gun violence and a five-year journey navigating a flawed justice system on the way to recovery and forgiveness. While visiting his hometown of Milwaukee, father of three and aspiring attorney Claude Motley is shot in the face by 15-year-old Nathan King during a carjacking gone wrong. Two nights later, King attempts to rob Victoria Davison, who fires her gun in self-defense,...

With the grand in-person return of the New York Film Festival in the rearview mirror, New York’s fall festival season barrels on with Doc NYC, the largest documentary festival in the country. This year’s festival will return to in-person theatrical screenings, with virtual options and passes available as well. The 2021 lineup includes more than 120 feature-length documentaries, including 32 world premieres and 34 U.S. premieres. World premieres include films on figures such as NBA legend Kevin Garnett, recently passed rapper Dmx, rat pack crooner Dean Martin, and the late literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. They join previously announced titles on Kenny G and Dionne Warwick, as well as Matthew Heineman’s “The First Wave,” a penetrating look at the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in New York City.

Doc NYC is also launching three new competitive sections this year: A U.S. Competition for new American nonfiction films, an International...

Arthur Ashe film received world premiere at Telluride and will receive Oscar campaign.

Heading into its international premiere at BFI London Film Festival on Sunday (October 10) Magnolia Pictures has acquired US theatrical rights to Citizen Ashe, the documentary about pioneering tennis champion Arthur Ashe.

Rex Miller and Sam Pollard directed the feature produced by Dogwoof for CNN Films and HBO Max. The film premiered at Telluride last month and will open in cinemas in New York on December 3 and in Los Angeles on December 10 accompanied by an Oscar campaign.

Citizen Ashe reveals the private person behind the historic Grand Slam...

Magnolia Pictures has come aboard the documentary “Citizen Ashe” from Emmy winner Rex Miller and Academy Award nominee Sam Pollard. The nonfiction awards hopeful will be heading to theaters on Dec. 3 in New York and Dec. 10 in Los Angeles, hoping for Oscar recognition at the height of awards season.

Accompanying an Academy campaign, and produced by Dogwoof for CNN Films and HBO Max, the film explores the legacy of three-time tennis legend and humanitarian Arthur Ashe, who broke barriers in the sport and won three Grand Slams. Despite being a top athlete, Ashe struggled with health problems, suffering a heart attack at 36. He contracted HIV due to a blood transfusion that occurred when he had heart surgery, dying of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1993 at the age of 49.

“Sam Pollard and Rex Miller have delivered an exquisite, moving look at the life of a true iconoclast, one who forged his own path...

Whelm, the Great Depression-era indie written and directed by Skyler Lawson and shot on Kodak 16mm, is setting its rollout that will include a 35mm roadshow screenings that begins next month in Beverly Hills.

The news comes as Gravitas Ventures came aboard to acquired North American digital rights to the pic, which is set in the Midwest at the height of the Great Depression and follows estranged brothers (Ronan Colfer and Dylan Grunn) as they become tangled in a rivalry between a legendary bank robber and an eccentric young criminal, finding they are a part of a larger historic scheme.

Lawson’s Endrow Pictures has theatrical rights to the pic, which will screen it in 35mm format at select theaters beginning with the Fine Arts Theatre Beverly Hills from August 13-21.

Lawson is executive producer via Endrow, Lawson, Ed Herrera and Noelle Hubbell are producers, with Herrera also the cinematographer.

Dogwoof co-produced the film with Rexpix, Stick Figure and Get Lifted.

CNN Films and HBO Max are partnering with UK-based documentary specialists Dogwoof to distribute Rex Miller and Sam Pollard’s Citizen Ashe, about the legacy of tennis player and humanitarian Arthur Ashe.

CNN and HBO Max will handle the US release of the completed title in 2022. Details of the release format are yet to be confirmed.

Dogwoof developed and produced the film alongside US companies Rexpix Media, Stick Figure Productions and Get Lifted Film Co.

It is co-directed by Miller and Pollard, with Beth Hubbard and Dogwoof CEO Anna Godas,...

Exclusive: For successful attorney Claude Motley, a return home to Milwaukee to attend his high school reunion almost turned fatal. He had just dropped off a friend in a residential neighborhood when his vehicle was surrounded by carjackers. One of them shot him in the face.

The story of Motley’s long recuperation, and what happened to his attacker—a 15-year-old boy—is told in the new film When Claude Got Shot, premiering at SXSW in the Documentary Spotlight section. In the clip below, Claude’s friend remembers the fateful night and what transpired steps from his door.

“I was in the relative safety of my own home while Claude was a few feet away being victimized,” the friend recalls. “My friend could have died that day…He could literally not be here.”

Brad Lichtenstein directed and produced the documentary, executive produced by Snoop Dogg. The film does not fit...

Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia’s Seven Bucks Productions will co-produce the upcoming documentary “Four Down,” based on Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman’s bestselling book “Not Without Hope.”

Directed by Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning documentarian Steven Cantor, the documentary tells the true story of how Schuyler was caught in a fishing trip accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2009. Stuck 70 miles offshore, Schuyler had to survive for 43 hours until the Coast Guard was able to rescue him, though the accident claimed the life of his best friend, Will Bleakley and NFL players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith.

“I followed this story in the news as it was occurring and then could not put Nick’s book down, so I’m excited to bring it to the screen in all of its harrowing detail,” said Cantor.

“This story is an incredible account of both tragedy and triumph, showing us that the...

Exclusive: Feature documentary WeRiseUP, which includes interviews with the likes of the Dalai Lama, Moby and Richard Branson, is set to be turned into a long-form TV series.

The doc, which had its world premiere at the Aspen Film Festival in September, is directed by Michael Shaun Conaway.

Tent City USA director and producer Steven Cantor, via his Stick Figure Entertainment, and Social Construct Films are now partnering with documentary producer and entrepreneur Kate Maloney and Storyworks to produce a series titled The World is Ending: Time to Rise Up.

The World is Ending: Time to Rise Up will show organizations and communities in action, working to find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, and pairs them with a team of experts, resources, and connections. The teams will look to solve local crises, while aiming to scale solutions globally. The series will also provide resources to viewers who...

“Satori” will tell the latest chapter of ballet star Sergei Polunin’s story, as the enigmatic Ukrainian dance prodigy moves into choreography and attempts to rebuild his career.

The project reunites Polunin with Oscar-nominated Steven Cantor after the pair’s work on earlier feature documentary “Dancer.” The new film follows Polunin’s inauguration as a choreographer with his “Satori” project.

Polunin, once described as the “bad boy of ballet,” quit the Royal Ballet in London in 2012 after having been its youngest-ever principal dancer.

He has created Project Polunin, which creates works for stage and film, and has acted in movies including Rudolf Nureyev biopic “The White Crow” and Kenneth Branagh’s remake of “Murder on the Orient Express.”

As with “Dancer,” WestEnd Films has boarded worldwide sales on “Satori.” The London-based sales, production and finance outfit will introduce the film, which is in production, to buyers at Afm. “Dancer” sold to 25 territories,...

The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival has announced a number of additions to this year’s lineup, including its Closing Night title, a Trey Anastasio-centric documentary, and new films and new details in a particularly stacked Anniversaries section. This year’s festival will close with the world premiere of Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle’s “Yesterday,” which imagines a world in which everyone — save for one budding musician — suddenly forgets about The Beatles. Universal Pictures will release the film later this summer. As was previously announced, the festival will open at New York’s iconic Apollo Theater with the world premiere of Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams’ documentary, “The Apollo” from HBO Documentary Films.

The festival has also announced that it will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” as a Gala presentation at the Beacon Theatre. For the first time ever, audiences will see “Apocalypse Now: Final Cut,...

Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated producer Steven Cantor’s Stick Figure Studios is producing a documentary about Venezuelan rebel helicopter pilot and former police officer Oscar Perez.

On Jan. 15, 2018, Venezuelan government forces killed the renegade pilot and his team after cornering him at his hideout. A former police officer with movie-star looks, Perez has since become a symbol of Venezuela’s opposition to the beleaguered administration led by President Nicolas Maduro, recently sworn in for another six-year term.

The feature-length documentary will focus on the untold story about Perez, who gained worldwide attention last June when he dropped stun grenades on Venezuela’s Supreme Court from a helicopter, and later raided a military police outpost to make off with dozens of rifles.

The doc will feature never-before-seen videos, photos, and audio recordings left behind by Perez, as well as exclusive interviews with his mother, his former girlfriend, and their three sons, along...

Sergei Polunin with Steven Cantor on David Lachapelle, Jade Hale-Christofi with Hozier's Take Me To Church, and Ilan Eshkeri: "Yes! I want to unite artists." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In Steven Cantor's Dancer, Sergei Polunin burns bright with a ferocious energy. British Royal Ballet's youngest ever male principal dancer, Polunin, has been compared to Nureyev and dismissed as party boy by the media. The documentary, executive produced by Steve Coogan, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Christine Langan, Henry Normal, Jamie Schutz, and Nichola Martin, with producer Gabrielle Tana, creatively avoids neither side, and, with extensive access to the Polunin family and archival footage, paints a far more complex picture of the young man and his journey.

Sergei Polunin: "You cannot create more steps for ballet. Everything is already developed but you can freshen it up ..."

Growing up in Kherson, Southern Ukraine, where "everybody was poor," Sergei says, "you don't feel the difference.