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The John Wick spinoff Ballerina will open the 71st Taormina Film Festival, which kicks off in Sicily next week and announced its lineup Thursday.

Star Ana de Armas will not be in attendance, with the film represented instead by director Len Wiseman and actor Norman Reedus.

It is among eight features that will play as special events in Taormina’s Ancient Theatre.

Another 10 titles will play in the International Feature Film Competition including Iraq War U.S. Navy Seal drama Warfare; The Rule of Jenny Pen with John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush; and David Mamet’s Henry Johnson with Shia Labeouf, Evan Jonigkeit and Chris Bauer. (Scroll down for the full lineup.)

Ballerina is among 13 Out of Competition titles which also include Billy Zane’s Int. Hallway / Night and Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight.

A number of high-profile stars will attend to receive honorary awards including Martin Scorsese,...

The 2024 documentary film No Other Landcaused quite a political stir upon its release due to its unflattering depiction of the Israeli military's forceful displacement of a Palestinian community in the West Bank to use its buildings for military training. Despite winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature a couple of weeks ago, no major American distributor picked it up to show in US theaters. Nevertheless, a handful of independent theaters have screened it for local audiences. One such theater is the O Cinema in Miami Beach, Florida.

However, Miami Beach's Jewish mayor, Steven Meiner, called the film one-sided and “egregiously antisemitic" (even though it was a collaborative effort by two Palestinians and two Israelis) and threatened to defund the O Cinema and cancel its lease if they continued screening it, which would effectively evict the proprietors from the building. The mayor's move prompted widespread backlash by hundreds of filmmakers,...

Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner’s March 13 proposal to shut down the city’s nonprofit art house cinema, O Cinema, following screenings of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” is not sitting well with the members of the doc community.

On Monday, 752 members of the international filmmaking community including doc feature Oscar winners Michael Moore, Laura Poitras, Ezra Edelman and Alex Gibney signed an open letter to the city of Miami Beach that stated, in part, that the Mayor’s threat to shut down the O Cinema is “an attack on freedom of expression, the right of artists to tell their stories, and a violation of the First Amendment.”

Alfred Spellman, who co-founded Rakontur with Billy Corben in 2000, also signed the letter. The Miami Beach native has produced over 15 docus, including “From Russia With Lev” and “Cocaine Cowboys.”

“This is a case that is definitional of what the First Amendment is supposed to protect against,...

The blowback continues over the Miami Beach mayor’s threat to close a movie theater over its screening of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. More than 600 people including several Oscar winners have signed an open letter to the city decrying the potential shutdown of indie theater O Cinema as “an attack on freedom of expression, the right of artists to tell their stories, and a violation of the First Amendment.”

See the letter and its signatories — including Academy Award winners Alex Gibney, Laura Poitras, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Ezra Edelman, Dan Cogan, Barbara Kopple and Barry Jenkins — below.

Last week, Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner issued a draft resolution calling for termination of a lease agreement with the 300-seat O Cinema, located at Old City Hall, a property owned by the city. The resolution, which will be debated at a city commission meeting Wednesday, also would eliminate about...

Screwball documentary filmmaker Billy Corben and his Miami-based production company, Rakontur, have started production on a film about the Alexander brothers, whose sex-trafficking charges and criminal case unveiled this week shines the spotlight on Miami’s luxury real estate market.

The doc Delisted: The Alexander Brothers, also from filmmaker Alfred Spellman, will focus on Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander, who have been indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges in New York.

“With access to accusers and inside players, we’re uncovering the story behind the rise and fall of ‘the kings of Miami’s high-end real estate market,’ Oren and Tal Alexander who, along with Oren’s twin brother Alon, were arrested by both federal and local authorities on charges including rape and sex trafficking,” Corben said Friday on his Instagram page.

Corben’s documentaries have in part been set in Miami, including Cocaine Cowboys and Magic City Hustle. “We’ll...

Neon has scheduled December 27th for the U.S. theatrical debut of ‘2073,’ a documentary that blends genres, crafted by Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia, known for his work on ‘Amy.’ The release will be limited to select theaters across the country.

The movie stars Samantha Morton from ‘The Serpent Queen’ and Naomi Ackie of ‘Blink Twice.’ It draws inspiration from Chris Marker’s 1962 film ‘La Jetée,’ which tells the story of a time traveler determined to alter history and secure a better future for humanity.

Set in the year 2073, the film presents a dystopian future where society’s greatest fears have become reality. The sky is dominated by surveillance drones, and militarized police patrol devastated cities.

Survivors, forced underground, cling to memories of a once hopeful world. Morton’s character is tormented by visions of the past—our present—creating a narrative that links today’s pressing issues like authoritarianism,...

Neon announced on Monday that 2073, the new genre-bending documentary from Oscar winner Asif Kapadia (Amy), will be released in select U.S. theaters on December 27th. The studio also unveiled a new trailer, which you can view above.

Starring Samantha Morton (The Serpent Queen) and Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice), 2073 is inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 featurette La Jetée about a time traveler who risks his life to change the course of history and save the future of humanity.

In the film, it’s the year 2073, and the worst fears of modern life have been realized. Surveillance drones fill the burnt orange skies and militarized police roam the wrecked streets, while survivors hide away underground, struggling to remember a free and hopeful existence. A blend of science fiction and speculative nonfiction, the film transports us to a future foreshadowed by the terrifying realities of our present moment. Morton plays a...

The documentary Men of War delves deep into the disastrous failed coup attempt in Venezuela known as Operation Gideon. Led by former U.S. Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, the operation in 2020 aimed to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro but ended in catastrophe. Directors Jen Gatien and Billy Corben peel back the layers of this incredible true story to reveal both the hubris and humanity of those involved.

We learn how Goudreau’s lifelong love of combat began from a childhood spent playing war games. As a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan, he thrived on mission-driven work. However, unsigned Ptsd from his service led the army to dismiss him. Restless, Goudreau formed a private security firm and fell in with Venezuelan opposition figures eager to topple Maduro’s corrupt regime.

Corben and Gatien reveal how Goudreau conspired with resistance fighters, U.S. officials, and a jailed Venezuelan general to launch an incursion from Colombia.

ESPN has aired over 150 films in its sports doc strand 30 for 30 including The Two Escobars, Four Falls of Buffalo and Lance as well as Ezra Edelman’s O.J: Made In America.

To celebrate its 15th anniversary, the Disney-owned sports broadcaster is airing a one-hour special.

Hosted by Roy Wood Jr., the former Daily Show correspondent who now hosts CNN’s Have I Got News For You reboot, the special will feature a countdown of the top films that have defined the series since its inception in 2009.

It will air on October 6 on ESPN2 and will then be available on ESPN+.

The special will revisit some of the most impactful and beloved films from the series and will feature interviews with co-creators and original executive producers Bill Simmons, Connor Schell, and John Dahl, along with directors and contributors including Michael Bonfiglio, Nanette Burstein, Billy Corben, Marcus Dupree, Jason Hehir, Jonathan Hock,...

Hunter Biden was in the audience at a Saturday night screening and Q&a of “From Russia With Lev,” which was followed by a Q&a with executive producer Rachel Maddow, director Billy Corben and subjects Lev and Svetlana Parnas. The MSNBC documentary, airing on Sept. 20, features a surprising scene in which Biden and Parnas come face-to-face after Parnas admitted to creating false and damaging allegations against Biden on behalf of then-President Donald Trump. Though Biden did not speak publicly, he listened intently to the Q&a discussion and spoke privately with the participants after. The screening, which took place at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, was sponsored by American Cinematheque.

The Ukrainian-American businessman pinpointed Biden because his father, Joe Biden, was perceived by Trump as his biggest threat to re-election in 2020. Parnas worked with Rudy Giuliani and his actions led not only to his own imprisonment on several charges...

In Jordan Goudreau, a former Green Beret and special forces operative who planned and executed a failed attempt at overthrowing the government of Venezuela, directors Jen Gatien and Billy Corben found a fascinating subject worthy of being the main character in a documentary. He’s full of bravado and hubris, quotes ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus and evades serious self-examination. In “Men Of War,” Goudreau is shown as brave, greedy, power-hungry, stupid, gullible and loyal, as well as a victim of Ptsd. It’s a morally complicated portrait of a mercenary who thinks he’s a righteous soldier: a man who obviously cannot grapple with the consequences of his actions.

The framework for Gatien and Corben’s character study is that aforementioned coup attempt. Goudreau planned what was named Operation Gideon, a 2020 sea invasion of Venezuela by a coalition of local dissidents and American mercenaries to overthrow president Nicolas Maduro. The...

The fog of war, men searching for meaning in senseless situations, and the fraught interplay of competing drafts of history are themes that have popped up quite a bit in documentaries and narrative features premiering at the fall festivals this year. None of these have been built on quite as mercurial and ever-shifting a foundation as Jen Gatien and Billy Corben’s documentary “Men of War,” a nothing-is-what-it-seems head trip about a former Green Beret who tried and failed to overthrow the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.

It’s such a complicated film, it’s easy for a viewer to get lost. But hey, so did its subjects.

Jordan Goudreau knew he wanted to be in the U.S. Army since he was a kid obsessed with playing “war” and dressing in combat fatigues. The fact that he was Canadian did not dissuade him. He knew he would likely not get...

MSNBC Films has slated a series of special screenings for From Russia with Lev, its upcoming documentary about Lev Parnas, with Rachel Maddow joined by filmmakers Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman for post-screening discussions.

Maddow is the executive producer on the film.

Parnas, a key figure in former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, will join the panel at one of the screenings, at the Miami Silver Spot Theater on Sept. 12. Joining him will be his wife, Svetlana Parnas. The network said that it will be Parnas’ first public appearance since he testified to the impeachment inquiry in 2019.

From Russia with Lev will debut at MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024, the network’s all day event on Sept. 7 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Other screenings will take place on Sept. 8 at the IFC Center in New York; on Sept. 12 at Miami’s Silverspot Theater, in partnership with FilmGate Miami; on Sept.

The Toronto Intl. Film Festivals folks are slowly coming to the end of their selection announcements (we are still expecting them to announce some heavyweight last-minute entries) and in today’s batch it was Thom Powers’ turn to drop the Docs Programme. We have a good mix of world premieres and some film fest musts in the twenty-one films selected and if we had to cherry-pick a trio of world premiere musts we ‘d point to the films by Eddie Huang, Steve Pink and the Jen Gatien and Billy Corben tandem.

Huang known for ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat, will open the section with Vice is Broke — which chronicles the events leading up to Shane Smith‘s Vice Media, a once scrappy media player valued at $5.7 billion, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, paving the way for the company’s sale.…...

A profile of the late Irish literary giant Edna O’Brien and a story about the haenyeo fisherwomen of South Korea are among the 21 TIFF Docs selections unveiled by Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday.

Joining Sinéad O’Shea’s Blue Road - The Edna O’Brien Story and Sue Kim’s The Last Of The Sea Women are Men Of War, an exploration of a failed coup in Venezuela from the team behind Cocaine Cowboys, and The Last Republican from Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink, who looks at how former Congressman Adam Kinzinger broke ranks and stood up to Donald Trump.

Documentaries about the rise and fall of media company Vice, former Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger and disability rights activist Patrice Jetter are heading to the Toronto Film Festival.

TIFF’s Docs program gets underway Sept. 5 and will feature 21 nonfiction films from 24 countries. The program will open with the world premiere of Eddie Huang’s “Vice Is Broke,” an investigation into the once high-flying digital news outlet that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year after boasting a valuation of $5.7 billion in 2017.

Huang, the former host of Vice’s “Huang’s World” has a unique perspective on the story, said Thom Powers, lead TIFF documentary programmer. “Eddie gives an insider account of what happened at Vice Media,” said Powers. ” He has a personal axe to grind because when the company filed for bankruptcy, he was one of its many creditors. The film is both funny and poignant as he interviews...

Nonfiction films about conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Venezuela, as well as documentaries about politician Adam Kinzinger, Irish writer Edna O’Brien and disability rights activist Patrice Jetter will screen at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, event organizers announced on Wednesday.

TIFF’s Docs program will consist of 21 films, two-thirds of them world premieres and 16 of them available for distribution. “The lineup is like holding up a mirror to what’s going on in the world today, which includes a lot of different things,” TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers told TheWrap.

The opening night film will be Eddie Huang’s “Vice Is Broke,” in which the former Vice host details the rise and fall of that media organization.

Other films include “From Ground Zero,” an anthology consisting of 22 short films made over the past year by directors who live in Gaza; Anastasiia Bortuali’s “Temporary Shelter,” about Ukrainian refugees; Hind Meddeb’s “Sudan,...

This year’s slate of 21 documentaries from 24 countries at the Toronto International Film Festival (September 5 – 15) is a melange of newsy subjects, rising directors, and potential Oscar contenders. Sixteen are sales titles, up from last year’s eight. Two high-profile celebrity docs are playing in the gala section of the fest, R. J. Cutler’s “Elton John: Never Too Late” and Thom Zimmy’s “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.”

The TIFF Documentary Selection will open with “Vice Is Broke,” in which “Huang’s World” journalist Eddie Huang investigates his former employer’s rise and fall into bankruptcy. “It’s an insider’s look at a media company that gave many people opportunities and did things in sloppy ways,” TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers told IndieWire via Zoom. “It soared up to a value of $5.7 billion and won the attention of moguls like David Zaslav and Rupert Murdoch.

Eddie Huang, creator of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat comedy, is set to open the Toronto Film Festival’s TIFF Docs sidebar with a world premiere for Vice is Broke, a documentary about the rise and fall of Vice Media.

Huang will chronicle events leading up to Shane Smith’s Vice Media, a scrappy media player once valued at $5.7 billion, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023 to open the way for a sale of the company.

There’s also world bows in Toronto’s documentary strand for Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story, directed by Sinéad O’Shea, who did hours of interviews with the legendary Irish novelist in the last year of O’Brien’s life; Jen Gaiten and Screwball doc maker Billy Corben bringing Men of War, about a former U.S. Green Beret caught up in a failed 2020 coup to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; and...

Ex-gop Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a prominent critic of Donald Trump, will get a major platform at the Toronto International Film Festival just weeks before the U.S. presidential election.

TIFF announced its full documentary lineup this morning and among the standouts is The Last Republican, about Kinzinger’s vigorous repudiation of the former president after the January 6 insurrection. It’s a world premiere at TIFF, directed by Steve Pink – best known for the comedy Hot Tub Time Machine.

“That’s probably not a director you expect to see in TIFF docs,” admits Thom Powers, the festival’s chief documentary programmer. “Kinzinger served on the January 6th Congressional Committee alongside Liz Cheney, chose not to run again as a congressman because he could see the political writing on the wall. But he chooses to give access to a Hollywood left winger in Steve Pink to tell his story. And why does...

MSNBC Films has acquired From Russia with Lev, the first project from Rachel Maddow’s production company Surprise Inside, with plans to screen the documentary at a MSNBC Live event on Sept. 7 followed by a theatrical and broadcast debut.

The documentary project centers on Lev Parnas, a key Ukrainian figure in the congressional investigation that led to the first impeachment of Donald Trump in 2019. The project will include new interview footage with Parnas and his personal archive of photos, videos, documents and secret recordings. Maddow interviewed Parnas on the eve of Trump’s first impeachment trial in January, 2020. He was acquitted.

From Russia with Lev will be shown to attendees of MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024, a gathering of network hosts for a daylong discussion at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. No date has yet been announced for its theatrical and broadcast run.

The project is directed by Billy Corben and produced...

Rachel Maddow is getting into the feature documentary business.

The MSNBC host has produced her first feature-length doc through her production banner Surprise Inside, with the cable channel acquiring the project. MSNBC will debut the film next month.

The film, From Russia With Lev, chronicles the scheme that led to former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment. “It follows the much, much larger-than-life journey of Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born hustler and former small-time mafia operator whose random, almost accidental association with Trump and Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani took him around the world, and ultimately to prison,” per the logline.

The film will have its world premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which is playing host to MSNBC’s Democracy 2024 event on Sept. 7. The premiere is one of the signature pieces of the event.

Billy Corben (Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami) directed the film, with Maddow serving as executive producer.

MSNBC Films acquired the first film from Rachel Maddow’s production company, an upcoming documentary about Soviet-born businessman Lev Parnas titled, “From Russia With Lev,” the network announced on Monday.

“From Russia With Lev,” is the first film project from Maddow and her Surprise Inside production company. The documentary is directed by Billy Corben and produced in partnership with rakontur and Universal Television Alternative Studio, with Maddow serving as executive producer.

The documentary will debut at the network’s massive live event, “MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024,” on Sept. 7 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The film will debut on MSNBC later in September.

“There should be more documentaries from an insider’s perspective about the Trump presidency. There should be a Mike Pence documentary. There should be a John Kelly documentary, or a Rex Tillerson documentary. But it takes someone like Lev Parnas to be brave enough to speak up first,...

Former U.S. Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, who was arrested on July 31 in connection to his failed 2020 coup to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, is the subject of Neon’s latest documentary “Men of War.”

Directed by Billy Corben (“God Forbid”) and Jen Gatien (“Limelight”) “Men of War” follows Goudreau, who, according to the film’s logline “finds himself in over his head and on the run after mounting the failed Venezuela coup and being chased by the American government who he spent his life fighting for.”

Goudreau, a former Special Forces soldier who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, planned to land in Venezuela via speedboat with approximately 60 other men in an attempt to capture Maduro, an authoritarian president. At the time, Goudreau said that he and his team were acting to protect Venezuela’s democracy after Maduro’s 2018 re-election, which was boycotted by the opposition and condemned as undemocratic by the U.

Griselda Blanco, a ruthless cartel mastermind, stopped at nothing for dominance, even executing her own lovers and family members. The Cocaine Godmother's tragic life story blends personal turmoil with cutthroat business tactics in the Miami drug trade. Griselda Blanco was married three times and earned herself the nickname the "Black Widow"

The following article contains extensive spoilers for the Netflix series Griselda.Immortalized as the "Cocaine Godmother," Griselda Blanco proved a cartel mastermind, earning her treacherous reputation as "The Black Widow of Medellín." Few were so ruthless as Blanco, always on the lookout for an opportunity, showing no sympathy toward anyone she deemed disloyal. This is demonstrated in her own family saga, her paranoia showing itself in the manner in which she dispensed with anyone, even her own lovers, who presented the faintest challenge to her complete dominance, as seen in the six-part Netflix miniseries starring Sofía Vergara, available now.

Rachel Maddow’s next project will take her to Russia — in a sense.

The journalist’s Surprise Inside production company will team up with Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries to work on the Rakontur documentary project “From Russia With Lev.” All three production entities are clients of WME.

The feature boasts exclusive interviews with Lev Parnas, the Ukranian-born operative whose association with former President Donald Trump and one of his attorneys, Rudolph Giuliani, took him on a strange journey that ended in a stealth campaign to produce dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden and a role in Trump’s first impeachment.

Maddow and McKay will serve as executive producers on the political farce, which is directed by Billy Corben and produced by Alfred Spellman, The duo have more than 30 hours of interview footage with Parnas and exclusive access to his personal archive that includes hundreds of gigabytes of photos, videos, documents,...

We’re seeing the first footage of Sofia Vergara as real-life drug queenpin Griselda Blanco in Netflix’s upcoming limited series, Griselda, which is set to premiere January 25, 2024.

Created by Eric Newman, Doug Miro, Ingrid Escajeda and Carlo Bernard, the six-episode series chronicles the life of Colombian-born Blanco, who created one of the most profitable cartels in history. In 1970s-80s Miami, Blanco’s lethal blend of unsuspected savagery and charm helped her expertly navigate between business and family, leading her to become widely known as “the Godmother.”

Blanco burst onto the pop culture scene after her exploits were highlighted in the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys and its sequel two years later from Billy Corben. She was portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Lifetime biopic Cocaine Godmother in 2018.

Alberto Guerra (Dario Sepúlveda), Christian Tappan (Arturo Mesa), Martín Rodríguez (Rivi Ayala), Juliana Aidén Martinez (June Hawkins), Vanessa Ferlito (Carmen Gutiérrez) also star.

The Oldenburg Film Festival has picked two iconoclast filmmakers to honor for its 30th anniversary edition: French actor/director Isild Le Besco and Canadian producer Jen Gatien. Both women have carved out unique paths in independent cinema, defying conventions and expectations.

Le Besco has worked in front of the camera since she was eight, and by her early 20s was already a face of French auteur cinema, with two César nominations — for her performances in Benoît Jacquot’s Sade (2000) and Cédric Kahn’s Roberto Succo (2001) and a best actress honor in Venice for Jacquot’s L’Intouchable (2006).

Her directorial debut, 2004’s Demi-Tarif (Half-Price), the story of three young siblings, Romeo (Kolia Litscher), Launa (Lila Salet), and the youngest, Leo (Cindy David), left on their own in a rundown Paris apartment, was an unmediated look into the world of childhood and drew praise from the likes of Mia Hansen-Løve, whose review,...

Hulu’s “God Forbid” and Netflix’s “Cocaine Cowboys” producers Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman have set their sights on their next subject: one of the members of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s former inner circle, Florida businessman Lev Parnas.

Corben and Spellman’s Miami-based production company Rakontur is currently in production on “From Russia With Lev,” following Parnas (interviewed for the first time in this project) who, per Rakontur, “shares his story about how he and Rudy Guiliani worked behind the scenes to damage the Biden presidential campaign, conspired with Russian officials to sabotage efforts in the Ukraine and many more alleged crimes.”

A frequent collaborator of Adam McKay’s Hyper Object, Rakontur does not yet have a platform attached to the Parnas doc, but is taking it out to market soon.

“Our genre is Florida fuckery, so we have a rolling Google Docs spreadsheet of extraordinary Miami characters,...

Miami, home to the two leading U.S. Hispanic networks — TelevisaUnivision and Telemundo — as well as a host of smaller television companies, studio outposts, recording artists and independent entertainment companies, has long been the cultural epicenter of both Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic population.

“It is not just the geographic location that makes Miami a hub: In so many ways, the city is also representative of the cultural diversity across Latin America and among all U.S. Hispanics,” says Karen Barroeta, executive VP, production and development, Telemundo Global Studios, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

“On top of its rich cultural diversity, Miami is a world-class city in which to make television, with the highest quality production studios and a skillful workforce including incredible talent, from production teams to writers and actors,” she says.

“Telemundo built roots in Miami because we believe in the growth and power of the Hispanic community...

Hulu has set its next big true-crime doc project, a series following the notorious Sarah Lawrence College sex cult, just as its latest addition to the genre, Adam McKay’s “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” has achieved the title of Hulu’s most-watched documentary film to date.

The Disney-owned streamer, which does not release specific viewership figures for its content, confirmed to Variety that the new record set by “God Forbid,” and previously held by 2019’s “Fyre Fest,” counts all original and non-original docs and is based on hours streamed within the first three weeks.

Produced by Alfred Spellman’s Rakontur and McKay’s Hyperobject and directed by Billy Corben, “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty” centers on Giancarlo Granda, former pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Hotel, as he recounts the alleged events of his relationship with Becki Falwell and her husband,...

Miami’s legion of film fans get an extra treat this week via the expanded ninth edition of the Miami Film Festival Gems. The carefully curated, week-long festival (under the aegis of Miami Dade College) unspools Nov. 3-10 at Miami’s historic Tower Theater, showcasing some of the most lauded fall festival entrants along with five international Oscar submissions.

On the docket are awards contenders, from opener “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” to closing night’s “The Fabelmans,” from Steven Spielberg. Sarah Polley’s buzzed about “Women Talking” is a centerpiece presentation; Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” is the other.

Narrowing down programming choices is never easy, says interim executive director Nicolas Calzada, but the festival’s aim is clear- cut and provides “an advance taste of the best films of the year that have strong chances at awards consideration.” Formerly a weekend, Miami Gems is now a week,...

When Miami-based documentary director Billy Corben and his producing partner Alfred Spellman received a June 2020 email with a subject line invoking Giancarlo Granda, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Donald Trump, they knew they had the next film for their Rakontur nonfiction banner.

Granda, a local pool boy who began having an affair with Falwell’s wife Becki in 2012, had sent the email. After telling his story to Reuters, Granda was ready to go on camera about his past relations with the evangelical couple. The result is the new Hulu documentary feature “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” released Nov. 1. In the doc, Granda claims that Falwell Jr., a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, was aware of and involved in the relationship he was having with Becki Falwell. After the Reuters article was published in 2020, Falwell Jr, stepped down as president of the evangelical college Liberty University in Lynchburg,...

The life of Jerry Falwell — the late Moral Majority televangelist who for decades helped catalyze the rightward shift of American evangelicals before his death in 2007 — is a quintessentially American story. But it’s in the next generation that the Falwell narrative becomes at once soap opera and morality tale.

That’s the case made by “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” a feature-length documentary released on Hulu. It covers the graceless fall of Jerry Falwell Jr., who after the death of his father was placed in the presidency of the family’s conservative organ Liberty University. There, he seemed to remain painfully in thrall to his appetites. We hear testimony about his alleged tendency to drink on the job and discomfiting, slurry interviews between him and sympathetic media — but most crucially, we receive the testimony of Giancarlo Granda.

Granda was a pool attendant at a Miami...

Hulu is exploring the private life of Evangelical Christian leader Jerry Falwell Jr. The streamer has dropped a trailer for “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” an upcoming documentary exploring the scandal that lead to Falwell’s fall from grace in his community.

The documentary is built around interviews with Giancarlo Granda, who met Fallwell’s wife Becki as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach and engaged in a years-long affair with her. Granda alleged that the affair occurred with the knowledge and approval of Jerry Falwell, and that he occasionally watched the two have sex, which he has denied.

News of the affair became public in 2020, when Reuters published a story based on Granda’s account. The resulting controversy forced Falwell to resign from his position as president of Liberty University, the Evangelical University established by his father. Since then, it...

Exclusive: Rakontur has wrapped production on The Last of the Cocaine Cowboys, a four-part documentary miniseries on Medellín Cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder.

Described by the U.S. Department of Justice as “the Henry Ford of the cocaine industry,” Lehder co-founded Colombia’s infamous drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar, Jorge Ochoa and Jose Rodriguez Gacha in the 1970s. He conspired with heads of state to corrupt entire nations and open cocaine smuggling routes in the Bahamas, Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua and Mexico, also buying his own Bahamian island, Norman’s Cay, and transforming it into an air and sea cocaine shipping hub. Lehder simultaneously rose to political power in Colombia as head of the National Latin Movement and helped elect Pablo Escobar to Parliament, with the cartel at its peak smuggling 300 kilos of cocaine per day, and generating 20 billion a year.

Lehder in 1987 became the first Medellín Cartel leader to be captured and extradited to the United States,...

Amid record-breaking viewership performance for “Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons,” Hulu has set the premiere date for its next big doc: the Adam McKay and Billy Corben-produced Jerry Falwell Jr. project, “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” Variety has learned exclusively.

Hailing from McKay’s HyperObject and Corben’s Rakontur banner, “God Forbid” tells the sensational story of evangelical leader and former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., his wife Becki Falwell and Giancarlo Granda, the Miami pool boy who had an affair with Becki and claims that Jerry was aware of and involved in the relationship. The streamer says Granda is closely involved with the doc and his point of view is largely the focus of the movie.

Per Hulu’s official description for the movie, which will launch Nov. 1 on the Disney-owned streamer, “A Miami pool boy finds himself trapped in a seven-year...

The Hulu original unscripted series “Captive Audience” has lived up to its name, earning record-breaking viewership for the streamer.

Hulu documentary chief Belisa Balaban told Variety exclusively that the show — which explores the harrowing kidnapping of 7-year-old Steven Stayner and its resulting media frenzy — has set a record for most-viewed nonfiction TV program in its first month of release.

Launched on April 21, “Captive Audience” is also the second-most watched unscripted series in Hulu’s history. Directed by Jessica Dimmock and produced by Wonderburst, High Five Content and Joe and Anthony Russo’s Agbo, the program is second only to “The Kardashians” in total viewership for its category.

“This is really a huge credit to that team, whose bold creative choices and empathy brought it to life. This project is a great example of what a Hulu true crime story is — not just the story of a family and what they’ve endured over the years,...

Sofia Vergara is set to portray notorious drug queenpin Griselda Blanco in a new Netflix limited series.

The six-episode series Griselda chronicles the real-life of Griselda Blanco, who created one of the most profitable cartels in history. A devoted mother, Blanco’s lethal blend of charm and unsuspecting savagery helped her expertly navigate between family and business leading her to become widely known as the “Black Widow”.

The series comes from Empire and Justified writer Ingrid Escajeda, who is showrunner, writer, and executive producer as well as Eric Newman, Doug Miro, Andrés Baiz, and Carlo Bernard— the creative team behind Narcos – but it is unrelated to Netflix’s drug thriller franchise.

Vergara will also serve as executive producer of the project with Luis Balaguer for Latin World Entertainment. Colombian native Baiz will direct all episodes.

“Griselda Blanco was a larger-than-life character whose ruthless but ingenious tactics allowed her to rule...

Resident Evil 0 HD hits Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on January 19. However, Capcom says that bonus pre-order costumes for both Billy Cohen and Rebecca Chambers won’t be available for those that opt to pre-order the game on Xbox 360. The developer have yet to provide a reason for the strange occlusion of Microsoft’s console.

The release date announcement coincides with the game’s newest trailer (above) that shows off the bonus costumes, also confirming that the remaster will cost $19.99 to buy.

Resident Evil 0 HD is the second game in the series to be given a new lick of paint recently, with the first game in the series, Resident Evil HD Remaster having been made available in January of this year. Not content with just sprucing up the visuals though, Capcom have also added a brand new mode to this newest version. Wesker Mode replaces Billy Cohen with...

The road to the screen for Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay‘s drug-trade drama is taking a new turn. I have learned that the project, which was picked up to pilot by TNT last fall, will be redeveloped by the cable network. While the current pilot is not going forward, I hear TNT brass liked the setting — the wild and unpredictable world of the Florida drug trade in the 1970s — and want to take another stab at it. Michelle Ashford, who wrote the pilot script before her Masters Of Sex was picked up by Showtime, is busy as showrunner of the pay cable drama but is expected to be involved in the retooling of the TNT project.

The untitled Miami drug-trafficking project, from Jerry Bruckheimer Television, Bay Films and Warner Horizon Television, was one of four drama pilots greenlighted weeks before Kevin Reilly took the reins of the network. The...