News

Starz has acquired “Finding Kendrick Johnson,” setting a December 2021 release date for writer-director Jason Pollock’s new documentary as part of the network’s holiday slate.

Narrated by Jenifer Lewis (“Black-ish”) and produced by Malcolm D. Lee alongside Pollock, “Finding Kendrick Johnson” is the product of an undercover, four-year investigation into the case of Kendrick Johnson, who was 17 years old when he was found dead in a rolled-up gym mat at Lowndes High School in 2013.

The documentary follows the course of events after an initial — and widely considered to be botched — investigation when the state of Georgia ruled Kj’s death accidental from positional asphyxiation. As shown in the documentary, the Johnson family hired their own forensic pathologist, who not only concluded Johnson’s death to be from non-accidental blunt force trauma, but openly spoke about the fact that any medical examiner should not rule a death due to positional...

Filmmakers John Battsek, Molly Thompson, Kurt Engfehr, Rachel Boynton, Sloane Klevin and Amir Bar Lev are among the filmmakers who be leading this year’s Tribeca Film Institute third annual StoryLab in Brooklyn, New York.

The participants for this year’s Tfi/A&E IndieFilms StoryLab, which kicked off on Tuesday, are: Vaishali Sinha for Ask The Sexpert; Babak Khoshnoud and David Fine for Free From What; David Romberg for Man Of The Monkey; David Schisgall for Theo, Who Lived; and Keith Maitland for Tower.

In partnership with A&E IndieFilms, the three-day workshop provides one-on-one mentorship, masterclasses, industry discussion and networking opportunities for documentary filmmaking teams.

Participants will also get involved with an intense case study breaking down the story format of Amir Bar Lev’s The Tillman Story.

Read More: The Top 8 Pitches at the Hot Docs Forum: What Worked and What Didn't The Tribeca Film Institute, in partnership with A&E IndieFilms, has just announced the projects selected for the third annual StoryLab for documentary filmmakers, which helps five filmmaking teams in various stages of production through one on one mentorship as well as master classes, industry discussions and networking opportunities. This year the workshops will be led by notable filmmakers including A&E IndieFilms Svp Molly Thompson ("The Tillman Story," "The September Issue"), film director/producer Rachel Boynton ("Big Men," "Our Brand is Crisis"), film editor/producer Kurt Engfehr ("Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9/11"), film editor Sloane Klevin ("Taxi to The Dark Side") as well as film producer John Battsek ("Searching for Sugarman," "The Imposter") and film director Amir Bar Lev...

Australian distributor Titan View has picked up the distribution rights to a new documentary Stand in My Shoes.

The film is from Australian co-creators and producers Anna Reeves, Vivienne Somers and co-produced by Ahmed Salama, executive producer on The Tunnel. The film will be directed by Kurt Engfehr, who co-produced Michael Moore films Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 as well as directing Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead.

The announcement:

The global social change film to be directed by Kurt Engfehr “Stand in My Shoes” has today secured an Australian and New Zealand distribution deal with Titan View, the innovative Australian distribution house responsible for the release of international smash hits “The Jammed”, “33 Postcards” and most recently, the gutsy documentary “This is Roller Derby”.

Stand In My Shoes is a crowd-fuelled social change film that exposes what President Barack Obama has coined as the “empathy deficit” in our world. The film will...

Michael Moore collaborator Kurt Engfehr has teamed with a crew of Australian film-makers to create a new feature documentary, Stand In My Shoes.

The ‘social change’ film is based on the ‘empathy deficit’, a term coined by President Obama, cautioning against the dangers of a world without empathy.

Australian co-creators and producers Anna Reeves, Vivienne Somers with producer Elizabeth Nakano and creative director/executive producer Ahmed Salama who was Ep on The Tunnel have teamed with Engfehr, co-producer of Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 and director of The Yes Men Save The World.

Craig Davis, chief creative officer of Publicis Mojo and co-founder of Brand Karma will be among the interviewees of the film. He will be joined by Google’s Chade-Meng Tan, spiritual author and lecturer Marianne Williamson, voted as one of Time Magazine’s 50 Most Influential Babyboomers and William Mobley, head of Neuroscience at Uscd.

The film also follows Reeves,...

Here's something really exciting. After years of working on a series of awesome and award-winning documentaries, from co-producing and editing Farenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, to co-directing Yes Men Fix the World, and Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, filmmaker Kurt Engfehr has chosen a solo directing project, examining what he terms the "empathy deficit" in society today. Apparently Obama coined the term "empathy deficit" in a 2006 speech, and now Engfehr wants to dig deeper into this concept, through his new doc Stand In My Shoes. Alongside filmmakers Anna Reeves, Elizabeth Nakano and Vivienne Somers, he will examine everything from internet trolling to sterile corporate culture to find out exactly what is behind this noted decline in social empathy. Ahmed Salama, who executive produced last year's viral hit The Tunnel,...

An Australian first time feature filmmaker has hired top American talent to help create his documentary film.

Director Joe Cross employed talent from Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock’s teams to realise his documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.

The film is the opposite to Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me. Cross embarked on a road trip across the USA with a cameraman, sound guy and a juicer to eat and drink only fruit and vegetables to lose weight, while discovering why people were addicted to fast food.

The film was produced by Stacey Offman, who produced Morgan Spurlock’s Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden.

Cross hired Kurt Engfehr who was editor of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 to co-direct. Fellow Fahrenheit alumni Chris Seward was Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead’s editor.

An overweight broker, Cross sold his previous business and without knowledge of the industry set out to make the film.

Reviewed by Charlie Trimarco

(March 2011)

Directed/Written by: Joe Cross and Kurt Engfehr

Featuring: Joe Cross

“Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead” is a different kind of documentary: an often funny, at times touching infomercial for healthier living with no price tags or toll-free numbers to call.

Much of the film focuses on successful Australian entrepreneur and co-director Joe Cross’ alternative approach to relieve the effects of a physical affliction he’s suffered for eight years. He has an overactive immune system disorder that causes never-ending hives (urticaria) requiring (at least according to current Western medical science) that he take the drug prednisone. One common side effect of prednisone is weight gain. Side effect or not, Joe’s diet — loaded with fat, simple carbohydrates, sugar and salt — has him tipping the scales at 309 pounds, complete with a stomach that resembles the exercise ball he should be using.

After trying just about everything to fight the disease,...

Reviewed by Charlie Trimarco

(March 2011)

Directed/Written by: Joe Cross and Kurt Engfehr

Featuring: Joe Cross

“Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead” is a different kind of documentary: an often funny, at times touching infomercial for healthier living with no price tags or toll-free numbers to call.

Much of the film focuses on successful Australian entrepreneur and co-director Joe Cross’ alternative approach to relieve the effects of a physical affliction he’s suffered for eight years. He has an overactive immune system disorder that causes never-ending hives (urticaria) requiring (at least according to current Western medical science) that he take the drug prednisone. One common side effect of prednisone is weight gain. Side effect or not, Joe’s diet — loaded with fat, simple carbohydrates, sugar and salt — has him tipping the scales at 309 pounds, complete with a stomach that resembles the exercise ball he should be using.

After trying just about everything to fight the disease,...

Director(s): Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr Writer(s): Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno Starring: Reggie Watts, Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno Directed by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (a.k.a. The Yes Men), and co-directed by Kurt Engfehr (editor-producer Bowling for Columbine; Fahrenheit 9/11), this humor-injected political documentary makes Michael Moore’s most recent effort seem utterly uninspired. Posing as high-ranking representatives of evil corporations, the Yes Men con their way into business conferences and television interviews in order to wake up their audiences to the dangers of passively allowing greed to rule the world. The results are more than just silly activist pranks; the actions of the Yes Men are thoughtfully conceived acts of protest designed to reach the largest possible audiences, inciting discussion, debate and action. One example, Bichlbaum, in the guise of a Dow Chemical spokesperson, appears on a BBC News interview (viewed by over...

The 2009 Hot Docs lineup has officially been announced and I'm extremely excited. For one, this will be a good opportunity to catch up on many of the films I missed at Sundance. Also, I'm currently not working, so I will have all of free time to dedicate to the festival. Nice. Luckily, there's a shit ton of movies that I'm interested in, so it won't be hard to fill out my schedule (It never really is). I've posted some crucial picks below, but you can also check out the full schedule for yourself over at the Hot Docs website [1]. What are you looking forward to this year? Objectified [2] Directed by Gary Hustwit [3] From telephones to toothpicks, nearly everything that fills our world is designed. Objects look and work the way they do because someone made them that way. Director Gary Hustwit examines industrial design's sweeping cultural impact with the same...

SXSW is one of my favorite festivals of the year as it showcases some of the best and most innovative real independent films, and with this host of world premiers, it's also playing alot of Sundance material as well as genre fare from all over the world, many of which we've covered heavily in these pages.

From the Sundance lineup, we have films like Moon, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, You Won't Miss Me, Grace, and Humpday, among others.

For the world genre material we've covered, there's Lake Mungo, The Square, Zift, and Awaydays.

I think you get the point that lots of great looking film will be playing. I'll leave a bit of the exploration to you..

Lineup after the break.

Narrative Features Competition

Artois the Goat

Director: Kyle Bogart. Writer: Cliff and Kyle Bogart

Lab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to craft the greatest...

Berlin -- Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only," a '50s-era comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, was squeezed into the competition lineup for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, barely a week before the event kicks off.

Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.

Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.

All three films should give an added boost of star power to...

And here's the rest fo them which includes loads of world premiers, plenty of Asian flare, and lot's of film makers I've never heard of before..

Check the list after the break.

Panorama Main Programme

Dongbei, Dongbei (A North Chinese Girl) by Zou Peng, People’s Republic of China (Wp)

With Tian Yi-Wen, Wu Rui-Peng, Liu Xing-Ping

Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo (Raging Sun, Raging Sky) by Julián Hernández, Mexico (Wp)

With Jorge Becerra, Javier Oliván, Guillermo Villegas, Giovanna Zacarias

Rossiya 88 (Russia 88) by Pavel Bardin, Russian Federation (Wp)

With Petr Fyodorov, Vera Strokova, Kazbek Kibizov

Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen (Sleeping Songs) by Andreas Struck, Germany (Wp)

With Stefan Rudolf, Chulpan Khamatova, Traute Hoess, Paula Kalenberg, Barnaby Metschurat

Strella by Panos H. Koutras, Greece (Wp)

With Mina Orfanou, Yiannis Kokkiasmenos, Minos Theoharis, Betty Vakalidou

Vingança (Retribution) by Paulo Pons, Brazil

With Bárbara Borges, Erom Cordeiro, Branca Messina, Guta Stresser, Marcio...

First off, the best news, as I predicted (in private) Duncan Jones' Moon will be premiering, yay! The comedy Adventureland starring the talented Bill Hader is playing. The sweet kid soldier film Johnny Mad Dog is playing in the spectrum section, and the Jesco White story White Lightnin' which we reported on earlier is in the Park City at Midnight section.

But where the hell is Stingray Sam?

Full list after the break.

Premieres

* "Adventureland," directed and written by Greg Mottola, stars Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds and Bill Hader in the story of a college grad who gets a job at an amusement park. A Miramax release.

* "Brooklyn’s Finest," directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Michael C. Martin, a drama about three Brooklyn cops who come together at the same deadly location. With Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Don Cheadle and Ellen Barkin.

* "Earth Days," directed by Robert Stone,...

Premieres

To showcase the diversity of contemporary independent cinema, this section offers the latest work from American and international directors and world premieres of highly anticipated films.

Adventureland / U.S. (Director-screenwriter: Greg Mottola)

In 1987, a recent college graduate takes a nowhere job at his local amusement park and discovers the job is perfect preparation for the real world. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader. World premiere

Brooklyn's Finest / U.S. (Director: Antoine Fuqua; screenwriter: Michael C. Martin)

After enduring vastly different career paths, three unconnected Brooklyn cops wind up at the same deadly location. Cast: Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Don Cheadle, Ellen Barkin. World premiere

Earth Days / U.S. (Director: Robert Stone)

The history of our environmental undoing through the eyes of nine Americans whose work and actions launched the modern environmental movement. World premiere, closing-night film

Endgame / U.K. (Director: Pete Travis; screenwriter: Paula Milne)

A...

CANNES -- In "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore drops any pretense that he is a documentarian to pull together from many sources an angry polemic against the president, the Bush family and the administration's foreign policy. Where "Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine" were personal quests for truth, looking at a subject from different angles and talking to people polls apart in their points of view, Moore stays "on message" here from first shot to last. There is no debate, no analysis of facts or search for historical context. Moore simply wants to blame one man and his family for the situation in Iraq the United States now finds itself in.

The film arrives, of course, amid recent revelations of Bush insiders Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill, the turmoil over the 9/11 commission and the growing sense that the Iraq problem is not going away anytime soon. And the very public dust-up between Moore and the Walt Disney Co.'s Michael Eisner, which has left Moore momentarily without a distributor, certainly raises the film's profile even further. So the film should reach a large enough audience; the question is: Will Moore be preaching to the choir?

Charting the American political scene during the past 3 1/2 years, Moore is forced to rely mostly on other people's material. The assertion that America's Saudi policy has been determined largely by financial ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royals -- including another Saudi clan, the bin Ladens -- comes largely from "House of Bush, House of Saud", by Craig Unger, whom he interviews.

The Bush White House's obsession with Iraq in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 despite overwhelming evidence that al-Qaida was behind the attacks comes from former counterterrorism czar Clarke in his book "Against All Enemies". Most of the film's interviews come from TV network news shows or CNN's Larry King.

The movie begins with the contested 2000 presidential election. Moore takes the usual anti-Bush view that the election was stolen. Moore then characterizes Bush as a country bumpkin in the initial months of his presidency, spending 42% of his time on vacation and falling rapidly in public opinion polls.

Then comes 9/11. Moore touchingly conveys this day of infamy with a montage of sounds and visuals that refrains from showing images of airplanes hitting buildings or the World Trade Center collapsing. Instead, we get noise of horror over a blank screen, then shots of crying, horrified people staring into a sky filling with smoke and debris.

Moore recounts the Afghanistan invasion, the "botched" search for Osama bin Laden and the administration's alleged fear-mongering through constantly upgraded, color-coded levels of the terrorist threat issued by the Homeland Security Department, all designed to make the public more willing to back the invasion of Iraq.

Even if one agrees with all of Moore's arguments, the film reduces decades of American foreign-policy failures to a black-and-white cartoon that lays the blame on one family. He ignores facts like the policy to arm and support Afghan rebels that began in the Carter administration. For that matter, the Clinton team never mounted a serious effort to go after al-Qaida even after the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa.

The Iraq violence is more gruesome than what normally appears on American TV. One particular sequence follows an American patrol on Christmas Eve, but Moore never identifies who shot the footage. Because Moore is very good at jumping in front of a camera when he is around, one can only assume he shot none of the Iraq footage. But his editing is designed to emphasize Iraqi suffering and U.S. military personnel indifference or even hostility.

The movie contains only one episode of Moore's patented "ambushes" of the famous. He collars congressmen leaving Capitol Hill and tries to persuade them to enlist their children to fight in Iraq. Not surprisingly, he has no takers.

When the movie devolves into problems of veteran benefits, harassment of peace groups or the grief of one family over a killed son, Moore simply loses his focus. These are worthy topics but have nothing to do with why the United States is in Iraq.

What Moore seems to be pioneering here is a reality film as an election-year device. The facts and arguments are no different than those one can glean from political commentary or recently published books on these subjects. Only the impact of film may prove greater than the printed word. So the real question is not how good a film is "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- it is undoubtedly Moore's weakest -- but will a film help to get a president fired?

FAHRENHEIT 9/11

Dog Eat Dog Films and Wild Bunch

Credits:

Screenwriter-director: Michael Moore

Producers: Kathleen Glynn, Jim Czarnecki

Director of photography: Mike Desjarlais

Music: Jeff Gibbs

Editors: Kurt Engfehr, Christopher Seward, T. Woody Richman

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 120 minutes...

CANNES -- In "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore drops any pretense that he is a documentarian to pull together from many sources an angry polemic against the president, the Bush family and the administration's foreign policy. Where "Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine" were personal quests for truth, looking at a subject from different angles and talking to people polls apart in their points of view, Moore stays "on message" here from first shot to last. There is no debate, no analysis of facts or search for historical context. Moore simply wants to blame one man and his family for the situation in Iraq the United States now finds itself in.

The film arrives, of course, amid recent revelations of Bush insiders Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill, the turmoil over the 9/11 commission and the growing sense that the Iraq problem is not going away anytime soon. And the very public dust-up between Moore and the Walt Disney Co.'s Michael Eisner, which has left Moore momentarily without a distributor, certainly raises the film's profile even further. So the film should reach a large enough audience; the question is: Will Moore be preaching to the choir?

Charting the American political scene during the past 3 1/2 years, Moore is forced to rely mostly on other people's material. The assertion that America's Saudi policy has been determined largely by financial ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royals -- including another Saudi clan, the bin Ladens -- comes largely from "House of Bush, House of Saud", by Craig Unger, whom he interviews.

The Bush White House's obsession with Iraq in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 despite overwhelming evidence that al-Qaida was behind the attacks comes from former counterterrorism czar Clarke in his book "Against All Enemies". Most of the film's interviews come from TV network news shows or CNN's Larry King.

The movie begins with the contested 2000 presidential election. Moore takes the usual anti-Bush view that the election was stolen. Moore then characterizes Bush as a country bumpkin in the initial months of his presidency, spending 42% of his time on vacation and falling rapidly in public opinion polls.

Then comes 9/11. Moore touchingly conveys this day of infamy with a montage of sounds and visuals that refrains from showing images of airplanes hitting buildings or the World Trade Center collapsing. Instead, we get noise of horror over a blank screen, then shots of crying, horrified people staring into a sky filling with smoke and debris.

Moore recounts the Afghanistan invasion, the "botched" search for Osama bin Laden and the administration's alleged fear-mongering through constantly upgraded, color-coded levels of the terrorist threat issued by the Homeland Security Department, all designed to make the public more willing to back the invasion of Iraq.

Even if one agrees with all of Moore's arguments, the film reduces decades of American foreign-policy failures to a black-and-white cartoon that lays the blame on one family. He ignores facts like the policy to arm and support Afghan rebels that began in the Carter administration. For that matter, the Clinton team never mounted a serious effort to go after al-Qaida even after the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa.

The Iraq violence is more gruesome than what normally appears on American TV. One particular sequence follows an American patrol on Christmas Eve, but Moore never identifies who shot the footage. Because Moore is very good at jumping in front of a camera when he is around, one can only assume he shot none of the Iraq footage. But his editing is designed to emphasize Iraqi suffering and U.S. military personnel indifference or even hostility.

The movie contains only one episode of Moore's patented "ambushes" of the famous. He collars congressmen leaving Capitol Hill and tries to persuade them to enlist their children to fight in Iraq. Not surprisingly, he has no takers.

When the movie devolves into problems of veteran benefits, harassment of peace groups or the grief of one family over a killed son, Moore simply loses his focus. These are worthy topics but have nothing to do with why the United States is in Iraq.

What Moore seems to be pioneering here is a reality film as an election-year device. The facts and arguments are no different than those one can glean from political commentary or recently published books on these subjects. Only the impact of film may prove greater than the printed word. So the real question is not how good a film is "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- it is undoubtedly Moore's weakest -- but will a film help to get a president fired?

FAHRENHEIT 9/11

Dog Eat Dog Films and Wild Bunch

Credits:

Screenwriter-director: Michael Moore

Producers: Kathleen Glynn, Jim Czarnecki

Director of photography: Mike Desjarlais

Music: Jeff Gibbs

Editors: Kurt Engfehr, Christopher Seward, T. Woody Richman

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 120 minutes...