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Xtr, the premium nonfiction film and television studio, and Futurism Studios, the film and television arm of online tech and science forum Futurism, today announced “Age of Audio,” a new documentary exploring the resurgence of audio storytelling as it grows from a vivid passion to an extraordinary worldwide industry. As the podcast industry continues to gain popularity, media creators and brands have turned to podcasts as a new form of storytelling. Xtr and Futurism Studios partnered to create “Age of Audio” to showcase the comeback within the art of audio storytelling.

There are an estimated 86 million podcast listeners in the U.S. who are incorporating the medium into their daily lives from entertainment programs and talk shows to news broadcasts (Statistics). “Age of Audio” is an in-depth look at the podcast industry, examining how what we listen to influences everything we do. The documentary takes viewers through the history of...

Twenty years ago, Apple helped the podcast format go mainstream. The tech giant added podcasts (named, appropriately, after the Apple iPod) to iTunes, dramatically improving their accessibility and reach.

In 2012, Apple launched a standalone a podcast app, making access even easier, while adding new functionality. Later this year for example, it will add more options for playback speed, as well as an enhanced dialogue feature, meant to improve sound clarity and allow for more customization.

With podcasts booming into a much more mature business, Apple has introduced more advanced suite of tools for podcast creators like analytics and paid subscriptions, while also rolling out a consumer campaign that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the format it sparked.

That campaign is called “20 Years, 20 Podcasts We Love,” and is rolling out Thursday, highlighting a range of shows across categories and formats that changed podcasting.

Among the shows making the cut are Serial,...

From the outside, comedian Mike Birbiglia might enjoy what some would call “the good life.” He’s an Emmy Award nominee for Best Variety Special Writing for The Old Man and the Pool, one of several stand-up specials Birbiglia has released in the last decade, he’s won a Drama Desk Award (for The New One) and a Screen Actors Guild Awards prize as part of the ensemble of Orange Is the New Black. He’s married with a young daughter, and as he details in his new special, perhaps aptly named Mike Birbiglia: The Good Life, he even got to meet the late Pope Francis.

“Meeting Pope Francis was very moving, and I think it was very inspirational,” Birbiglia says on the latest episode of the Gold Derby podcast Awards Magnet. “He was deeply kind, loving, and compassionate person who wanted change for the Catholic Church, and he wanted...

While the Emmy-nominated animated series Big Mouth is wrapping up its epic run, Mating Season, a new animated series for adults from the same wild minds at Brutus Pink that brought you characters like Hormone Monsters, Shame Wizards, and Anxiety Mosquitoes, is on the way.

Mating Season will debut on Netflix in 2026 and is set in the animal world starring a cast of bears, raccoons, deer, foxes, and a host of other horny, lovable forest critters, as they navigate love, sexual relationships, and the universal need to hook up and find a partner.

Mating Season is created and executive produced by Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett, Andrew Goldberg, and Nick Kroll, with Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio, and Ben Kalina serving as executive producers for Titmouse.

“Big Mouth broke new ground in the world of adult animation with heart, humor, and total chaos — they took the awkwardness of adolescence and...

Big Mouth, Netflix’s long-running animated comedy, is premiering its eighth and final season next month but its creators have remained busy.

The team behind the Nick Kroll-voiced series are working on Mating Season, a new animated series for the streamer.

The show, which will launch in 2026, is set in the animal world starring a cast of bears, raccoons, deer, foxes and a host of other horny, lovable forest critters, as they navigate love, sexual relationships and the universal need to hook up and find a partner.

It comes from Kroll, Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett and Andrew Goldberg, who exec produce alongside Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio and Ben Kalina serving as executive producers for animation studio Titmouse.

Big Mouth, which launched in 2017, has racked up 375M views, per Netflix, over its seven seasons and season eight launches on May 23. It featured voice work from the likes of Maya Rudolph,...

The 2025 Tribeca Festival’s audio storytelling lineup features star-studded live events and world premiere podcasts in competition.

The program will begin with the Excellence in Audio Journalism Gala, which will celebrate 30 years of This American Life as Ira Glass looks back at the series with novelist and podcaster Ira Madison III.

The festival will also host live tapings of The New York Times‘ The Interview with Sandra Oh, Slate‘s Death, Sex & Money with Allison Williams, Radiotopia’s The Memory Place with live performances from Carrie Coon and Lili Taylor, Pushkin’s Broken Record and Lemonada’s Talk Easy.

Tribeca is additionally set to host world premieres of Apple’s Easy Money: The Charles Ponzi Story, followed by a live conversation with lead voice actor Sebastian Maniscalco and financial journalist Maya Lau; Audible’s What Could Go Wrong?, from Contagion screenwriter Scott Z. Burns; and a new audio adaptation of Hamlet from the Make-Believe Association,...

Tonight, The Podcast Academy (Tpa), the preeminent professional podcast organization, announced winners at its Fifth Annual Awards for Excellence in Audio (The Ambies®) from the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago, which was hosted by multi-hyphenate comedian Tig Notaro. Additionally, Ira Glass was honored with the esteemed Governors Award, which recognizes a podcast or individual for the compelling influence they’ve had on the industry; and Sam Sanders received the Impact Award, which recognizes an individual or podcast that has made a significant, positive effect on its listeners.

The Ambies celebrate excellence in podcasting and elevate awareness and status of podcasts as a unique and personal medium for entertainment, information, storytelling and expression. The ceremony highlighted 199 nominees across 28 categories with winners selected by every voting member of Tpa. A full list of the 2025 nominees may be found here.

Fifth annual Awards for Excellence in Audio winners Podcasts Detail Podcast of the year: Hysterical; Wondery,...

The fifth Ambie Awards, honoring the best podcasts of the year, had a recurring theme throughout Monday’s ceremony: standing up for truth.

“I just want to put in a word for the facts,” This American Life host and producer Ira Glass said during his speech accepting the Governors Award for his and his show’s influence on the medium. “We’re in a war over facts, and we have to stand up for them.

Presenter Ronan Farrow made a similar case in handing out the award for best news podcast, which went to the kid-focused The Ten News. “If we want to live in a reality-based world … and want truth to survive,” Farrow said, support for the kind of journalism the nominees in the news category do, as well as local media, is essential.

The Ambies, which took place Monday evening at Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center, weren’t completely serious,...

The Podcast Academy, the preeminent professional podcast organization, announced today that award-winning reporter, radio host and podcaster, Sam Sanders, will receive the Impact Award, which recognizes an individual or podcast that has made a significant, positive effect on its listeners. Previous recipients of the Impact Award include Ira Madison III (2024) and Teenager Therapy (2020). The honor will be bestowed upon him at the Fifth Annual Awards for Excellence in Audio (The Ambies), which will be hosted by multi-hyphenate comedian Tig Notaro, on Monday, March 31, at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago. As previously announced, Ira Glass will receive this year’s Governors Award. The ceremony will be Live streamed by Amazon Music–Twitch from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Cst.

The Ambies celebrate excellence in podcasting and elevate awareness and status of podcasts as a unique and personal medium for entertainment, information, storytelling and expression. The ceremony will highlight...

Every work of narrative builds on those that preceded it. In the case of Steve Oney’s On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR, two books cited by the author as inspirations are illuminating as to his approach to the sprawling, decades-long story of public radio.

One of them is David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. The other is Adam Nagourney’s The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism.

McCullough’s tale is “about great American projects and how Americans do things,” Oney told Deadline in an interview. Nagourney’s approach to a contemporary news organization, meanwhile, was published in 2023 but takes readers only through 2016. Similarly, Oney makes no effort to bring readers into the disorienting Donald Trump era, when social media, AI and “fake news” condemnations battered traditional news purveyors. Trump...

The Podcast Academy, the preeminent professional podcast organization, announced today that Ira Glass, host and creator of the public radio program This American Life, will receive the esteemed Governors Award, which recognizes a podcast or individual for the compelling influence they’ve had on the industry. Glass joins the illustrious list of Governors Award recipients including Malcolm Gladwell (2024), Stuff You Should Know (2023), Serial (2022), and Wtf with Marc Maron (2021). The honor will be bestowed upon him at the Fifth Annual Awards for Excellence in Audio (The Ambies), which will be hosted by previously announced multi-hyphenate comedian Tig Notaro, on Monday, March 31, at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago. The ceremony will be Live streamed by Twitch from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Cst.

The Ambies celebrate excellence in podcasting and elevate awareness and status of podcasts as a unique and personal medium for entertainment, information, storytelling and expression. The...

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its buzzy Beyond Film lineup with top filmmakers in attendance.

The Beyond Film program will take place in-person from January 24-31; the festival films will become available to audiences across the country on the online Festival Platform throughout the week. The festival will take place from January 23 to February 2 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah.

Highlights of the Beyond Film panels include conversations with Chloë Sevigny — who appears in two Sundance 2025 films, “Atropia” and “Magic Farm” — Olivia Colman (“Jimpa”), Marlee Matlin (“Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore”), and Steven Yeun, who stars in and produces “Bubble & Squeak.”

“Past Lives” writer/director Celine Song, Daniel Kaluuya, and “Guardians of the Galaxy” writer Nicole Perlman are also among the panelists. A live podcast recording of Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah’s “Visitations” will additionally take place; Wood and Noah both produce “Rabbit Trap,” which premieres at the festival.

The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled the 2025 lineup for its Beyond Film series of talks and events.

Notables participating, with films in the festival, include Chloë Sevigny, Olivia Colman, Steven Yeun and Marlee Matlin, to name just a few. Celine Song, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind Past Lives, and Oscar-winning actor Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) will also be on hand.

Beyond Film talks fall under the program strands of Power of Story, Cinema Café, Film Church, and The Big Conversation, all of which are free to attend, with the exception of Power of Story. Talks will take place in person from January 24–31, 2025, with most offerings to be available to audiences online the day following the in-person event.

Sundance announced just this morning that the festival will, in fact, move forward this year,...

SoundStack, the audio-as-a-service (AaaS) company, today announces the appointment of Rockie Thomas as Chief Strategy Officer (Cso). In the newly-formed role, Thomas will be fundamental in directing the company’s strategic vision and cementing its leadership position in podcasting/streaming radio, programmatic advertising, hosting/delivery, measurement, and more. She was previously the company’s Chief Revenue Officer.

“The ability for every kind of audio publisher – podcast network, streaming radio station, enterprise, multi-channel media giant – to have agency over their business is the cornerstone of their future success,” stated SoundStack CEO Jon Stephenson. “From her years in broadcast, to being a trailblazer in programmatic advertising, to helping create measurement standards in audio, and more, Rockie is better suited than anyone to lead publishers on a path of control, choice, and the growth that comes from it.”

For over 25 years, Thomas has worked with broadcast companies and leading audio ad tech to...

In 2018, journalist Brian Reed faced a lawsuit over his most celebrated project. S-Town, a podcast he had hosted and executive produced, had become a near-instant sensation the previous year, breaking listenership records, earning lofty praise and sparking debate around issues of consent and privacy for its deceased subject. Then the Peabody Award-winning series was hit with a claim from the estate of the podcast’s subject that alleged a violation of Alabama’s right of publicity law.

“In order to win their case, [the complainants] had to argue that S-Town wasn’t journalism, legally,” says Reed. “And it put me in a position of having to think about what journalism is in a very elemental way that I had never done before.”

The lawsuit eventually settled in 2020, with the executor stating the estate no longer had any issues with the podcast. But Reed kept pondering questions that arose during the saga. The...

Award winning indie food podcaster and journalist, Gilly Smith illustrates the power of the pod again this month with interviews with top food writers, among them the new Queen’s son, and the team behind Ottolenghi’s latest book.

Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith is based around four food moments chosen by the author, Desert Island Discs style. The 30 minute weekly podcast, now in its fifth year, has consistently featured interviews with the best of British food writers, including Claudia Roden, Yotam Ottolenghi, Tom Kerridge, Felicity Cloake, Olia Hercules, Sheila Dillon, Anna Jones, Raymond Blanc, Sophie Grigson,Chris Van Tulleken, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, James Rebanks among many others.

This month (September 2024), Gilly talks to the three writers behind Ottolenghi’s new book, Comfort and reveals a fascinating dynamic behind the throne. With Yotam locked in an interview with old media, Gilly chats to Tara Wigley, Verena Lochmuller and Helen Goh who reveal how Ottolenghi,...

With his Emmy-nominated Netflix special The Old Man and the Pool, Mike Birbiglia digs deep into our sense of mortality and meaning, while literally lying on stage in true confessional comedic style and going out with a ‘bang’. Birbiglia has honed his career out of deep honesty and the importance of “sharing secrets”, as his work has traversed such revelatory topics as reluctant fatherhood and terrifying health scares. Looking back at the path that led him to his ‘specials’ specialty, Birbiglia explains his reluctance to venture into sitcom territory, his love of working with This American Life producer Ira Glass with whom he made the film Don’t Think Twice and Sundance hit Sleepwalk With Me, the SNL star who pushed him in college, and the importance of paying it all forward.

Deadline: Congratulations. You went from taking The Old Man and the Pool on Broadway to an Emmy nomination. This...

Chris Wilcha has spent decades in the film industry, yet found his career taking unexpected turns. Starting in his twenties as an ambitious documentarian, he made “The Target Shoots First,” a well-received look at his job in music marketing. But making a living as an independent filmmaker was difficult, so commercial work soon followed. Over the years, Wilcha tried starting other documentary projects but rarely finished them.

In “Flipside,” Wilcha revisits this path with reflection and humor. The film centers around a New Jersey record store where he worked as a teen, Flipside Records, that now struggles to stay relevant. Wilcha’s goal was to document the store’s history as it faced an uncertain future. Yet the film becomes much more, exploring Wilcha’s own journey from those early days with high ideals to his current life with a family and career in television commercials.

We learn of unfinished...

National Public Media (Npm), the sponsorship subsidiary of NPR, PBS and Wgbh, announced today that it will become the sole sales representative for podcast sales of This American Life on August 1.

The Pulitzer and Peabody Award-winning show hosted by Ira Glass has held a consistent spot in the Podtrac Top 20 ranker since 2016 and reaches 2 million weekly podcast listeners. This American Life will join Npm’s sales portfolio of audience-favorite podcasts which includes NPR’s Fresh Air, Up First, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! and more.

Along with the partnership, Npm and This American Life also announced that the podcast will now feature one midroll sponsorship message per episode voiced by Host Ira Glass. This is a first-of-its kind offering for brands to align with one of public media’s most beloved and recognizable voices.

Ira Glass says, “Every press release in the world says the word ‘thrilled,’ and you’re like,...

The Signal Awards, which celebrates excellence in podcasting across multiple industry-vetted categories, has announced that 13+ year industry veteran and former On Air Fest Co-Creator Jemma Rose Brown will serve as its new General Manager.

In her role, Jemma will lead all strategic business efforts for the awards program and carry out its core missions to honor excellence in podcasting and enable discovery within the industry. The 3rd annual Signal Awards winners will be announced on October 15, 2024, and the awards ceremony will occur shortly after. The Signal Awards have quickly become the industry’s most sought after award, with over 2000 entries last year alone and more than 130,000 podcast fans voting for the Signal Listener’s Choice award.

The Signal Awards tapped Jemma from creative agency work x work, where she’d previously served as the longtime Director of both the agency’s strategic operations and On Air Fest, the premiere creative festival for podcasters.

Few big new studio wide releases, yes, but Viggo Mortensen’s latest is on 700 screens, plus limited openings for Chris Wilcha’s Flipside, Judd Apatow EP, and Spanish animated, Oscar-nominated Robot Dreams from Neon. Bleecker Street’s family drama Ezra and IFC Films’ arthouse slasher In A Violent Nature are technically wide but both well under 1,500 screens.

Viggo Mortensen directed, wrote and stars in Western The Dead Don’t Hurt presented by Shout! Studios on 730 screens. The story of star-crossed lovers on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s sees Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps), a fiercely independent woman, settle in Nevada with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Mortensen). But the outbreak of the Civil War separates them as Olsen goes to fight with the Union army, leaving Vivienne alone in a town full of corrupt officials. Premiered in Toronto, see Deadline review. It’s Mortensen’s second outing behind the camera since 2020’s Falling.

Image: Oscilloscope Laboratories You don’t have to be of a certain age to appreciate everything Chris Wilcha sets out to do in his new documentary Flipside, but it certainly helps. The way this project speaks to the Gen X experience, especially if you’ve ever thought of yourself as an artist,...

Image: Oscilloscope Laboratories

You don’t have to be of a certain age to appreciate everything Chris Wilcha sets out to do in his new documentary Flipside, but it certainly helps. The way this project speaks to the Gen X experience, especially if you’ve ever thought of yourself as an artist,...

Fifteen years ago, writer/director Judd Apatow hired documentary filmmaker Chris Wilcha to film a behind-the-scenes movie about the making of “Funny People” and changed Wilcha’s life forever when the documentarian moved from New York to Los Angeles to work on the project. After he was done with the shoot, Wilcha had a hard time finding documentary work and ultimately settled into a life of directing commercials, returning to his first love of non-fiction filmmaking only sporadically as he accumulated hard drive after hard drive of footage from unfinished projects. Apatow was stunned to learn what an effect he had had on Wilcha’s life. “I didn’t even know that he moved to L.A. for the job,” Apatow told IndieWire, “and that his mom has been mad at me for decades.”

The unexpected connections between people and the unknown ways in which they affect each other are...

"It's beautiful and inspiring." Oscilloscope Labs has revealed an official trailer for a documentary film titled Flipside, which first premiered last year at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival. It's the latest creation from doc filmmaker Chris Wilcha, who worked for "This American Life" and also made a few docs, including Knock Knock It's Tig Notaro in 2015 and his breakout The Target Shoots First. Flipside is his comical attempt to save a New Jersey record store and confront a mid-life crisis. TIFF adds: "In the process of looking back, he gets inspired to revisit the half-finished documentaries that exist only on his hard drives. He pulls up old interviews that no one has seen with creative people who faced their own crossroads, including radio host Ira Glass, writer Starlee Kine, jazz photographer Herman Leonard, and television writer David Milch. The passage of time brings a deeper poignancy to their testimonies... His quest may be personal,...

Premiering at TIFF last fall, Flipside follows filmmaker Chris Wilcha as he reflects on his past and what it means to live a life of creativity. Picked up by Oscilloscope Laboratories for a North American release, featuring Judd Apatow on board as executive producer, the first trailer has now landed ahead of a May 31 debut.

Here’s the synopsis: “When filmmaker Chris Wilcha revisits the record store he worked in as a teenager in New Jersey, he finds the once-thriving bastion of music and weirdness from his youth slowly falling apart and out of touch with the times. Flipside documents his tragicomic attempt to revive the store while revisiting the abandoned documentary projects that have marked his career. In the process, he captures “The American Life” icon Ira Glass in the midst of a creative rebirth, discovers the origin story of David Bowie’s ode to a local New Jersey cable television hero,...

Documentarian Chris Wilcha is stepping back through time for his latest feature “Flipside.”

Wilcha revisits his own shelved past projects including capturing “This American Life” icon Ira Glass in the midst of a creative rebirth, an origin story of David Bowie’s ode to a local New Jersey cable television hero, and an unlikely connection between jazz photographer Herman Leonard and TV writer David Milch.

The film is the product of Wilcha returning to the record store where he worked as a teenager in New Jersey and realizing that the staple of his youth is now out of touch with the times. Per the official synopsis, “Flipside” documents Wilcha’s “tragicomic attempt to revive the store while revisiting other documentary projects he has abandoned over the years. This disparate collection of stories coheres into something strange and expansive — a moving meditation on music, work, and the sacrifices and satisfaction of...

In a 1996 episode of "This American Life," host Ira Glass was introduced to the vast, near-incomprehensible world of "Dark Shadows" for the first time. "Dark Shadows," for those who don't know, is a Gothic, vampire-forward soap opera that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, lasting six seasons and, no lie, 1,225 episodes. Because it was a daily program, the showrunners had to work at a breakneck pace, often committing grievous technical errors along the way. Those errors, however, were the central appeal for the world's many "Dark Shadows" fans. Glass likened it to tuning into car races just to see crashes. There is verisimilitude to such a concentration of human error. 

Then, Glass is told by a "Dark Shadows" fan, that words like "groovy" began working their way into the show's dialogue sometime in the 1969 season. "Dark Shadows" is deeply beloved, partly for its complex, vampiric storylines, but just as much for its cheap camp.

The Chattanooga Film Festival returns for its eleventh year, unleashing another summer camp for cinephiles from June 21-28, 2024. While the fest already teased exciting events for their 2024 event, the first wave of feature programming promises even more genre fun.

From the press release: “In filmmaker Michael Turney’s RetroTech Romance Video Vision, a woman unlocks a dark dimension through an old Vcr, combining romance, horror, and analog technology in unique and spellbinding ways.

“Video Vision in both vibes and execution perfectly embodies the genre-blending spirit of the Chattanooga Film Festival and serves as its opening night film selection for the year. Because of the festival’s ongoing commitment to accessibility for its 2024 edition, the Cff team endeavored to find filmmakers and partners who understand the importance of this issue, and audience members will have the option of tuning into this world premiere on-site and virtually (US residents only). This theme...

Exclusive: Oscilloscope Laboratories has taken North America on Flipside, a new documentary from filmmaker Chris Wilcha, which world premiered at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. Exec produced by Judd Apatow, the film is slated for release in theaters this year.

Flipside sees Wilcha revisit the New Jersey record store he worked at as a teenager, finding the once-thriving bastion of music and weirdness slowly falling apart and out of touch with the times. The film chronicles his tragicomic attempt to revive the store while revisiting other documentary projects he has abandoned over the years. In the process, Wilcha captures This American Life icon Ira Glass in the midst of a creative rebirth, discovers the origin story of David Bowie’s ode to a local New Jersey cable television hero, and uncovers the unlikely connection between jazz photographer Herman Leonard and TV writer David Milch. This disparate collection of stories...

A still from ‘The Greatest Night in Pop’ by Bao Nguyen, an official selection of the Episodic Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute)

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival has added The Greatest Night in Pop, a documentary that explores the creation of the collaborative “We Are the World” song and video, to its lineup.

“We’re thrilled to be adding to our program a special screening of The Greatest Night in Pop, taking us behind the scenes of how ‘We Are the World’ came together, followed by a conversation with Lionel Richie, filmmaker Bao Nguyen, and producer Julia Nottingham,” stated Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “Our robust film lineup will be rounded out by a wide range of conversations touching upon themes in the programming and featuring some of today’s most inspiring creators and leaders.”

The festival also announced the 2024 Beyond Film schedule,...

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its Beyond Film programming, including discussions with leading auteurs and rising stars.

A trio of annual series — Power of Story, Cinema Café presented by Audible, and The Big Conversation — have shared their respective filmmaker lineups, with the festival also launching special 40th anniversary celebration events and a New Frontier conversation about artificial intelligence in film. The 2024 Sundance Film Festival runs January 18 to 28, with the talks taking place January 19 to 26. Select Beyond Film offerings available beginning January 25 on the digital platform.

The Beyond Film speakers series includes discussions with Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Eisenberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sue Bird, Lucy Lawless, Nzingha Stewart, and Debra Granik, who also serves on the festival jury. For the 40th edition of the festival, alums like Richard Linklater, Dawn Porter, Miguel Arteta, and Christine Vachon will participate in “Power of Story: Four Decades of Taking Chances,” a talk about the importance of independent filmmaking.

Jacqueline Novak’s comedy special “Jacqueline Novak: Get On Your Knees” will premiere on Netflix Jan. 23, 2024. The project is directed by Natasha Lyonne (“Poker Face”), who also serves as an executive producer.

Filmed at The Town Hall Theater in New York City, the special features the final performance of Novak’s touring stand-up show “Get On Your Knees,” which premiered in 2019 and sold out multiple times. This 90-minute “concert film-meets-comedy special” revolves around the blowjob and is described as “both raunchy and poignant, an unexpectedly philosophical, coming-of-age tale of triumph that pushes the boundaries of stand-up,” according to the press release.

“Never in my lifetime could I imagine seeing such a hilarious, rigorous, and gut tingling semiotic deconstruction of the phallus in the theatre,” praised “Emily in Paris” actor Jeremy O. Harris of “Get On Your Knees.” “This felt as if Andrea Dworkin and Spaulding Gray had a child they...

Exclusive: FX is developing a half-hour comedy series based on the 2021 This American Life segment “I Was a Teenage Smuggler.” The series will be penned by Joanna Calo, Carlos López Estrada and the story’s reporter Kevin Sieff. They will serve also executive produce alongside Ira Glass and Alissa Shipp of This American Life.

FX had no comment.

The series will follow a group of Mexican teens who thanks to a loophole in U.S. immigration law that prevents anyone under 18 from being prosecuted, are enlisted by cartels to smuggle migrants across the border. The teens soon find themselves making unfathomable amounts of money and living the lives of their dreams but with an ever-ticking clock until they are legally considered adults.

Estrada is also attached to direct the pilot and produces via his Antigravity Academy banner.

Calo is the co-showrunner, executive producer, writer and director of FX’s The Bear,...

It’s easy to measure your life in accomplishments, to look at the accumulation of honors and accolades, of personal and professional victories, and to say, “This accumulation represents empirical success.”

It’s harder to measure your life not necessarily in failures but in potentials left unfulfilled, in half-completed tasks or the stashed items left unused, and to say, “Despite or perhaps even because of this, there is still success.”

Chris Wilcha’s new documentary, Flipside, takes on the second challenge to deliver an autobiographical portrait of how a life seemingly of disappointments and failures can be a life well lived. Glimpse Flipside in the wrong moment or from the wrong angle and it can feel a little solipsistic, albeit in a way that will be relatable to many viewers. But taken in totality and with some reflection, it’s a borderline-profound and philosophical expression of satisfaction with everything that is unfinished in life.

There is no surprise twist in Chris Wilcha’s Flipside, a documentary making its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. This is not a true-crime doc or a story of unearthed family secrets. (Although there is lots of ephemera excavated after years of quasi-hoarding.) Instead of a twist, though, there is an audience awakening, one that takes a rather standard there-are-places-i-remember doc into surprisingly resonant territory. Ultimately, Flipside is a moving, funny, inventive film that may cause viewers to follow Wilcha’s lead and ask tough questions about their own lives. That is no small feat for a documentarian.

Of course, Wilcha is no novice. His first success, 1999’s The Target Shoots First, brought him rave reviews and modest fame. Wilcha shot it while working at Columbia House Records––yes, the “8 CDs for a penny” mail-order service many remember with great fondness. In Flipside, Wilcha shows the viewer his early-20s self,...

Philip Glass has compiled 20 of his original etudes in an upcoming book that’s set to arrive October 31st. Written for solo piano, Philip Glass Piano Etudes presents this music in a deluxe boxed set.

The whopping nine-pound clothbound box includes the printed sheet music — titled The Complete Folios 1-20 — as well as Studies in Time: Essays on the Music of Philip Glass, a collection of original essays by Martin Scorsese, Alice Waters, Laurie Anderson, Ira Glass, Ari Shapiro, Pico Iyer, and many more, putting Glass’ impact into perspective.

Glass began composing these etudes in the early 1990s as a method to, in his own words, “address the deficiencies in my own playing.” The twentieth etude was completed in 2012, and they’ve since become a go-to source for both beginner and experienced pianists.

Pre-orders for the beautifully-designed set are ongoing, and you can see photos of it below.

See where...

Rub a little Vaseline on your teeth, fire up a hot latte, do a few mouth stretches and whisper, “It’s showtime!” That’s how the most powerful people in the podcasting business — a mix of hosts, executives and reps featured on THR‘s annual power list — ready themselves before recording their widely-heard shows. As part of this year’s survey, the group, which also includes Call Her Daddy‘s Alex Cooper, Bill Simmons, Ben Shapiro and My Favorite Murder co-hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, reveals its dream guests and guilty pleasure listens as well.

My pre-recording podcasting routine entails…

Bill Simmons, The Bill Simmons Podcast Big bottle of water, put my phone on silent, remind myself not to say anything dumb.

Karen Kilgariff, My Favorite Murder I feed the dogs, gather up all of my beverages (usually 4, 1 hot and 3 colds), rub some Vaseline on my teeth and as I log onto Zoom,...

This year, non-fiction titles will be front and center at the Toronto International Film Festival, as many writers and actors will not be on hand due to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Opening night at the 2023 festival brings a documentary world premiere, Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine’s “Copa 71” (seller: Dogwoof), about an historic international women’s soccer tournament lost to sports history. The filmmakers bring us back to the record-setting crowds assembled in Mexico City in 1971. U.S. soccer star Alice Morgan and athletes Venus and Serena Williams are among the film’s executive producers.

That’s the sort of unexpected story that veteran TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers sought for this year’s documentary program of 22 titles from 12 countries. While it’s always painful to whittle down the selection from 800 feature submissions (the post-pandemic production boom continues), Powers looked at giving a boost to sales titles...

Barack Obama on Thursday expressed his support for the Writers Guild of America as their strike nears its second month. At the start of a LinkedIn livestream event promoting his new Netflix docuseries “Working: What We Do All Day,” the former president spoke of the importance of writers in the entertainment industry.

“I know there are many studios and streamers who feel a little bit embattled and there’s been a little bit too much of a glut of product and they’re looking at their bottom line and their experiencing shareholder pressure, etc, but the fact is, is that they wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for writers creating the stories that matter,” Obama said to host Ira Glass.

“My hope is that as somebody who’s really supportive of the Writer’s Guild and as someone who just believes in storytelling and the craft of it,...

Former President Barack Obama showed his support for the Writers Guild of America (WGA) during a livestream event on Thursday to promote his new Netflix docuseries, Working: What We Do All Day.

During the live-streamed interview with Ira Glass on LinkedIn, Obama opened with prepared remarks on his support for the Writers Guild of America (WGA), whose members have been on strike for the past four weeks.

“I know there are many studios and streamers who feel a little bit embattled and there’s been a little bit too much...

The Writers Guild of America is getting even more Oval Office support.

First it was Joe Biden, and now Barack Obama has offered backing to striking scribes — again

Expanding on comments he made online back on May 17 when his Working: What We Do All Day docuseries on Netflix, the 44th Potus started off a livestream sit-down with Ira Glass by reading a prepared statement on the WGA Strike that started on May 2.

Credit: Netflix

In that thoughtful manner that exemplified his two-terms in the White House, President Obama today said:

Part of what this show Working is about is how certain things are constant about the work experience. People trying to find work that’s satisfying, people trying to pay the bills.

Unfortunately, one of the things that’s also been constant is the struggle for people to make sure their employers are treating them fairly and they’re getting...

Former President Barack Obama said he was “hopeful” that writers would get “a fair share of the fruits of their labor” as a result of the ongoing writers strike.

During a live-streamed interview with Ira Glass in Washington, D.C., to promote his Netflix docuseries, Working, Obama opened up the conversation by sharing his support for the writers on strike.

“I know there are many studios and streamers who feel a little bit embattled and there’s been a little bit too much of a glut of product and they’re looking at their bottom line and their experiencing shareholder pressure,” Obama said, “but the fact is, is that they wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for writers creating the stories that matter. My hope is that as somebody who’s really supportive of the Writers Guild and as someone who just believes in storytelling and the craft of it,...

Former President Barack Obama opened Netflix’s livestream event for his new docuseries, “Working: What We Do All Day,” on Thursday with a more aggressive statement of support for the Writers Guild of America (WGA) than what he initially said in solidarity with the ongoing writers strike.

Before the panel, which aired on LinkedIn at 5 p.m. Et/2 p.m. Pt, got underway, moderator Ira Glass revealed Obama had prepared remarks he wanted to deliver about the WGA’s work stoppage, which is currently in its fourth week.

“Part of what this show ‘Working’ is about is how certain things are constant about the work experience. People trying to find work that’s satisfying, people trying to pay the bills,” Obama said. “Unfortunately one of the things that’s also been constant is the struggle for people to make sure their employers are treating them fairly and they’re getting...

Former President Barack Obama will be participating in a live conversation Thursday to promote his latest documentary series, Working: What We Do All Day.

Obama will be joined by director Caroline Suh and documentary subjects Randi Williams, Luke Starcher, and Karthik Lakshmanan for a conversation moderated by Ira Glass.

The discussion will cover the inspiration behind the series, Obama’s passion for these topics, what makes a “good job” good, how everyday people are finding joy and purpose in their work, the challenges of today’s work landscape and how the future of work is ever-changing.

The conversation will stream live on LinkedIn at 2pm Pt / 5pm Et. To attend, click here.

Working: What We Do All Day launched on Netflix on May 17. Narrated by President Barack Obama, who makes appearances alongside everyday people in their homes and places of work, the series follows individuals at all levels of the...

Today, global IP incubator and storytelling studio Vespucci announces the launch of a new podcast commissioning fund which will produce ten original podcast series over the next two years.

Since the company was founded, Vespucci has created a slate of chart-topping, critically acclaimed podcasts and documentaries for Showtime, Audible, Spotify, Wondery, CBC, Imperative Entertainment, Blumhouse, Sony, and Podimo amongst others. Recent highlights include documentary feature 2nd Chance (Variety: “The best Errol Morris movie that Errol Morris never made”), and podcasts Operation Morning Light, The Paddlefish Caviar Heist, Bad Money (Mashable’s Best Podcasts Of 2022), The Cost Of Happiness, Bonaparte (New York Magazine: “Evocative storytelling throughout”) and Radioman starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

Harnessing the company’s storytelling expertise, Vespucci’s new commissioning fund will finance a slate of original podcasts which are character-driven, cinematically rich and ripe for audio-visual adaptation. Leveraging Vespucci’s global network of journalists, these stories will be specifically...

The Sundance Institute on Friday announced the lineup for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival Beyond Film conversations, all of which are open to the public.

Made up of three series called Power of Story, Cinema Café, and The Big Conversation, Beyond Film rounds out the Festival experience, providing a place for the community to engage through artist conversations, filmmaker panels, and audience discourse. Beyond Film will take place in-person from January 19–23, 2023, with the Beyond Film offerings becoming available to audiences across the country on the online Festival Platform starting January 24, 2023. The Festival also shared details about additional free conversations and events from Sundance Collab and our Festival partners available in person and online.

Beyond Film speakers will include talent from Festival films, such as Barry Jenkins, Dakota Johnson, Jonathan Majors (“Magazine Dreams”), Randall Park (“Shortcomings”), Ruth Reichl (“Food and Country”), and Adrian Tomine (“Shortcomings”), as well as compelling speakers including Dr.

The Sundance Institute has announced the lineup for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival Beyond Film conversations, all of which are open to the public. Made up of three series called Power of Story, Cinema Café, and The Big Conversation, Beyond Film rounds out the festival experience, providing a place for the community to engage through artist conversations, filmmaker panels, and audience discourse. Beyond Film will take place in-person from January 19–23, with the Beyond Film offerings becoming available to audiences across the country on the online festival platform starting January 24.

Beyond Film speakers will include talent from festival films, such as Barry Jenkins, Dakota Johnson, Jonathan Majors (“Magazine Dreams”), Randall Park (“Shortcomings”), Ruth Reichl (“Food and Country”), and Adrian Tomine (“Shortcomings”), as well as compelling speakers including Dr. Orna Guralnik, Marlee Matlin, and Lisa Taddeo.

More details about the lineup are below, with language courtesy of the festival.

Power Of Story

Power of Story: On Intimacy

Sunday,...

The Sundance Institute has unveiled its lineups of Beyond Film and Partner Programming for the hybrid 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the in-person component of which is taking place in Utah from January 19-29.

The Beyond Film program consists of chats with notable creatives across three separate series: Power of Story, Cinema Café, and The Big Conversation. Some of the artists taking part this year include Barry Jenkins, Dakota Johnson, Jonathan Majors, Randall Park, Marlee Matlin and W. Kamau Bell — most of whom have films premiering at Sundance 2023. The program will take place in-person from January 19–23, with Beyond Film offerings to become available via the online Festival Platform starting on the 24th.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ryan Coogler (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and Oscar-winning Summer of Soul helmer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson are just a couple of the A-listers set for panels to be put on by Festival partners between the 19th and the 24th...

After his turn as menacing Manson cultist Tex Watson in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Austin Butler was rising fast with Hollywood casting directors. The Broadway community took note of his performance opposite Denzel Washington in the 2018 “The Iceman Cometh.”

But no one was prepared for his star power that broke out of Baz Luhrmann’s musical biopic “Elvis” (Warner Bros.). Before the movie opened last June, Luhrmann and others were nervous about the younger-audience interest in the King of Rock ‘n Roll, who died in 1977. As it turned out, young moviegoers helped boost the movie to over 286 million worldwide — thanks to Butler.

The California-born actor’s “Elvis” origin myth is well-established: the obsessive prep before Butler landed the role over Harry Styles and Miles Teller, sending a video of himself crying over the loss of his mother as he sang “Unchained Melody,” learning how to croon as Young Elvis,...