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Instructional streamer Wondrium has ordered three seasons of “Wondrium Insights,” a new speaker series featuring guests including world champion boxer and Olympic gold medalist Sugar Ray Leonard, swimming legend and host Diana Nyad and singer/songwriter Mary Lambert.

The series will be distributed globally on Wondrium later this year. According to the service, “Each speaker will present their personal stories and challenges giving viewers an intimate opportunity to learn and discover tools that can help with perseverance, resilience, and success.”

Besides Leonard, Nyad and Lambert, the speakers also include former NBA player Jay Williams, social entrepreneur Shiza Shahid, astronaut/athlete/author Leland Melvin, former NFL linebacker Ryan Shazier, New York Jets defensive tackle Solomon Thomas, Stem education innovator Knatokie Ford, mentor/entrepreneur Ivy McGregor, rock climber Kevin Jorgeson, science and technology journalist David Kushner, Flickr co-founder/venture capitalist Caterina Fake, AI artist/musician/storyteller Taryn Southern and clinical psychologist Dr.

David Doepel.

Cinema on-demand operator Demand Film aims to raise a seven-figure sum via an equity crowdfunding platform to accelerate its global roll-out and ramp up the volume of releases.

Co-founder and MD David Doepel is confident its 110,000 customers, of whom 40,000 are in Australia, will respond to the opportunity to buy shares in the company which launched in 2014.

Today it invited expressions of interest via Birchal.com but the precise sum it is seeking won’t be revealed until the formal launch of the equity crowdfunding campaign in about three weeks.

Doepel tells If the goal is to raise somewhere between $1 million and $2 million by June 30, which would dilute the stakes held by himself and co-founders Andrew Hazelton and Barbara Connell.

“We will have a smaller slice of a bigger pie as we add more territories and put more money into releasing and marketing films,” he says.

The firm currently operates in seven territories: Australia,...

Rbg, Three Identical Strangers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Hal, Into the Okavango and twin climber titles The Dawn Wall and Free Solo have been nominated for the Producer Guild’s 2019 Documentary Motion Picture award. The winner will be announced January 19 at the PGA Awards at the Beverly Hilton, among the cappers to one of the most prolific years for the genre in recent memory.

The guild will take the wraps of its annual noms for Theatrical Motion Pictures, Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures, Television Series/Specials, Limited Series Television, Streamed/Televised Movies, and Sports, Children’s and Short Form Programs on January 4.

Focus Features’ Mister Rogers docu Won’t You Be My Neighbor? from Morgan Neville ($22.6 million at box office), Magnolia Pictures’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg docu Rbg ($14.0 million), and Neon’s Three Identical Strangers ($12.3M) led a summer surge in the documentary space this year gross-wise. All three premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

"Nothing left to do but just take a couple deep breaths." Red Bull Media + The Orchard have revealed the full-length trailer for an extreme sports documentary titled The Dawn Wall, about die-hard adventure junkies and experienced rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, specifically their attempt to climb the "Dawn Wall" - a seemingly impossible 3,000 foot rock face on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. This doc is first premiered at the SXSW Film Festival, and will be in theaters this September. Some of you may remember the media frenzy this big climb caused in the summer of 2015, because Caldwell and Jorgeson spent weeks living on the rock face trying to complete the epic climb. Making it even more of a challenge, Jorgeson lost index finger in an accident in Kyrgyzstan, but he continued to climb and get even stronger, attempting this challenge as a way to prove he can still achieve anything.

In today’s film news roundup, Billie Lourd joins high school drama “Booksmart,” Steve James gets an AFI honor, and the Yosemite climbing documentary “The Dawn Wall” gets distribution.

Casting

Billie Lourd has been cast opposite Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein in the high school drama “Booksmart,” directed by Olivia Wilde in her feature directorial debut.

The story follows Dever and Feldstein’s characters, who are academic superstars and best friends. The duo realizes that they should have worked less and played more and set out on a mission to cram four years of fun into one night.

Producers are Chelsea Barnard, David Distenfeld, and Megan Ellison for Annapurna and Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, and Adam McKay for Gloria Sanchez. Filming is currently underway in Los Angeles.

Lourd is also returning for the eighth season of “American Horror Story” along with cast members Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, and Kathy Bates.

Indie distributor The Orchard said on Friday that it’s nabbed U.S. distribution rights for award-winning documentary “The Dawn Wall.”

The film, which took home the audience award at South By Southwest, presents an inside look at the historic 3,000 foot climb in Yosemite National Park attempted by American rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson in January 2015.

“The Dawn Wall” was directed by Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer, and produced by Red Bull Media House in association with Sender Films.

The Orchard is planning a theatrical release for this fall.

Also Read: Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Common's 'All About Nina' Plucked by The Orchard

“After seven years of filming and another three years of post-production, we are proud that ‘The Dawn Wall’ finally releases in theaters,” Lowell said in a statement. “Tommy took us on this wild climbing adventure with his partner Kevin, and their motivation...

Exclusive: The Orchard has acquired U.S. rights to Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer’s rock-climbing spectacle The Dawn Wall with an eye on a theatrical release this fall. The deal was negotiated by The Orchard’s VP of Sports Acquisitions Danny Grant and CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers. The Dawn Wall won the Audience Awards at SXSW this year in the Documentary Spotlight category.

Produced by Red Bull Media House in association with Sender Films, the documentary follows Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s January 2015 attempt to scale the historic 3,000 foot climb in Yosemite National Park. The pair lived on the sheer vertical cliff for weeks, igniting a frenzy of global media attention. But for Caldwell, the Dawn Wall was the culmination of a lifetime defined by overcoming obstacles. At the age of 22, the climbing prodigy was taken hostage by rebels in Kyrgyzstan. Shortly after, he...

Let me begin by saying I am terrified of heights. They mess me up. I can't even begin to imagine what it might be like to scale an epic rock wall and jumping around on it like the guys in this trailer do.

The trailer is for a movie called The Dawn Wall, which centers around two rock climbers who took on the challenge of scaling the 3,000-foot rock wall at Yosemite National Park, which is seemingly impossible. As I was watching this trailer, my hands started to sweat and the anxiety kicked in. Hell, I'm sitting here just writing about it and the thought of it is making me light-headed! It's so weird how this is affecting me! Anyway, here's the synopsis:

In January, 2015, American rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson captivated the world with their effort to climb The Dawn Wall, a seemingly impossible 3,000 foot rock face in Yosemite National Park,...

"I just have this fire in me..." Red Bull Media has launched the first teaser trailer for an adventure sports documentary titled The Dawn Wall, profiling hardcore adventure junkies and experienced rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, specifically their attempt to climb the "Dawn Wall" - a seemingly impossible 3,000 foot rock face in Yosemite National Park, California. This doc is premiering at the SXSW Film Festival later this month in the Documentary Spotlight category, which means it's more than another sports doc. Some of you may remember the media frenzy this climb caused in the summer of 2015, because Caldwell and Jorgeson spent weeks living on the rock face trying to complete the climb. Making it even more of a challenge, Jorgeson lost index finger in an accident in Kyrgyzstan, but he continued to climb and get even stronger, attempting this challenge as a way to prove he can still achieve anything.

Exclusive: The debut trailer for the documentary The Dawn Wall isn’t exactly for those suffering from acrophobia…or maybe it is. Directed by Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer, The Dawn Wall follows rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson as they attempt to climb the titular Dawn Wall, a 3,000-foot rock face in Yosemite National Park, California. It’s an inspirational story not only about climbing a seemingly impossible wall, but about dedication and overcoming…...

People write memoirs for lots of reasons.

Rock climbing legend Tommy Caldwell wrote his own just-released autobiography – The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits – partly in an effort to better understand his decision to push an Islamic militant, who had taken him hostage, off a 2,000-foot mountain peak in Kyrgyzstan nearly two decades ago.

“That was such a life-changing moment for me,” Caldwell tells People. “It’s something I’d grappled with for a long time, but I’d never gone back to try and understand what it meant in my life. Killing somebody...