News

Pantheon Media Group, the studio formerly known as Asylum Entertainment Group, has tapped producer and marketing vet Kelly Mullen to serve as its head of brands. Mullen will report to Pantheon Media Group chairman Steve Michaels, who announced the news on Thursday.

At Pantheon, which is part of Endeavor’s nonscripted content group, Mullen will work with its more than 20 shingles to find new collaborations, financing and partnership models.

“Kelly’s reputation and her relationships within the brand world are unmatched,” Michaels said in a statement. “In the current marketplace, it has never been more important to forge partnerships that fit both a brand’s messaging and a project’s narrative. She has the unique ability to bridge that gap, allowing more of our content to be creatively financed and greenlit.”

Mullen joins from Unilever, where she was global head of entertainment and culture marketing. While there, she launched the...

Asylum Entertainment Group will kick off 2025 with a new name and leadership structure. Variety has learned that the company, part of Endeavor’s non-scripted content group, is rebranding as Pantheon Media Group.

Concurrent with the news, CEO Steve Michaels has moved into a role as chairman of Pantheon, while naming Jen O’Connell as the company’s new CEO. O’Connell is presently co-founder and co-ceo of Velvet Hammer Media, and will continue in that role as co-ceo along with Rebecca Quinn.

O’Connell is able to do both jobs and expand her oversight as Velvet Hammer is a minority-owned Endeavor company.

“Jen is a longtime friend and a respected executive and entrepreneur,” Michaels said in a statement. “Her pedigree and expertise are exactly what the company needs for this exciting next chapter of growth. I’m confident that under her leadership, our more than 20 unscripted labels will continue to thrive and produce innovative content.

Netflix has unveiled six filmmakers who will receive funding and professional support to make a short documentary as winners of the third year of the Netflix Documentary Talent Fund.

“Following a rigorous application process and thousands of applications, a shortlist of 12 filmmaking teams from across the U.K. and Ireland were invited to Netflix’s U.K. headquarters to pitch in front of a panel of industry experts this month,” the streamer said. They were asked to pitch ideas inspired by the prompt, “you’re never gonna believe this….”

Here are the winners, unveiled on Thursday.

David Chabeaux and Owen Tooth – Band

A Middle-England factory worker leads a bizarre Marching Band cult down a hilariously dark spiral of obsession.

Lisa Smith and Jack Lilleywhite – Angry Bird

After a life-changing crash Romani banger racer Georgie, aka “Angry Bird,” is stripped of the space that once empowered her. Determined to become champion,...

Unscripted media company Asylum Entertainment Group has invested a minority stake in Ladywell Films, an independent production house founded by “Tinder Swindler” filmmakers Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris. The duo previously worked at London based producer Raw TV where they directed, wrote and produced Netflix’s “American Nightmare.”

“Bernadette and Felicity are behind some of the most compelling and groundbreaking documentaries to date, giving voice to survivors of shocking crimes and resonating profoundly with viewers worldwide,” said Asylum CEO Steve Michaels in a statement. “Our investment in Ladywell Films reflects the duo’s unrivaled talent and fresh perspective within this high-demand genre. They’re perfect partners as their talent mirrors Asylum’s mission to deliver high-quality, memorable content to a global audience.”

While working separately at Raw, Morris developed and produced “Don’t F**k with Cast: Hunting an Internet Killer,” while Higgins produced “Fear City: NY vs the Mafia...

American Nightmare follows the story of Denise Huskins and partner Aaron Quinn, the victims of a home invasion in 2015 in Vallejo, California, that resulted in Huskins’ kidnapping. However, the couple was quickly accused of staging it all, with Huskins being labeled “the real Gone Girl.” Directors Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris (The Tinder Swindler) set out to tell Huskins’ story piece by piece, highlighting law enforcement behavior, victim blaming and trial by media.

When did you first hear about Denise’s story and decide it’d be your next project?

Bernadette Higgins It was just after The Tinder Swindler was released and we’d already decided that we wanted our next project to be together. And Raw, the company that we made Tinder Swindler with, had actually been trying to get access to Denise and Aaron for about two years. They approached us with it and asked us if we’d like to co-direct it.

American Nightmare, a true crime docuseries, has dethroned Fool Me Once as the top show on Netflix. American Nightmare focuses on the true story of a kidnapping that was initially believed to be a hoax. The docuseries has nabbed 21.4 million views in just a few days since its premiere.

Fool Me Once has been dethroned by the new true crime show American Nightmare from the top spot in Netflix's global television chart. Based on the novel by prolific author Harlan Coben, Fool Me Once delves into what happens when a woman discovers that her dead husband, whom she's been mourning, has been secretly alive all along. The thriller had a significant debut week, garnering 37.1 million views. In its second week, the limited series continued to outrank other well-performing Netflix Originals globally, such as The Brothers Sun and My Life with the Walter Boys.

With the latest update to Netflix's global chart,...

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but there’s a true crime docuseries on Netflix that has tongues wagging. The appetite for such endeavors appears bottomless; it seems we really enjoy depraved and aberrant behavior so long as we can hit pause and take a bathroom break every now and then. But sometimes, a series will sneak through that offers more than titillation, cheap thrills, and hyperventilating aesthetics. And so, American Nightmare, a swift, concise piece of work that even mixes in a dash of investigative reporting verve.

Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn know you have questions about what actually happened to them in 2015. They do, too.

“I don’t want to disappoint people, but the truth is, we don’t have all the answers,” Huskins tells Tudum. “We’re never going to get the answers. We’ve had a long road of trying to accept that.”

That search for answers is the subject of American Nightmare, the new doc series from The Tinder Swindlerfilmmakers Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins. The three-part series is an unflinching journey through Huskins’ and Quinn’s harrowing experience, beginning on March 23, 2015, when the pair were awakened in the middle of the night by a home invader. Quinn called the police and explained what happened, saying the intruder had tied them up, drugged them, and taken Huskins for ransom. Investigators, including Detective Mat Mustard with the Vallejo police department and FBI case agent David Sesma,...

When the worst happens, those at the center of the story hope for justice — or, at the very least, to be believed. Unfortunately, the vast, knotty criminal justice system doesn’t always prove so reliable. On March 23, 2015, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, were woken in the dead of night by a home invader. Huskins was kidnapped, and what transpired next in the terrifying tale is the subject of American Nightmare, the new docuseries from The Tinder Swindler filmmakers Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins.

“A lot of crime stories are very linear and obvious from the start. What was really intriguing about this story was the fact that every time you think you know what’s happened, there’s another twist, Higgins told Netflix. “Everyone thinks they know the ending from the start. In this story, few people would’ve ever predicted that the truth was indeed the truth.

Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers from “American Nightmare,” the three-part docuseries now streaming on Netflix.

“American Nightmare” may be difficult to watch at night. Netflix’s latest docuseries, from the filmmakers behind “The Tinder Swindler,” Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins, tells the story of a traumatic home invasion, abduction and the unreal events that unfolded from there.

In March 2015, Denise Huskins was abducted by a home invader from an apartment in Vallejo, Calif., and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, was drugged with Nyquil at the same time, so he wasn’t able to report her kidnapping right away. As shown in the docuseries, the Vallejo police first viewed Quinn as the prime suspect after hours of questioning and attempting to get him to confess. Then Huskins showed up at her father’s house in Huntington Beach, hours south of Vallejo, after being missing for two days. She was quickly labeled...

Netflix's 2024 documentary campaign gets off to a fast start this week with the premiere of American Nightmare, a three-part series about the terrifying abduction of Denise Huskins in March 2015. Directed and produced by the duo behind The Tinder Swindler, Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris, American Nightmare retraces the crime itself, with Huskins and boyfriend (and now-husband) Aaron Quinn recalling their harrowing experience in vivid detail, and dives into the aftermath, when the young couple was demonized by law enforcement and a media apparatus all too eager to dismiss their story as a hoax.

Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins may not be household names, but what happened to them was made ubiquitous by a widely-known association: “Gone Girl.”

The California couple made headlines in 2015, just one year after David Fincher’s adaptation of the popular Gillian Flynn novel. Huskins was kidnapped, her then-boyfriend telling the police a shocking story, and after 48 hours, she came home. Their ordeal was treated like a “real-life ‘Gone Girl'” by the media — as well as local and federal officers — and now retold in the Netflix docuseries “American Nightmare,” helmed by Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris.

When Quinn and Huskins’ story reached the duo behind “The Tinder Swindler,” it was once again via “Gone Girl”-association. Higgins told IndieWire she was struck by all the twists and turns in their story (which doesn’t end after Huskins came home), and the “sheer audacity” of law enforcement in the situation.

This article discusses the real life events behind American Nightmare and will therefore “spoil” the docuseries.

The events that unfold in Netflix true crime docuseries American Nightmare are hard to believe. I know that because I didn’t believe them. At least not at first.

On March 23, 2015, Aaron Quinn called 9-1-1 and reported that his girlfriend Denise Huskins had been kidnapped from their California home. According to an extremely groggy-sounding Quinn, a masked man wearing a wetsuit had broken in, tased them, injected them both with a sedative, and then taken off with a tied-up Denise. What was already a strange case only got stranger when Denise returned to her parents’ home a few days later, seemingly no worse for wear.

The police held a press conference in which they accused Quinn and Huskins of making the whole thing up and wasting precious law enforcement time and resources on a scam.

Netflix’s three-part documentary series American Nightmare examines the 2015 case of Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn. The trailer hits the key elements of the story and teases a deeper dive into the subsequent rush to wrap the case up in a tidy bow.

The Tinder Swindler‘s filmmakers Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins directed the docuseries and served as producers. Rebecca North and Fiona Stourton executive produced.

“After a home invasion and abduction, a young couple’s recounting of the events is too far-fetched for the police to believe. Why did the victims seem so calm? Was it all a hoax?,” reads Netflix’s synopsis. “From the filmmakers behind The Tinder Swindler, this three-part docuseries unravels the consequences of our cultural rush to judgment and the damage done when law enforcement decides the truth can’t possibly be true.”

The docuseries will incorporate real interrogation footage along with...

The true crime documentary series American Nightmare is set to reach the Netflix streaming service on January 17th, and with exactly two weeks to go until this one is available to watch a trailer for the show has arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.

Directed by Bernadette Higgins (who previously produced the Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler) and Felicity Morris (who directed The Tinder Swindler), American Nightmare has the following synopsis: After a home invasion and abduction, a young couple’s recounting of the events is too far fetched for the police to believe. Why did the victims seem so calm? Was it all a hoax? From the filmmakers behind The Tinder Swindler, this three-part docuseries unravels the consequences of our cultural rush to judgment, and the damage done when law enforcement decides the truth can’t possibly be true.

According to People, a press...

A home invasion and abduction gets stranger and stranger in the trailer for Netflix’s upcoming docuseries, American Nightmare. The three-part film, which premieres Jan. 17, reexamines the unusual 2015 disappearance of Denise Huskins and the testimony of her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, which police doubted at the time.

“My girlfriend, Denise, got kidnapped last night,” Quinn tells a 911 operator at the beginning of the series’ trailer.

“And you didn’t call last night when this occurred?” the receptionist says.

“I was tied up.”

The preview shows police questioning Quinn, who describes a...

Exclusive: It’s been a year of evolution for the European Film Market and its TV track Berlinale Series Market. Management is changing at sister festival Berlinale, with Mariëtte Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian exiting amid worries about finances, and the number of films screened reducing.

Meanwhile, Berlinale Series boss Julia Fidel has also departed, with the track was discontinued as an independent program. Series will instead be highlighted as part of the Berlinale Series Gala — a move the festival thinks brings it closer in line with other European film fests such as Cannes and Venice.

Notably for the TV biz, the Berlinale Series Market industry conference remains unaffected and will be running a full program. Last year the likes of The White Lotus exec producer David Bernad, Shades of Blue creator Adi Hasak and The Tinder Swindler director Felicity Morris took the stage in sessions hosted by myself and Max Goldbart.

The number of factual TV shows in the UK directed by women has gone backwards over the past two years despite a weighty campaign to improve gender representation.

According to research from the Diamond diversity data collector and featured in the We Are Doc Women campaign, the proportion of UK factual shows directed by women fell slightly to 24% between August 2019 and April 2022.

“It’s disappointing to see the overall number of women directors going down,” said a spokeswoman for the campaign group.”

There were, however, green shoots in We Are Doc Women’s research. For the year to April 2023, 47% of the shows of those who have signed the group’s 50/50 pledge were directed by women. Launched in October 2022, the pledge targets 50/50 gender representation by next year and counts the likes of the BBC, Channel 4, Amazon Prime Video, Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Productions and Hilary Clinton’s HiddenLight amongst its signees.

It’s slightly ironic that Tinder has chosen London’s creative neighborhood of Shoreditch as a key target for its first global ad campaign, splashing some major spend on scores of bold, brightly colored billboards asserting that it all “starts with a swipe.” Although the area’s demographic — hectic, switched-on 20- and 30-somethings forever glued to their phones and laptops — would seem the perfect audience, it’s unlikely that many realize that just around the corner from the hoardings sits the company responsible for making the dating app’s most notorious swiper globally famous.

Raw, the production banner that now sits over three busy floors of an otherwise unremarkable office block on Curtain Road — once home to the U.K.’s earliest theaters (Shakespeare would perform many of his plays nearby) — had had numerous hits before The Tinder Swindler dropped on Netflix in February 2022. But the feature documentary — unraveling the...

BAFTA gave out their Craft Awards on Sunday, 23 April. As with the Primetime Emmys, the British academy also devotes a weekend to celebrating the creative arts. The BAFTA TV Craft Awards are split into 20 categories, with six devoted to fictional programming, six to factual programming, and a further four in combined fields.

The BBC medical drama “This is Going to Hurt” won three awards — Editing (Fiction), Scripted Casting, and Writer (Drama) for show creator Adam Kay. Kay adapted his best-selling memoir, which chronciled his experiences as a doctor in the NHS. Kay won in a stacked category that included Pete Jackson (“Somewhere Boy”), Alice Oseman (“Heartstopper) and Tony Schumacher (“The Responder”). “This is Going to Hurt” will contend at the Emmys in the limited series categories.

Meanwhile, Writer (Comedy) went to Lisa McGee for her work on “Derry Girls,” which follows a teenage girl and family in friends in 1990s Northern Ireland.

Celebrating the talent behind-the-scenes the BAFTA Television Craft Awards 2023 in London honored House of the Dragon and This is Going to Hurt with each winning three trophies.

The Game of Thrones prequel won in three categories: Amanda Knight, Barrie Gower and Rosalia Culora for Make-Up & Hair Design; Alastair Sirkett, Doug Cooper, Martin Seeley, Paula Fairfield, Tim Hands and Adele Fletcher for Sound: Fiction; and Angus Bickerton, Nikeah Forde, Asa Shoul, Mike Dawson, Mpc and Pixomodo for Special, Visual & Graphic Effects.

Medical drama This is Going to Hurt also won in three categories: first-time winner Adam Kay won a BAFTA for Writer: Drama, for the series based upon his memoir as a junior doctor; Selina MacArthur, also a first-time winner, won for Editing Fiction; and Nina Gold and Martin Ware won for Scripted Casting.

The ceremony hosted by Mel Giedroyc featured celebrity guest presenters like Adil Ray, Adrian Lester, Charlene White,...

Just as the Primetime Emmys recognize a slew of categories during a weekend devoted to celebrating the Creative Arts, so too do the BAFTAs. The BAFTA TV Craft Awards honor various achievements across 20 different categories. An even dozen of these are devoted to fictional programming, another six to factual, and four are in combined fields. Winners of these awards were handed out in a ceremony on Sunday, April 23, three weeks before the main event. (Here’s the full list of BAFTA TV Awards nominations.) Scroll down for the complete list of BAFTA TV Craft Award winners.

Fiction

Costume Design

“The Crown”

“Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared”

X – “The Essex Serpent”

“The English”

Director (Fiction)

Dearbhla Walsh, “Bad Sisters”

Hugo Blick, “The English”

Lucy Forbes, “This is Going to Hurt”

X – William Stefan Smith, “Top Boy”

Editing (Fiction)

“The Crown”

“Andor”

“Slow Horses”

X – “This is Going to Hurt”

Emerging Talent...

HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon and the BBC/AMC medical comedy-drama This is Going to Hurt emerged with the most honors following the 2023 BAFTA Television Craft Awards ceremony, celebrating the best behind-the-scenes TV talent of 2022.

Held on Sunday in London, the event saw House of the Dragon win for make-up & hair design, sound: fiction and special, visual & graphic effect. Also landing three honors, This Is Going to Hurt won writer: drama for Adam Kay — who adapted his own bestselling memoir about his time as a junior doctor — plus editing: fiction and scripted casting.

The State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth was a two-time winner — for sound: faction and director: multi-camera.

In a night that featured a great number of first-time BAFTA winners, other honorees included The Tinder Swindler‘s Felicity Morris for director: factual; Top Boy‘s William Stefan Smith for director: fiction; Lisa McGee, writer:...

“Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” and medical comedy-drama “This Is Going to Hurt” walked away with three awards each at the BAFTA Television Craft Awards on Sunday.

This year’s ceremony, which salutes behind-the-scenes talent, was hosted by former “Bake Off” judge Mel Giedroyc.

HBO’s “House of the Dragon” won for make-up and hair design; sound in fiction and special, visual and graphic effects.

Elsewhere, BBC’s “This is Going to Hurt” won in three categories, with prizes going to first-time winner Adam Kay for best writer in drama (Kay adapted his best-selling memoir for the TV show); Selina MacArthur, also a first-time winner, for editing in fiction; and Nina Gold and Martin Ware for scripted casting.

Winning two awards was the BBC’s “The State Funeral of Hm Queen Elizabeth II” which won for sound in factual and director for multi-camera.

BAFTA’s Emerging Talent:...

Just as the Primetime Emmys recognize a slew of categories during a weekend devoted to celebrating the Creative Arts, so too do the BAFTAs. The BAFTA TV Craft Awards honor various achievements across 20 different categories. An even dozen of these are devoted to fictional programming, another six to factual, and four are in combined fields. Winners of these awards will be revealed during a ceremony on Sunday, April 23. That’s three weeks before the main event. (Here’s the full list of BAFTA TV Awards nominations.)

Fiction

Costume Design

“The Crown”

“Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared”

“The Essex Serpent”

“The English”

Director (Fiction)

Dearbhla Walsh, “Bad Sisters”

Hugo Blick, “The English”

Lucy Forbes, “This is Going to Hurt”

William Stefan Smith, “Top Boy”

Editing (Fiction)

“The Crown”

“Andor”

“Slow Horses”

“This is Going to Hurt”

Emerging Talent (Fiction)

Jack Rooke (writer), “Big Boys”

Lynette Linton (director), “My Name is Leon...

The restructures, layoffs, cancellations and a maybe-strike currently impacting the U.S. TV industry rippled through the halls of the Berlinale Series Market this week as senior execs forecasted an international future.

Mass redundancies at the likes of Disney, AMC, Paramount and Netflix in recent months and major strategic rethinks from the studios and streamers were the talk of the market. Among the chatter was a sense this may lead to a wave of non-u.S. activity.

Shades of Blue creator Adi Hasak didn’t mince his words when he described U.S. TV as a “disaster zone” Monday. Hasak, who is currently making shows in Scandinavia and the Middle East, was heavily critical of Disney in particular for a strategy that he deemed akin to a “mental breakdown.”

And he wasn’t the only big name pointing to U.S. strife — albeit the others perhaps less forcefully.

‘The Good Mothers’

Danna Stern,...

Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler director Felicity Morris has said the documentary market is going to contract and warned filmmakers against “chasing the next viral story that everyone is talking about.”

Speaking at the Berlinale Series Market, Morris and other European documentarians questioned whether the golden age of premium docs is coming to an end as buyers – especially the streamers – become more risk averse.

“We are hearing things are going to contract although there is definitely still an appetite for the best stories being told in the best way,” added Morris, who also produced Netflix’s Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer and is working on the same streamer’s All American Nightmare.

“I hope creativity will prevail and there might be a bit more risk taking in the stories that get commissioned but there will of course still be a plethora of shows for people to watch,...

Following the success of Emmy-nominated “Tinder Swindler,” director Felicity Morris is already at work on Netflix’s miniseries “All American Nightmare,” she said at Rome’s Mia.

Morris, previously at Raw TV, started her own company Ladywell Films with “Tinder Swindler” producer Bernadette Higgins.

“It felt like the right time to do my own thing,” she said.

“All American Nightmare,” clocking in at three episodes, will be completed next summer. Raw TV is also on board.

“I have learnt a lot over the years and [when it comes to] true crime, there always needs to be a reason to tell that story,” she stated, admitting filmmakers should do more than just “rehash another story about a cold-blooded killer.”

“It has this amazing woman who fell victim to a horrendous crime. But it’s about more than that. It’s about victims not being believed, about the institutions that are meant to protect us and yet they fall short.

Rome’s innovative Mia market dedicated to international TV series, feature films, and documentaries is gearing up for its eighth edition with an increased international industry presence, a new animation section, and lots of European content – most of which in early stages of production – on display.

The upcoming Oct. 11-15 Mia mart (whose acronym stands for the Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo or International Audiovisual Market) this year is positioned prior to the Mipcom content market and conference that runs Oct. 17-20 in Cannes, since Mipcom has shifted its dates forward.

But the repositioning has not impacted the number of registered attendees which is up more than 12 compared with past Mia editions. More than 900 international industry execs are expected to make the trek, and counting, organizers said at a Rome press conference on Thursday.

Significantly, U.S. streamers will be at Mia in full force. Execs from Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount, Apple,...

“Films that I’ve made have been about people who have been thrown into a wild, you-can’t-make-this-up kind of story,” says “The Tinder Swindler” writer and director, Felicity Morris. “For me, the best part of [documentary filmmaking] is that you get to go into these peoples’ homes. They trust you with their stories. If you were scripting it as a movie, you couldn’t make it up any better.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

The Netflix documentary spotlights a group of women who were the victims of a dating app based swindler. They joined forces in an attempt to hunt down the con artist who calls himself Simon Leviev and recover the millions of dollars that were stolen from them. The film is nominated for five Emmys including Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special.

See over 200 interviews with 2022 Emmy nominees

“We heard about the story because Cecilie [Fjellhøy] had gone to the press in Norway,...

Click here to read the full article.

Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Series

The Andy Warhol Diaries (Netflix)

Writer-director Andrew Rossi and exec producer Ryan Murphy draw from the 1989 book of the same name to offer an intimate portrait of the late artist’s public and private lives. It dropped March 9 (more recently than any competitor), is rated 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and landed three other noms, including directing and writing.

The Beatles: Get Back (Disney+)

The Beatles Get Back Documentary

Disney+, the service behind 2021’s winner, Secrets of the Whales, returns to contention with Peter Jackson’s remarkable depiction — drawing from 57 hours of film and 140 hours of audio — of The Beatles’ prep for their final public performance on a London rooftop in 1969. Its five nominations (directing among them) are a category high.

jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Netflix)

Kanye ‘Ye’ West in jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.

Filmed over two decades and...

There are smooth talkers, and then there’s Simon Leviev. Compared to him, most conmen are slick as sandpaper.

This is how Simon rolled: go on the dating app Tinder, pose as a guy looking for love. Attributes: handsome, emotionally available, sharp dresser, and oh yeah, rich. Really rich. With pluses like that, who wouldn’t swipe right? A lot of smart, beautiful, even sophisticated women did, as revealed in the Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler.

“The women in the film, first and foremost, they were looking for a boyfriend. They were single, a bit lonely. And that was why they were on Tinder swiping, swiping,” explains director Felicity Morris. “Certainly, they saw in Simon something that would take them out of their ordinary life. There were pictures of him on private jets. He looked like a businessman. And I think that, for them, was really attractive.”

Norwegian-born Cecilie Fjellhøy...

Exclusive: Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins, the filmmakers behind Netflix’s documentary phenomenon The Tinder Swindler, have signed with Anonymous Content.

The Tinder Swindler is currently up for four Emmys including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, Writing for a Nonfiction Program, Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (Original Dramatic Score), Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera) and Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program.

The feature released in February follows the victims of Simon Liev, an Israeli criminal posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul on the dating app Tinder. In this way, he would woo numerous women, and con them out of millions of dollars. Morris wrote and directed the pic, which amassed over 166 million hours watched in its first 28 days on Netflix, coming in as the all-time most-watched documentary feature for the streamer. Higgins served as its producer.

Morris served as Head of U.

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Emmys Collective

Visit each category, per the individual awards show from The Emmys Hub

To see old predictions and commentary,...

Out of the bustling ecosystem of this season’s true crime dramas and docs, “The Dropout,” Hulu’s dynamic adaptation of the ABC News podcast about disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, has emerged as an innovative creation in the sub-genre of scam TV. But when she created the series, showrunner Elizabeth Meriwether didn’t see it that way at first.

“I never really thought of ‘The Dropout’ as a scam show,” she says. “I saw it as a character study.”

Meriwether accepts the placement of her series within the overall scam genre, which has never been more popular, but says there are more differences between the myriad projects than similarities.

“The quote-unquote scam that was committed is so different in each show, and I think that may be easy to lose sight of,” she says.

It’s impossible to name every possible flavor of schemes. As with “The Dropout,” the...

Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler made its subject Shimon Hayut famous and infamous, detailing how he persuaded dozens of women to spend their money on his lavish lifestyle, feeding them outlandish yarns about his life story and how only the contents of their bank accounts could save him from imminent peril.

Now he is in fresh trouble in Spain, with The Times reporting that a warrant has been issued for his arrest – for presenting a fake ID to police after driving his Maserati on to the beach in the southern resort of Tarifa, back in 2019.

Although the case was on the verge of being dropped after three years, it was picked up again this month after Spanish police contacted the Norwegian journalist who is seen in the Netflix doc unmasking Hayut as a swindler.

Hayut has served several jail sentences for various fraudulent activities. The Netflix doc, directed by Felicity Morris,...

Israeli conman Simon Leviev conned a number of women out of a lot of money on dating app Tinder.

His actions, however, have helped Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler become the streamer’s most-watched doc to date.

Netflix revealed during its financial results that, with 166M hours watched in its first 28 days, the feature doc from The Imposter and Don’t F*ck with Cats producer Raw TV, AGC Television and Gaspin Media has topped its list.

Last year, the streamer noted that American Murder: The Family Next Door was its most watched documentary with around 52M subscribers watching (the streamer has subsequently changed the way it reports its data).

The Tinder Swindler, which launched February 2, recorded 45.8M hours in its four days on the service, before rising to 64.7M in its first full week.

The doc, which was directed by Felicity Morris, looks at Leviev’s cons as well...

Exclusive: The documentary film team at Netflix might be popping champagne corks together right about now, if Covid didn’t inhibit the whole in-person office scenario. They’ve got a lot to celebrate.

For the third week in a row, The Tinder Swindler – the true-life story of a serial fraudster and the women he ensnared – has claimed the top spot on the Netflix list of its most popular films worldwide. It’s the first documentary to achieve that distinction. Not only that, another documentary cracked the Netflix top 10 this week, Rory Kennedy’s chilling expose Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.

“It’s incredible for our filmmakers, our documentarians,” Lisa Nishimura, Netflix’s VP Documentary and Independent Film, tells Deadline in an exclusive interview. “To be in a place where we have two of our films and two of our filmmakers in the top 10 of film — not just documentary film but...

Exclusive: Looks like viewers are swiping right on The Tinder Swindler, the Netflix original documentary that has landed top of the streamer’s weekly film viewing chart.

The movie clocked 45.8 million hours viewed globally across the week January 31-February 6, and hit the top 10 in 92 countries. At the time of writing this from the UK, the film was sat top of the country’s Netflix chart.

Directed by Felicity Morris and produced by Raw and AGC Studios, The Tinder Swindler follows a group who team together to take revenge after being the victims of an online dating con. The film only released on February 2 so the numbers represent only five days of viewing.

Also in the top three this week was Home Team (33.6 million) and Despicable Me 2 (14.3 million).

The numbers are impressive but don’t come close to the success seen by Don’t Look Up earlier this year, which took...

The con man investigated in Netflix’s new documentary “The Tinder Swindler” has been banned from the dating app.

Shimon Hayut allegedly met women on Tinder before swindling them for millions of dollars after catfishing them into believing his name was “Simon Leviev” and that he was the son of Israeli diamond tycoon Lev Leviev.

“We have conducted internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is no longer active on Tinder under any of his known aliases,” Tinder said in a statement to Variety on Friday.

When the doc was released on Wednesday on Netflix, it reported that Hayut was still active on Tinder.

While Tinder has now banned him, he still has an account on Instagram with more than 200,000 followers. In an Instagram story posted on Friday, Hayut said he was preparing to tell his version of the story. However, when Variety went to his Instagram page on Friday afternoon,...

“The Tinder Swindler,” an eye-opening documentary about a notorious con man who used the dating app to defraud multiple women, could be getting the movie treatment.

Variety understands that Netflix is in talks with producers about dramatizing the wild documentary that’s likely to make any Tinder user’s blood run cold. Sources indicate that the conversation is in early stages, and that the tone of a potential film is still being worked out.

“The Tinder Swindler” debuted on the streaming service only on Wednesday, and it’s already cracking the platform’s Top 10 lists in the U.S. and U.K.

Produced by “Three Identical Strangers” and “Don’t F*** With Cats” makers Raw TV, alongside AGC Studios and Gaspin Media, the 114-minute doc tells the story of Israeli fraudster Shimon Hayut, who conned Scandinavian women into parting with hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending on dating app Tinder to be Simon Leviev,...

On Feb. 16, 2019, Ayleen Charlotte was boarding a plane in Prague, Czech Republic to return home to Amsterdam. She’d been visiting Simon Leviev, whom she’d been dating for 14 months. While waiting on the tarmac and scrolling through Instagram in her seat, she spotted Leviev’s picture attached to a multimedia article called “The Tinder Swindler” from the Norwegian newspaper Vg. She downloaded it before putting her phone on airplane mode, then spent the flight taking it in. “He has seduced and swindled young women for millions and is a...

The Netflix documentary unravels the financial and emotional cons of Simon Leviev, who scammed women who thought he was their friend or boyfriend

When Cecilie Fjellhøy first met the man she knew as Simon Leviev for a 10am coffee date at the Four Seasons Hotel in London in January 2018, he seemed to align with his Tinder profile. His pictures were flashy – designer clothes and expensive sunglasses in luxury cars and private jets – and his in-person demeanor was equally debonair. “He has this magnetism,” Fjellhøy recalls of her first impression in the Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler, out this week. “There’s something about this guy that is special.”

Fjellhøy, then a 29-year-old Norwegian graduate student living in London, was charmed by the man who claimed to be the “prince of diamonds”, a billionaire heir to the diamond fortune of the Israeli magnate Lev Leviev. And she was surprised: Simon had...

Today, Netflix has released a new trailer for their upcoming true-crime documentary "The Tinder Swindler." Dating apps can be dangerous places. If you've been on them, you know what people will say and do to get what they want. In the film, which is directed by Felicity Morris, we learn about one such person. This man, whose name is Simon, seduced several women on Tinder, made them fall in love with him and his jet-setting lifestyle, and then swindled them out of millions.

Public service announcement here: Do not send money to people you're dating, even if you think you love them....

The post The Tinder Swindler Trailer: A Con Man's Marks Turn the Tables in Netflix Doc appeared first on /Film.

Netflix is taking viewers back to the world of Tiger King.

The streamer on Thursday dropped a teaser for the highly-anticipated follow-up to one of the biggest shows in the history of the streaming service.

The series is set to return sometime in the fall, but a definite date is Tbd.

"The global hit Tiger King, which attracted 64 million households in the first four weeks after its March 2020 premiere, will return to Netflix for more madness and mayhem," Netflix shared in a new statement regarding the series.

Indeed, Tiger King was the show everyone was talking about when it launched last year. It's hard to believe it's been a year since the show, especially when you consider we had Carole Baskin on Dancing With the Stars last year.

The project propelled everyone associated to stardom -- some of it good, and some of it not so much.

The series arrived...

A Tiger King sequel is coming to Netflix this year as part of a new true crime line-up of documentaries to be released.

Although the streamer announced the project on Thursday, it is as yet unknown what the angle for Tiger King 2 will be. The first installment profiled wildcat owners with a focus on Joe Exotic (Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage), the former owner of the G.W. Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma who is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for his crimes against his animals and his role in a murder for hire plot against his nemesis Carole Baskin.

Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin will re-team as directors and executive producers; Chris Smith and Fisher Stevens will also serve as EPs. It is being produced by A Goode Films Production in association with Library Films and Article 19 Films.

Goode and Chaiklin have remained connected with Exotic since he began serving his sentence.

Netflix has picked up global rights to the documentary “Tinder Swindler,” about a notorious con man who lured women using the popular dating app and tricked them out of millions of dollars.

Produced by “Three Identical Strangers” and “Don’t F*** With Cats” makers Raw TV, alongside AGC Studios, the doc tells the story of Israeli fraudster Shimon Hayut, who conned Scandinavian women into parting with hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending to be a Russian oligarch named Simon Leviev on the dating app Tinder.

The documentary, directed by Felicity Morris (“Don’t F*** With Cats”), follows the women who were conned by Hayut as they uncover his true identity and bring him to justice.

Hayut, who was imprisoned in Israel in December 2019 on a 15-month jail sentence (of which he served just over five months), conned his victims by asking them, after a period of largely digital courtship,...

Exclusive: Raw, the production company behind hit documentaries including Don’t F*ck With Cats and Three Identical Strangers, has found its next case after unearthing a development with TNT.

The WarnerMedia-backed broadcaster is working with the All3Media-backed company on a new docuseries project. It is the network’s latest move into the true crime genre following the Dick Wolf-produced Cold Justice, which previously aired on TNT before moving to Oxygen.

This comes after Raw scored an Emmy last night at the Creative Arts Emmys for Outstanding Writing For A Nonfiction Program. Mark Lewis, who wrote the Netflix series, which explored the digital search for the killer of Jun Lin, beat out Apple TV+’s Beastie Boys Story, Nat Geo’s The Cave, Netflix’s Circus Of Books and HBO’s McMillion$ in the hotly contested category.

As with many of Raw’s documentaries and series, there...

When three part documentary Don’t F**k With Cats landed on Netflix in 2019 it became and instant sensation. It was both utterly fascinating and incredibly disturbing and became one of Netflix’s top five watched docs of that year, but also prompted discussions about whether the series itself could be seen as part of the problem.

The series is about Luka Magnotta, a Canadian man who was absolutely desperate to be famous and after his attempts at a career as an actor, a model and a reality TV star were unsuccessful started posting animal cruelty videos online. The series follows the internet sleuths who tracked him from the first terrible kitten videos he posted, up until the point where he actually committed the murder of Chinese student Jun Lin which he filmed and posted.

It’s an incredible story, told as a thriller. But in a series of BAFTA...

HBO and Sky’s nuclear drama “Chernobyl” has emerged as the frontrunner at this year’s Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Television Craft Awards with 14 nominations.

“Chernobyl’s” impressive haul matches “Killing Eve’s” record 14 BAFTA nods last year, making it the most nominated show in the history of the awards.

“Chernobyl’s” nominations span multiple categories in the TV and craft awards: costume design, director fiction, editing fiction, make-up and hair design, original music, photography and lighting fiction, production design, scripted casting, sound fiction, special, visual and graphic effects, writer (drama), leading actor (for Jared Harris), mini-series and supporting actor (for Stellan Skarsgard).

Meanwhile, Netflix hit “The Crown” follows with seven BAFTA nods, while Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s BBC and Amazon-backed comedy “Fleabag” and BBC and Netflix thriller “Giri/Haji” have six each.

BBC and HBO’s Philip Pullman adaptation “His Dark Materials” and Channel 4...