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Noah Kahan is the focus of a documentary on the “Stick Season” singer-songwriter from Live Nation Productions, Federal Films, Polygram Entertainment and RadicalMedia.

The film traces the start of Kahan’s music career from the release of his early albums“Busyhead” and “I Was /I Am,” on his way to becoming a star headlining New York’s Madison Square Garden and Boston’s Fenway Park. As the documentary follows the Vermont native’s journey, it dives into Kahan’s struggles and challenges with navigating his mental health while in the spotlight.

Nick Sweeney directs the film with producers Ryan Kroft, Vaughn Trudeau and Anna Keegan for Live Nation Productions; Jeff Ludwig and Devon Libran for Federal Films; David Blackman for Polygram Entertainment and Samantha Mustari, Dave Sirulnick; and Stacey Reiss for RadicalMedia.

Sweeney is known for the 2022 documentary “Santa Camp” (HBO Max), which followed efforts to bring more diversity to...

In the span of just a few recent years, Noah Kahan went from a moderately successful singer-songwriter from Vermont to chart-topping hitmaker and Grammy nominee with his 2022 album Stick Season and the single of the same name. Now, director Nick Sweeney and four companies have wrapped production on a documentary on Kahan’s journey. The film, which is yet to be named, is currently on the market for a distributor to bring it to general audiences.

Per a press release, the film follows Kahan after a spate of touring, a...

An Australian film-maker has followed three new Santas – one trans, one black and one disabled – as they learn the ropes, while their fellow Father Christmases adapt to the times

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What do you call a fear of Santa Claus? Claus-tro-phobia. I can’t take credit for that corker – it’s from a SpongeBob SquarePants episode, and it’s also delivered by Alexann in the new HBO Max documentary, Santa Camp. Alexann is a kid who’s turned up to a church in Chicago to meet “Trans Santa”. Unfortunately, so have a handful of Proud Boys and other protesters, who hold “Save Santa” signs while shouting that Trans Santa is “destroying America”.

“The Bible that I read says this is a sin,” says one guy, wearing Proud Boys merch. As the disembodied voice of Santa Camp director Nick Sweeney points out, “Santa’s not in the Bible.

Now streaming on HBO Max, Santa Camp is a heartwarming and illuminating documentary that follows a professional Santa society in New Hampshire. Instead of convening at a log cabin next to a fireplace in the winter, these professional Santas gather at an outdoor camp in August to go kayaking and swimming in the lake. After a long tradition of straight white Santas, however, the group realizes that it's time to open the door to Santas of all races, genders, and sexualities. Director Nick Sweeney (Aka Jane Doe) chronicles not only the new and improved session of Santa Camp but also the new members' journeys as well as the lessons learned by the gatekeepers.

While introducing viewers to the outdoor activities and indoor conventions of Santa Camp, the new HBO Max documentary hones in on the lives of a few new Santas who fall outside the stereotype that many have come to expect.

Regardless of religious affiliation, Santa Claus is nearly synonymous with the winter holiday season, which is why it may be humorous to see Santas in Santa Camp enjoying their summer while decked out in full North Pole gear. The new HBO Max documentary, which premieres on the streaming platform on November 17, follows a professional Santa society in New Hampshire that gives its members a full outdoor camp experience in addition to teaching them valuable lessons to help their careers. They soon find, however, that issues like representation and fair wages take longer than a swim in the lake to resolve.

While director Nick Sweeney (Aka Jane Roe) and Emmy-award-winning producer Stacey Reiss (The Andy Warhol Diaries) initially set out to experience everything the camp had to offer, Santa Camp grew before their eyes to be about something much larger than its original members. Answering a call for more authentic diversity among the ranks,...

Proud Boys “elves” descend on a church hosting a Christmas event with a transgender Santa Claus in a tense incident captured in the upcoming HBO Max documentary Santa Camp.

The film focuses on the New Hampshire campsite where professional Santas, Ms. Clauses, and elves visit each year to gear up for the holiday season. Concerned about a lack of diversity in the Santa industry, the organizers of the New England Santa Society invited a Black Santa, a Santa with a disability, and a transgender Santa to their annual meet-up.

Following that year’s Santa Camp,...

Every summer, a horde of professional Santas, Mrs. Clauses and elves descend on a campsite in the New Hampshire woods to learn the tricks of their trade. But this year is different. The organizers, members of the one-hundred strong New England Santa Society, have decided to tackle a complicated and historic problem – the lack of diversity in the Santa industry. They decide to enlist a Black Santa named Chris, a Santa with a disability named Fin, and a transgender Santa named Levi, each with their own surprising Santa origin story. Meanwhile, the Mrs. Claus delegation, led by veteran Dianne, is becoming more outspoken in its calls for equal billing and pay. The arrival of the new Santas sparks a reckoning about what it means to embody the beloved role model and cultural icon. After graduation, the Clauses draw on their camp experiences to affect change in their communities. But they...

Prime Video shared the official trailer for upcoming Western drama series “The English,” starring Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer. All six episodes of the limited series will premiere on November 11 exclusively in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Nordics on Prime Video, following its November 10 UK premiere on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. The series is created by Hugo Blick, who also serves as an executive producer, director and writer.

The series follows aristocratic Englishwoman Lady Cornelia Locke, played by Blunt, and a Pawnee ex-cavalry scout named Eli Whipp, played by Spencer. They come together in 1890 middle America to cross a violent landscape built on dreams and blood.

“The English” is produced by Drama Republic, a Mediawan company, and Eight Rooks. Blunt also serves as executive producer, alongside Greg Brenman for Drama Republic. Colin Wratten serves as a producer on “The English.” Global distribution is handled by All3Media Intl.

In 1973 Texas cleaning woman Norma McCorvey became the most famous woman in America when her attempt to obtain an abortion became the impetus for the court case known as Roe v. Wade. The case is one that everyone has an opinion on and it is near impossible to divorce personal feelings from a given work, whether that be a book or documentary on the subject. So director Nick Sweeney’s attempt at neutrality with his documentary “Aka Jane Roe” is admirable, but at times impossibly baffling.

“Aka Jane Roe” sells itself as an attempt for Jane Roe herself, McCorvey, to set the record straight about her life. McCorvey was a poor woman who’d already had a child, had a second on the way, and became the face of the biggest court case to affect women since the 19th Amendment. After that, she became a born again Christian, working with...

Norma McCorvey, better known by her pseudonym Jane Roe, drops a bombshell near the end of the new FX documentary about her life.

In what she calls her “deathbed confession,” McCorvey admits that anti-abortion groups paid her to switch over to their side in the abortion debate, around 20 years after she became a pro-choice icon for being the plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.

Nick Sweeney, the director of “Aka Jane Roe,” says he had no idea that McCorvey was about to make such a dramatic confession, and that it represents her “subverting everyone’s expectations one last time.”

McCorvey’s story is one of tragedy, abuse and plenty of contradictions. The Australian director, who recently recovered from a “pretty nasty bout” of coronavirus, spoke with Variety about what McCorvey was really like, and the timing of his documentary amid seemingly growing threats to Roe v.

This spring, FX’s “Mrs. America” has depicted the fiery intellectual battles among the modern feminist movement, with Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Bella Abzug ricocheting against one another and against a conservative backlash led by Phyllis Schlafly. These women are relentlessly articulate, strategic, with crystalline points of view about what they want to achieve for themselves and for all women. They comprise a group in which “Jane Roe” — at the center of perhaps the most crucial of victories for the 20th-century feminist movement — would have no place.

Norma McCorvey, the subject of the new documentary “Aka Jane Roe,” is a canny observer of her own experiences — which mainly consist of having been moved around the gameboard of American politics as a pawn. Speaking to director Nick Sweeney’s camera from her nursing home in the months before her 2017 death, McCorvey describes the experience of being drawn in...

Norma McCorvey, the once-anonymous “Jane Roe” in the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case, revealed she only switched sides to oppose abortion rights because she was being paid by anti-abortion groups.

“I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they put me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say,” McCorvey, who died in 2017, admitted in FX’s upcoming documentary “Aka Jane Roe.” “I did it well, too. I am a good actress. Of course, I’m not acting now.”

In 1970, McCorvey filed a lawsuit requesting that she have the right to safely and legally end a pregnancy in Texas. The case ultimately made it to the Supreme Court and, in 1973, the court ruled 7-2 that citizens had the constitutional right to an abortion.

Also Read: Mark Ruffalo Defends Abortion Rights in Poignant Video Honoring Roe v.

Norma McCorvey, who used the pseudonym “Jane Roe” in the landmark reproductive rights case Roe v. Wade, said that the reason she was an anti-abortion activist later in life was because she was paid. The revelation comes in the new FX documentary Aka Jane Roe, which premieres this Friday, May 22nd, and was also reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Aka Jane Roe was directed by Nick Sweeney, who conducted a series of interviews with McCorvey before she died in February 2017 at the age of 69. In the film, she reportedly...

In FX’s first documentary Aka Jane Roe, the real-life Norma McCorvey, who was known as plaintiff “Jane Roe” in the historic Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case, tells us that what she said in the feature is her “deathbed confession”. During the docu, she dropped a bomb, confessing that she went from pro-choice to pro-life because she was paid.

In one jaw-dropping part of the Nick Sweeney-directed docu, McCorvey, who was interviewed a few months before her death in 2017 was asked if she was being used as a trophy by anti-abortion groups. “I was the big fish,” she admitted. “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say.”

She gave an example of what she was told to say as the “former Jane Roe,...

In today’s TV news roundup, MTV announced the premiere date and cast for the 35th season of “The Challenge,” and the CW announces premiere dates for three summer shows.

Casting

MTV has revealed the lineup for season 35 of the reality-competition series “The Challenge,” dubbed “The Challenge: Total Madness.” To commemorate the landmark season, the 28-member cast features a mix of series veterans and newcomers competing in challenges for a million-dollar prize. Among the veterans are Mattie Breaux, Tula “Big T” Fazakerley and Jennifer West, each back for their second-ever challenge; third-time challengers Josh Martinez, Dee Nguyen, Melissa Reeves, Rogan O’Connor and Stephen Bear; fourth-time challenger Tori Deal; fifth-time challengers Kailah Casillas and Kyle Christie; sixth-time challengers Nelson Thomas and Jordan Wisely; seventh-time challengers Ashley Mitchell and Cory Wharton; and eighth-time challenger Jenna Compono. Additionally, mega-veterans such as 13-time challengers Aneesa Ferreira and Wes Bergmann, 17-time challenger Ct Tamburello; and Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio,...

FX Networks has set their first documentary feature Aka Roe which puts the spotlight on the real-life Norma McCorvey who was known as “Jane Roe” in the historic Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case. The docu will premiere May 22 at 9 pm Et/Pt on FX and will be available the following day on FX on Hulu.

The film follows the true story of McCorvey in the landmark ruling on abortion rights. The docu will feature her final series of interviews prior to her death and reveals the unvarnished truth behind her journey from pro-choice to pro-life and beyond – in what she calls her “deathbed confession.

Aka Jane Roe is the latest addition to FX’s growing slate of non-fiction series and documentary features. The network is currently airing the first season of The Weekly, a narrative docuseries with The New York Times, and the four-part docuseries The Most Dangerous Animal of All...

FX has acquired its first feature-length documentary, which centers on the woman at the center of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case.

Aka Jane Roe, which is set to premiere May 22 on FX, adds to the cabler's growing library of nonfiction programming that includes the series The Weekly and The Most Dangerous Animal of All, which debuts Friday. The film features interviews with Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" in the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Directed by Nick Sweeney (Born in the Wrong Body), Aka Jane Roe traces McCorvey's journey from pro-choice to pro-life and ...

Every year, transgender children and their families gather at a unique summer camp for a weekend of bonding, learning and of course, fun and games. The experience - transformative for kids and their parents alike - is the subject of a new documentary, Transgender Kids Camp. Featured in the film is a mom named Sabrina and her husband Chris, who have attended for seven years in support of their 13-year-old transgender daughter Ryan. In fact, Sabrina was so moved by her initial experience that she is now a parent coordinator at the camp. "The camp was so impactful for us,...

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Australian director Nicholas Sweeney.s new Channel 4 series Born in the Wrong Body has garnered a strong audience of more than one million on its debut in the UK.

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The three-part documentary series follows the lives of some of the youngest transgender people in the UK and America as they and their families make life changing decisions at astonishingly young ages.

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It follows the roaring success of the former University of Technology Sydney student.s fascinating debut documentary Secrets of the Living Dolls.

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Secrets of the Living Dolls looks at .female maskers.- men who dress up as rubber dolls in order to look like, and pretend to be, glamorous and beautiful women. The transformation includes a full body suit (complete with breasts and a vagina) as well as wigs, make up and face masks.

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Sweeney told If Secrets of the Living Dolls had 2.9 million viewers (4 million combined first...