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Tyler Perry is showing his support for the Hollywood studio marriage of David Ellison’s Skydance Media with Paramount Global. The reported $8 billion deal will see Ellison become chairman and CEO of a boosted Paramount while former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell will serve as president.

When asked on the red carpet at the New York premiere for his latest film “Divorce in the Black” if he had been talking to Paramount about the updates, Perry told Variety he already had a conversation about the recent turn of events: “They haven’t reached out as much as I have reached out to them to say I’m really excited about this next chapter.”

The entertainment titan also spoke about other big shifts in the industry that involve his productions. Just this April, Perry struck a new multi-year deal with BET Media Group that includes the renewal of eight of his shows...

Sony Pictures Classics’ Dylan Leiner along with FilmNation’s Stefan Zorich and Paramount’s Fabrizio Carrer were among the top film executives and companies who participated in the 13th NY Film & Entertainment Soccer Tournament for charity hosted at the Tribeca Festival.

The sun-drenched event gathered 39 teams, along with more than 60 filmmakers from the Tribeca Festival, and hundreds of spectators at Brooklyn Bridge Park overlooking downtown Manhattan.

The annual 5 v 5 charity soccer tournament, co-organized by Leiner and Jeffrey Saunders, will donate funds to the two organizations reigning atop the Soccer-4-Good Division, the big winner being Upwardly Global – which helps immigrants and refugees get back to work in their chosen fields; and Grassroot soccer, an organization that leverages the power of soccer to equip young people with life-saving information, services and mentorship.

Some of the high-profile talent in attendance included Phil Dunster (“Ted Lasso”) who presented his short film “Idiomatic” at...

Amazon MGM Studios has released the first trailer for Tyler Perry’s “Divorce in the Black,” starring Meagan Good and Cory Hardrict. The thriller will be available to stream globally on Prime Video starting July 11.

Per Amazon’s official logline, the film follows “Ava, a young bank professional who is devastated when her husband Dallas abandons a marriage she is determined to fight for until fate intervenes, revealing Dallas’ wicked deeds that have trashed their marriage, and once upon a time sabotaged Ava’s destiny to be loved by her true soulmate.”

“I’ve tried everything. You have taught me since I was a little girl to be a wife,” Ava tells her parents in the trailer. “But what happens when that’s not enough?”

Good and Hardrict are joined by a cast that includes Joseph Lee Anderson, Shannon Wallace, Taylor Polidore, Richard Lawson and Debbi Morgan. Perry serves as writer-director.

The first footage for “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story” was filmed over a decade ago by co-directors Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz, who have followed Perry throughout his career over the past 10 years. Ortiz said that had he known Bekele was planning on working on the project for that long, he might have been a bit more hesitant to join.

“But in all honesty, if we didn’t have that time, would you have been able to be as vulnerable as you were if we just did it in two years?” Ortiz asked Perry.

Perry sat down with Bekele and Ortiz to discuss their documentary at the Variety FYC Streaming Room presented by Prime Video. The film follows Perry’s life from his childhood beginnings to his current position in Hollywood as the ultimate multihyphenate creator, writer, studio head, producer, actor, and so much more. With a focus on healing,...

Tyler Perry has conquered the entertainment world — the creative force between two dozen films, 17 television shows, bestselling books and 20 stage plays. He built a thriving studio complex in Atlanta, and just today Deadline reported he has signed a first-look deal with Netflix to produce faith-based films alongside DeVon Franklin.

It’s been a long and improbable journey to the top of his profession, a tale told in the Emmy-contending documentary Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story. Gelila Bekele (Perry’s former life partner) and Armani Ortiz directed the Amazon MGM Studios film, with the first footage shot a decade ago.

“I saw this man becoming busier than ever and I had the privilege of having a front-row seat and I wanted to just document it for archive,” Bekele explained during an appearance at the Deadline Studio at Prime Experience in Hollywood. “I realized there’s a huge chunk of missing history,...

Deadline on Monday launched its streaming site for Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted, showing off the full panels of all 20 shows that participated in Saturday’s all-day showcase of the year’s best in nonfiction, unscripted and late-night programming as Emmy season ramps up.

Click here for the streaming site.

This year’s panel lineup featured a load of shows that have been generating zeitgeist-y buzz, including Gypsy Rose Blanchard joining the conversation with the EPs for The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the filmmakers behind Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, the producers behind this year’s Oscars, and the creatives behind late-night staples Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Daily Show.

The documentary field was also well-repped, featuring filmmakers Ron Howard (Jim Henson Idea Man) Roger Ross Williams (The Super Models), Morgan Neville (Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces) Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (Girls State...

Tyler Perry has achieved success in the entertainment industry on a scale almost beyond comparison: he’s the creative force behind two dozen films, 20 plays, two bestselling books and well over a dozen television series. Tyler Perry Studios, the huge production complex he built in Atlanta, is home to 12 custom sound stages.

What’s even more astounding is all he had to overcome to accomplish those feats – growing up poor in New Orleans and enduring physical and mental abuse at the hands of his father. His extraordinary journey is told in Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story, the film from Prime Video directed by Gelila Bekele (Perry’s former life partner and mother of his child) and Armani Ortiz.

Related: Contenders TV Docs + Unscripted – Deadline’s Full Coverage

“We weren’t interested in making a film about Tyler Perry, the celebrity … but really how did he survive [his upbringing]?” Bekele explained during...

This year’s Emmy race features some of the most explosive nonfiction content in recent years: docuseries on the fate of a beloved talk show host, a vulnerable young woman victimized in a case of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, the scandal involving Nickelodeon kids shows, and a revealing look inside one of professional sports’ greatest dynasties.

Deadline’s Contenders TV: Documentary + Unscripted virtual event — your indispensable guide to TV awards season — goes in depth on all of it Saturday in a showcase that kicks off at 9 a.m. Pt.

Click here to register and watch the livestream.

Among the panelists joining today are key talent behind Lifetime’s Where Is Wendy Williams?, Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, and The Dynasty: New England Patriots from Apple TV+. Gypsy Rose Blanchard herself joins us to talk about telling her shocking story in Lifetime’s The Prison...

The strikes are behind us, Emmy season is upon us, and it’s time to hear from the creatives and talent behind some of the TV season’s most talked-about nonfiction programs. Deadline’s daylong Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted virtual event will offer just that this weekend, giving awards-watchers a chance to kick back at home and take in the tales.

You can RSVP for Saturday’s livestream here.

Starting at 9 a.m. Pt Saturday, the fourth annual event features 20 panels with cast and creatives from series, specials and telefilms.

Here is what and who you can expect to see.

From ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

From Prime Video: Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story (Writer/Director...

Grammy-winning artist Lil Nas X is giving fans an all-access pass to his creative ingenuity in the full trailer for the upcoming HBO documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, which you can check out above.

Premiering Saturday, Jan. 27 at 8 pm (and streaming the same day on Max), the film “captures the creative dynamo and mesmerizing star power of Lil Nas X” as he prepares for and embarks on his first headlining tour in the U.S.

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A new drama is coming to BET+ this winter from director Armani Ortiz (Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story).

Perimeter, set in Atlanta in the 1990s (see the trailer, below), stars Tatyana Ali alongside newcomer Ava Mone’t and Donovan Christie Jr. The series centers around the Dawn family, daughter Paige (Mone’t), a sophomore at Spelman college whose life gets off track when she falls for a bad boy type; her father, Councilman Robert Dawn (Christie), whose political ambitions on his quest to become mayor come at a grave personal and moral cost; and his wife, Connie (Ali), who tries to keep the family together. Their personal drama takes place against the larger backdrop of two of Atlanta’s biggest cultural events at the time: Freaknik and the 1996 Summer Olympics.

“Exploring Atlanta in the early ’90s is like finding a cave full of diamonds,” Ortiz tells The Hollywood Reporter. “To...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story” an intimate documentary – co-directed by insiders Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz – about the rags to riches story of the Entertainment Mogul known as “Tp.” Currently on Prime Video.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Tyler Perry started with a dream to be a performer, which was rooted in his traumatic and desperately isolated childhood, so within this dedicated goal he created a stage play phenomenon, then a movie phenomenon, then a TV phenomenon, and now he’s currently one of the greatest entertainment moguls in the history of show business. But what was behind it all is intimated in the documentary … co-directed by Tp insiders Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz … and much of it is due to the unshakable connection that Tyler had to his mother Maxine.

Click Here for an interview with co-directors Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz by Patrick McDonald on HollywoodChicago.

Chicago – Tyler Perry is taking a spiritual journey, we just happen to be along for the ride. That is the impression when watching the just-released documentary on Prime Video, “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” co-directed by Gelila Bekele (also writer) and Armani Ortiz. They spoke to HollywoodChicago.com.

Tyler Perry started with a dream to be a performer, which was rooted in his traumatic and desperately isolated childhood, so within this dedicated goal he created a stage play phenomenon, then a movie phenomenon, then a TV phenomenon, and now he’s currently one of the greatest entertainment moguls in the history of show business. But what was behind it all is intimated in the documentary … co-directed by Tp insiders Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz … and much of it is due to the unshakable connection that Tyler had to his mother Maxine.

Co-Directors Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz for ‘Maxine...

At first glance, Tyler Perry is the ultimate success story. But a deeper look into his life shows just how hard Perry had to work to break into an entertainment industry that seemingly did not want him. “Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” which debuts on Friday, Nov. 17 on Prime Video will detail that struggle, showing viewers how hard it was for Perry to succeed as a Black content creator and become the success he is today. You can watch with a 30-Day Free Trial of Amazon Prime Video.

How to Watch 'Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story' When: Friday, November 17, 2023 Where: Amazon Prime Video Stream: Watch with a 30-Day Free Trial of Amazon Prime Video. 30-Day Free Trial$8.99+ / month amazon.com About 'Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story'

Writer, actor, filmmaker, studio head and media titan, Tyler Perry, is America’s consummate multihyphenate. But underneath this...

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.

Halloween might be long gone by now, but that doesn’t mean there’s any shortage of new shows, docs, and films to stream ahead of the holidays on Prime Video. November began with the long-awaited season premiere of a must-watch Prime Video superhero series. But the rest of the month isn’t short on intriguing debuts, either. These include a competition show inspired by a long-running film franchise,...

The View was forced to hit pause on its Tyler Perry interview Tuesday after Sara Haines brought the media mogul to tears.

During a conversation about the Prime Video documentary Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story, Haines acknowledged the film’s titular heroine: Perry’s late mother Willie Maxine Perry, who died in 2009. Acknowledging the profound impact the film had on her, Haines noted that she “met Maxine through all of it. I didn’t know her… [and the documentary] shows how much you endured as a child.”

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If the atmosphere seems spiced with something other than pumpkin extract this month, don’t worry. That’s just the creamy mouth-feel (sorry!) of awards season, which is once again upon us in full-force. Look no further than this month’s Don’t-Miss Indies, full of auteur-driven storytelling from tip to tail, including plenty of Film Independent Spirit Award alumni. Want to receive screeners and vote for this season’s Spirit Award winners? Go ahead!

Fingernails

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (limited), Apple TV+

Director: Christos Nikou

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, Jeremy Allen White

Why We’re Excited: Film Independent Spirit Award winners Buckley (Robert Altman Award co-recipient for last year’s Women Talking) and Ahmed (Best Male Lead for 2020’s Sound of Metal) stars as Anna and Amir—two colleagues who work at the “Love Institute”, which has supposedly developed a test to...

A movie with the title “Maxine’s Baby” brings with it certain expectations; namely, that it will help you learn something, anything of substance regarding a person named Maxine. The new documentary from directors Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz does not fulfill that promise. Maxine in the film is Willie Maxine Perry, and the baby is her son, Tyler Perry. Over the course of its too-long one-hour and 55-minute runtime, “Maxine’s Baby” shares a grand total of maybe three facts about Perry’s mother: 1) she was married to an abusive man, 2) she was religious, and 3) she died in 2009. Any real meat about who she was as a person is cast aside in favor of picture montages and in-the-moment interviews where Perry discusses his love for his Maxine, and how she shaped him into the artist he is today. These sections universally go down like a wafer cookie: sweet but...

On consecutive nights, Los Angeles’ AFI Fest presented the world premieres of very different documentaries about renowned writer-director-stars.

The Rob Reiner-helmed Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, premiering on HBO in November, is fundamentally a meeting of peers. The Stand by Me filmmaker and his subject, the auteur behind Lost in America, were high school classmates and have been lifelong chums. Their interaction is wholly amiable and the resulting film is loose, warm and without confrontation.

Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz’s Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story, hitting Amazon in November, isn’t a confrontational documentary either. In one of the film’s first scenes, the Diary of a Mad Black Woman mastermind and industry mogul nonpareil is about to take the stage at the 2019 grand opening of Atlanta’s Tyler Perry Studios when Ortiz asks him a question, a query he concludes by calling Perry “sir.” It’s a respectful form of address,...

Ultra-prolific writer-director, fiercely independent producer, pioneering entrepreneur, self-made studio chief. Any and all of these labels apply to Tyler Perry, though the one the boundary-obliterating multi-hyphenate chooses for himself is “Maxine’s Baby” — the same moniker that documentary duo Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz opted to give their motivational profile of Perry, who comes off disarmingly humble for someone who’s achieved so much. While not quite hagiography, the worshipful project is so committed to touting Perry’s accomplishments that it takes the rare step of counting his agents and publicist (whose actual job it is to hype him) among its adoring sources.

Early on, Perry’s plays and films served both to inspire and provide moral example, heavy-handedly addressing topics — such as infidelity, drug addiction and child sexual abuse — that Black audiences were more accustomed to hearing about in church than on the big screen. Today, with two dozen...

This year’s AFI Fest is back in full glory, featuring a rich lineup of critical favorites plus a slate of five films curated by guest artistic director Greta Gerwig, whose latest film, “Barbie” has grossed $1.4 billion.

Returning to Hollywood’s Tcl Chinese Theatre and screening films from October 25-29, the event will feature Gerwig’s curated list of films: “All That Jazz,” “An American in Paris,” “A Matter of Life and Death,” “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” and “Wings of Desire.” AFI Fest will also screen the U.S. premiere of “Lee,” starring Academy Award-winner Kate Winslet, who is a producer on the project as well. The biopic follows the life of Lee Miller, a wartime photographer who documented the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps, London Blitz and liberation of Paris during WW II.

“I think AFI Fest and all film festivals are monuments to the inspirational power of film, the healing restorative power of film,...

The creative team from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will soon be swinging into Colorado to accept an inaugural award at the Denver Film Festival.

The fest today announced a more complete lineup of events, screenings, honorees, special guests, podcasts and more for this year’s installment, scheduled for Nov. 3-12. Plucked to receive the inaugural Denver Film Festival 5280 Award will be the Spider-Verse team. The prize is designed to honor “exceptional cinematic work and collaboration to achieve new heights,” per officials. It will be presented to writers and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, executive producer Bob Persichetti, producer Christina Steinberg and senior animation supervisor Humberto Rosa following a screening of the film on Nov. 7 at the AMC 9 + Co 10.

Anthony Chen, whose credits include Ilo Ilo, Wet Season and Ah ma, has been tapped to receive the Denver Film Festival Excellence in Directing Award following the screening of one of his new films,...

Tyler Perry is getting back into the Netflix business.

The director of the “Madea” franchise of movies and last year’s “A Jazzman’s Blues” for Netflix has formed a new creative partnership with the streamer. Perry will write, direct, and produce feature films over a multi-year, first-look film deal.

No word on if Perry would be starring in any of his projects, as there’s still an actors strike ongoing.

No specific projects were announced as part of the new first-look deal, but Perry upcoming has “Six Triple Eight,” which stars Kerry Washington and is a World War II film based on the true story of the first and only Women’s Army Corp unit of color stationed overseas. The project is an ensemble story that also boasts Susan Sarandon and Oprah Winfrey among its cast. He also has “Mea Culpa,” which stars Kelly Rowland and Trevante Rhodes and is...

Filmmaker and media mogul Tyler Perry has struck a new, multi-year first-look deal with Netflix that will see him write, direct and produce features for the streamer.

News of the creative partnership comes following Perry’s pact with Amazon Studios in November 2022 to write, direct and produce four features for Prime Video. Perry comes to it after working extensively with Netflix in recent years, including on the forthcoming features Six Triple Eight and Mea Culpa.

Exec produced by Kerry Washington, who also leads the starry ensemble, Six Triple Eight spotlights the inspiring true story of the first and only Women’s Army Corp unit of color to be stationed overseas during World War II. Kelly Rowland and Trevante Rhodes star in Mea Culpa, a film about a criminal defense attorney who takes on the case of an artist who may or may not have murdered his girlfriend.

Other past Perry...

Rapper and filmmaker Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, also known as RZA, will serve as this year’s Urbanworld Film Festival ambassador.

The festival will take place in New York City from Nov. 1 to 5 and will include a conversation with The Marvels director Nia DaCosta, as well as the world premiere of A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, co-directed by RZA and Gerald Barclay.

Urbanworld showcases narrative and documentary features, short films, web originals, music videos, spotlight screenings, conversations and live staged screenplay readings. In addition to the Wu-Tang doc, the festival will shine a light on Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction, and Galila Bekele and Armani Ortiz’s Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story.

RZA’s film chronicles Wu-Tang’s iconic performance with the 60-piece Colorado Symphony Orchestra, which backed the group’s live score to a real-time, onstage screening of martial arts film The 36th Chamber of Shaolin,...

Prime Video is pulling back the curtain on the man behind Madea.

The streaming service has released a trailer for Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story, “a tender and intimate portrait of visionary and innovator Tyler Perry and his harrowing-but-faithful road to the top of an industry that didn’t always include him.

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Prime Video has released the trailer for Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story, a documentary almost a decade in the making.

The nearly three-minute trailer (below) details Perry’s rule-breaking rise to Hollywood prominence alongside an at-times-trying personal life. That includes an abusive upbringing, resulting in an estranged relationship with his father, and in his adulthood, watching his mother “slowly dying.”

“He had some horrific experiences that ultimately led to the characters he created and the imagination that he had,” says one voice in the trailer.

One of Perry’s friends details how the duo were so broke, they’d share burgers over discussions of his “great dreams,” while other talking heads elaborate on the challenges he faced once entering Hollywood — a space where he “broke every rule.”

“A studio executive said to him: ‘Black people don’t go to the movies.’ They were just wrong on every count when it came to Tyler,...

Multi-hyphenate mogul Tyler Perry’s life story is finally being told on the big screen.

Producer/director/actor Perry is the focus of Prime Video documentary “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” which is billed as an intimate and revealing look at one of the most prolific entertainers of our time.

Co-directed by Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz, the film centers on Perry overcoming his childhood trauma in the midst of building an empire. “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” a nod to his mother’s love, is a tender and intimate portrait of visionary and innovator Tyler Perry and his harrowing but faithful road to the top of an industry that didn’t always include him.

Nearly a decade in the making, with unfettered access, directors Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz lead us into the inner world of a man whose story has never fully been told as he...

Even if you think you know Tyler Perry’s story – his improbable rise from homeless playwright to billionaire media mogul with a dozen Madea movies in between — the first footage from the upcoming documentary “Maxine’s Baby” contextualizes it all in a new way.

In August, Variety exclusively announced that the documentary was heading to Amazon MGM Studios. Directed by Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz, the documentary aims to present an “tender, intimate portrait” of Perry, with its title as a nod to his late mother Willie Maxine Perry, who died in 2009, and the two-and-a-half-minute trailer teases what’s to come.

The trailer opens with Perry backstage before a big event — presumably the 2019 opening of his eponymous 330-acre studio in Atlanta, Ga. “How are you feeling right now sir?” Ortiz asks from behind the lens.

“My problem with a lot of things in life is I can float above it.

US premiere of Kate Winslet starrer Lee added to selection.

AFI Fest guest artistic director Greta Gerwig has revealed her five selections ahead of the Hollywood event running October 25-29.

Gerwig, whose Barbie ranks as the highest global release of the year to date on $1.43bn, has curated All That Jazz, An American In Paris, A Matter Of Life And Death, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, and Wings Of Desire.

Separately the festival announced on Tuesday that it has set an October 28 US premiere for Ellen Kuras’ Lee starring Kate Winslet as Lee Miller, the model turned war correspondent whose images of the Blitz,...

The Barbie phenomenon is spreading to AFI Fest.

Greta Gerwig, who directed and co-wrote the billion dollar blockbuster starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has been tapped to serve as guest artistic director of the Los Angeles-based festival. In the role, Gerwig will curate a number of films to add to the festival lineup and will be on hand to present one or more of those films depending on her schedule. Filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ava DuVernay, David Lynch and Agnès Varda have held the role in previous festivals.

On Oct. 10, AFI revealed the list of films Gerwig has selected. Those five films include Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz starring Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange and Ann Reinking, Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris starring Gene Kelly, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death, Tim Burton’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure starring the...

On the heels of a staggeringly triumphant run with Barbie, the fantastical comedy which she co-wrote and directed for Warner Bros, Greta Gerwig has been appointed by the American Film Institute to serve as Guest Artistic Director of AFI Fest 2023.

An Oscar-nominated filmmaker known equally for her work as an actress, Gerwig joins a lineage of Guest Aristic Directors that also includes such titans as Pedro Almodóvar, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ava DuVernay, David Lynch and Agnès Varda. The 37th edition of the festival is set to take place October 25-29 in Los Angeles. Ticket bundles have already been made available for purchase, along with the full festival lineup, with individual tickets to go on sale tomorrow.

One half of the cultural phenomenon known as Barbenheimer, opposite Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Gerwig’s live-action Barbie has proven immensely popular with critics and moviegoers alike, setting numerous records while grossing over $1.4B worldwide.

The world premiere of the Sam Esmail-directed Netflix feature “Leave the World Behind” starring Oscar winners Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali along with four-time Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke will open the 37th AFI Fest on October 25, while the world premiere of the Amazon Studios documentary “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story” while play as a centerpiece film at the festival on October 27. Additionally, “Maestro,” the Leonard Bernstein biopic from Netflix that’s directed by and starring Bradley Cooper and co-starring Carey Mulligan, will close the fest on October 29. All will be screened at the Tcl Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

AFI Fest runs October 25-29 and will include a curated selection of red carpet premieres, special screenings, world cinema, documentaries and shorts.

Here is the full lineup:

“Leave the World Behind” – In this apocalyptic thriller, Amanda (Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) rent a luxurious home for the weekend with their kids,...

The American Film Institute on Thursday revealed the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 25-29. It joins the previously announced fest opener, Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind, and closer in Bradley Cooper’s Maestro. Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story is the Centerpiece film.

Additional highlights include the world premieres of Albert Brooks: Defending My Life directed by Rob Reiner and Freud’s Last Session directed by Matthew Brown. Other fest-season films in the lineup include All of Us Strangers directed by Andrew Haigh, Toronto winner American Fiction directed by Cord Jefferson, The Bikeriders directed by Jeff Nichols, The End We Start From directed by Mahalia Belo, Fingernails directed by Christos Nikou, Memory directed by Michel Franco, Quiz Lady directed by Jessica Yu, and Society of the Snow directed by J.A. Bayona which will screen in the Special Screenings...

Next month’s AFI Fest is coming into focus.

The Los Angeles event — headquartered at Hollywood’s Tcl Chinese Theatre and set to take place from Oct. 25-29 — has revealed its full lineup including critical favorites that have emerged from the festival circuit so far and a world premiere from director Rob Reiner, Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.

The festival favorites to screen at AFI Fest include Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy; Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction starring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Adam Brody, Issa Rae and Sterling K. Brown; Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon; Mahalia Belo’s The End We Start From starring Comer, Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Fry and Katherine Waterston; Christos Nikou’s Fingernails starring Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and Jeremy...

“Maxine’s Baby,” the upcoming documentary about Tyler Perry’s life and career, will make its world premiere at this year’s AFI Fest.

The Amazon Studios and Bekele Films documentary, directed by Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz, will debut on Friday, Oct. 27 at the Tcl Chinese Theatre in Hollywood as one of the festival’s centerpiece screenings.

“Tyler Perry is a creative force of nature – a multi-hyphenate who forged his own path to seismic impact in the world of storytelling while also inspiring the next generation to follow in his footsteps,” stated AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale announcing the film’s selection. “’Maxine’s Baby’ is an epic celebration of a modern maverick, and it is AFI’s honor to shine a proper light upon Mr. Perry and the film at AFI Fest.”

Last month, Variety exclusively announced that the documentary, which was nearly a decade in the making,...

A new documentary about the prolific multihyphenate Tyler Perry will be AFI Fest’s centerpiece film next month. The American Film Institute said today that Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story will make its world premiere October 27 at the Tcl Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

The pic from Amazon Studios and Bekele Films is billed as a tender, intimate portrait of the Atlanta-based writer, actor, filmmaker, studio head and media mogul.

“Tyler Perry is a creative force of nature – a multihyphenate who forged his own path to seismic impact in the world of storytelling while also inspiring the next generation to follow in his footsteps,” AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzale said in a statement. “Maxine’s Baby is an epic celebration of a modern maverick.”

Related: AFI Fest Sets 2023 Dates

Directed by Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz, the doc promises unfettered access to the inner world of Perry, whose...

The true story behind multi-hyphenate Tyler Perry’s rise to fame is at the center of documentary “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” which is set to make its world premiere at the 2023 AFI Fest.

The Amazon Studios and Bekele Films documentary will be the centerpiece screening at this year’s AFI Fest, taking place October 25 through 29 in Los Angeles. “Maxine’s Baby” will screen Friday, October 27 at the Tcl Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.

Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz direct the film, which takes audiences into the inner world of Tyler Perry, whose story has never fully been told. Perry is billed as a father and a media mogul with a mission to pave his own road to the top. “The film is a profound lesson on remembering where you came from to know where you want to go,” the description states.

AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzale...

The life and career of the billionaire writer, actor, filmmaker, studio head and media tycoon Tyler Perry is getting the Amazon Studios documentary treatment in a film is co-directed bv Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz. Titled “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” the film is described as “a nod to Perry’s mother’s love and a tender, intimate portrait of visionary and innovator Perry.” It will begin streaming over Prime Video on November 17.

Perry’s mother Willie Maxine Perry died in 2009.

A release announcing the doc notes, “Tyler Perry is America’s consummate multihyphenate. But underneath the entertainment behemoth is a man working humbly to heal his childhood trauma by transforming his pain into promise.” It goes on to describe that “Maxine’s Baby” will chronicle “his harrowing but faithful road to the top of an industry that didn’t always include him.” Nearly a decade in the making,...

Last week, Puff Daddy debuted his new Pharrell-assisted single “Finna Get Loose” as the grand finale of his Bad Boy mega-medley at the BET Awards. Now, the rapper has unveiled exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of that all-star performance soundtracked by Puff Daddy’s latest single. In the Armani Ortiz-directed black-and-white video, we watch as the Bad Boy mogul and a score of dancers prep for the performance, one of the many highlights from Bad Boy’s 20th anniversary celebration.

The BET Awards performance of “Finna Get Loose” has sparked a...