News

Click here to read the full article.

Mad Gene Media is making moves.

Oscar Isaac and Elvira Lind’s production company has signed a first-look deal with Endeavor Content that will see the married pair collaborate with the studio’s TV, film and documentary teams to develop and produce content for all platforms. At the same time, Mad Gene Media has scooped up its first executive, hiring Gena Konstantinakos to serve as head of development and production.

The deal marks the first production pact for the company, founded in 2019 and announced in November 2020 by Lind on Instagram with a post teasing that they had “podcasts, shorts, docs, fiction and graphic novels in the making.” They made a splash with one of their first projects, a live-action short film titled The Letter Room, written and directed by Lind (Bobbie Jene) and starring Isaac.

The Letter Room went on to be nominated...

Cinema Eye Honors, an influential bellwether in the race for documentary awards, kicked off its 15th year with non-fiction award-winners announced at its annual Los Angeles lunch attended by many top filmmakers. Steve James’ five-part Chicago series “City So Real,” and Spike Lee’s filmed portrait of David Byrne’s Broadway show “American Utopia” lead the Cinema Eye Honors broadcast nominations list with three nods apiece. “David Byrne’s American Utopia” is one of five films up for Outstanding Broadcast Film, while “City So Real” joins five other series in the Nonfiction Series category. Both projects were nominated for Outstanding Broadcast Editing and Cinematography.

“It is notable that both of this year’s most nominated Broadcast entries are part of the creative legacy of Diane Weyermann,” said Cinema Eye Founding Director Aj Schnack. The beloved documentary veteran, who died last week, was an Executive Producer on both “City So Real” and “American Utopia.

Cinema Eye Honors, an influential bellwether in the race for documentary awards, kicked off its 15th year with non-fiction award-winners announced at its annual Los Angeles lunch attended by many top filmmakers. Steve James’ five-part Chicago series “City So Real,” and Spike Lee’s filmed portrait of David Byrne’s Broadway show “American Utopia” lead the Cinema Eye Honors broadcast nominations list with three nods apiece. “David Byrne’s American Utopia” is one of five films up for Outstanding Broadcast Film, while “City So Real” joins five other series in the Nonfiction Series category. Both projects were nominated for Outstanding Broadcast Editing and Cinematography.

“It is notable that both of this year’s most nominated Broadcast entries are part of the creative legacy of Diane Weyermann,” said Cinema Eye Founding Director Aj Schnack. The beloved documentary veteran, who died last week, was an Executive Producer on both “City So Real” and “American Utopia.

As a civil rights attorney in private practice, Larry Krasner sued the Philadelphia Police Department roughly 75 times. Not exactly the kind of guy you would expect to run for district attorney of Philadelphia. Or to win.

But that’s exactly what happened in 2017. Not even Krasner gave himself good odds of victory when he first entered the race.

“It was a laughable shot,” he tells Deadline, “but somehow it worked.”

Krasner swept into office as part of a wave of progressive D.A.s elected in cities around the country, an iconoclastic group dedicated to taking on a system many critics see as systemically racist and unfair.

“This administration is going to have a progressive and frankly activist approach to criminal justice reform,” Krasner articulated early in his tenure, promising to “substantially” alter charging and sentencing practices and cash bail policies that have contributed to mass incarceration. “You’re not going to see slow,...

The video above was produced by IndieWire’s Creative Producer Leonardo Adrian Garcia. The conversation below relates to PBS docuseries “Philly D.A.,” an eight-part look inside the district attorney’s office of Philadelphia and the challenges faced by Larry Krasner, a longtime progressive defense attorney elected as the city’s prosecutor. Helmed by Ted Passon, Yoni Brook, and Nicole Salazar the docuseries is available to stream in full via the PBS app and website.

Libby Hill, TV Awards Editor: Ben, I have to be honest with you. It’s not often that you completely blindside me, recommending a series that wasn’t on my radar whatsoever. And yet, here we have “Philly D.A.” Are you just pulling my leg? Are you sure this show actually exists?

Ben Travers, TV Critic: Libby, not only am I sure “Philly D.A.” exists, but I’m relatively sure it’s the best documentary series...

While it eventually evolved to become a sprawling, eight-part look inside a Philadelphia institution at a crucial pivot point, “Philly D.A.” didn’t start out that way. Ted Passon and Yoni Brook began filming a smaller-scale documentary project on the longshot local campaign of Larry Krasner, a longtime progressive defense attorney running for the city’s district attorney job.

After Krasner’s surprising victory, the two showed up throughout the transition process and in the opening weeks of the new Da’s tenure. Over time, producer Nicole Salazar joined as an integral part of the series’ core team, helping to expand the scope of a unique journalistic endeavor. After a Sundance premiere and a weekly run as part of PBS’ “Independent Lens,” “Philly D.A.” now stands as a record of an undertaking seemingly as mammoth as the downtown office building where much of it takes place.

Pick any...

Documentary festival aims to host physical as well as online events.

Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel (VdR) has revealed the line-up of competition titles for its 2021 edition, which it aims to host as a hybrid event from April 15-25.

A total of 142 films from 58 countries have been selected, including 82 world premieres.

Scroll down for competition titles

The 13-strong international feature film competition includes the world premiere of Tomasz Wolski’s documentary 1970, which uses stop motion animation and archive footage to recount what happened when striking workers in communist Poland demonstrated against price increases. Poland’s Wolski won the jury...

Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel (VdR) has revealed the full lineup for its 52nd edition, which, for the second year running, will screen as a online event, this round round over April 15-25.

The program, which comprises of 142 films originating from 58 countries, was revealed live in a Zoom press conference this morning, broadcast from the Cinéma Capitole in the festival’s host town of Nyon, Switzerland.

Among the 13 titles competing in VdR’s main, a doc feature exploring a health system in the throes of change. The zeigeisty debut feature of Swiss filmmaker Marie-Eve Hildbrand will also open the festival on 15 April.

The festival also announced 37 medium-to-short films from first-time directors. In a statement Emilie Bujès, artistic director of Visions du Réel praised this year’s “powerful and eclectic” selection.

“It will once again enable us to take into account the independence and the emancipation of contemporary documentary filmmaking,...

Philly Da, which premiered at Sundance and is also screening in Berlin, is the first two hours of what will ultimately run on television as an eight episode series about Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner - who many see as the very definition of poacher turned gamekeeper, although he is most certainly not in the business of maintaining the status quo.

A civil rights lawyer for decades, he had sued the Philadelphia Police Department more than 70 times before deciding to run for office. Yoni Brook, Ted Passon and Nicole Salazar's series - which, going on the first two episodes upon which this review is based, runs wide and deep - begins with his first policy meeting after gaining the position before rewinding to give a flavour of his run for power, filling in archive footage about his activism and career as they go.

Krasner made no secret of his progressive attitude on.

It’s the most common question whenever an outsider — be it Ross Perot or Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump — runs for a position of power in an entrenched political system: Having big ideas or exciting the electorate is one thing, but when you challenge the political orthodoxy, how do you actually govern if you happen to win?

This is the backdrop of Ted Passon, Yoni Brook and Nicole Salazar’s eight-part Independent Lens docuseries Philly D.A., which is premiering its first two hours as part of the virtual Sundance Film Festival and will launch on PBS later this year....

It’s the most common question whenever an outsider — be it Ross Perot or Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump — runs for a position of power in an entrenched political system: Having big ideas or exciting the electorate is one thing, but when you challenge the political orthodoxy, how do you actually govern if you happen to win?

This is the backdrop of Ted Passon, Yoni Brook and Nicole Salazar’s eight-part Independent Lens docuseries Philly D.A., which is premiering its first two hours as part of the virtual Sundance Film Festival and will launch on PBS later this year....

No one said starting a revolution, even at a local level, was going to be easy. Nor did they say it would be a painless experience figuring a way to sustain it and persuading others to buy into the radical ideas it would take to fundamentally transform how the criminal justice system operates from within.

Such is the case with former civil rights attorney Larry Krasner, who was elected District Attorney of Philadelphia in 2017 with promises of confronting contentious issues like eliminating bail payments, declining to prosecute low-level offenders, and holding police officers accountable for bad behavior.

Krasner’s rise to the role of D.A. was monumental because as a former defense attorney and critic of the D.A.’s office for the last 30 years, someone as progressive-minded as he was never supposed to reach a position that is usually reserved for a bureaucrat set on taking a tough,...

Sometimes the best way to make an institution reform is to change it from the inside. That was what longtime Philadelphia civil rights advocate and criminal defense attorney Larry Krasner thought when he launched his bid to become his city’s next district attorney. He won that 2017 election, and “Philly D.A.,” an eight-part documentary series for PBS’ “Independent Lens” banner, shows what happened next. Suddenly, this longtime advocate against mass incarceration was Philadelphia’s top prosecutor.

Krasner entered his role as D.A. with a mission: to end cash bail, something which results in defendants being jailed simply because they’re poor, and find other ways to reform an approach to criminal justice that has resulted in Philadelphia being the most incarcerated major city in the U.S. A few things seem like no-brainers: increase the amount of drugs an arrestee is carrying before major prison time is imposed,...

The narrative feature “Coda” and the documentary “Summer of Soul” swept the top categories at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury Prizes and also taking the audience awards in the U.S. dramatic and documentary competitions.

“Coda,” director Sian Heder’s coming-of-age story in which Emilia Jones plays the only hearing member of a deaf family, also won an award for its ensemble, many of them deaf actors who performed in ASL. Its wins come three days after the film set a record for the largest sale in Sundance history, a $25 million deal with Apple.

“Summer of Soul,” which like “Coda” screened on the festival’s opening night, is a documentary by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson built around long-unseen concert footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a six-weekend event that first-time director Questlove uses as a launching pad to explore race relations and Black culture in that tumultuous time.

Back in 2017, longtime civil rights attorney Larry Krasner, a man who sued the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times in his law career, did what seemed impossible: he was elected as the city’s District Attorney, a longshot campaign that unexpectedly put Krasner at the top of an office he clashed with for years.

“Not a ton surprised me because I had been in court four to five days per week for years,” Krasner tells Gold Derby in an interview from the Sundance Film Festival. “But I will say, the truth is, it was worse than I thought. The truth is, from the inside, when you actually start to open all the closets and find the skeletons, there are more skeletons than you thought there were. But I cannot tell you I was that surprised. I thought the institution was broken before I came in, I came in and it was broken.

How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? When we began producing this docuseries in 2017, the national conversation around the role of systemic racism in the justice system was in a different place. Back then the city of Philadelphia, where we live, was immersed in a reckoning with its position as America’s most incarcerated big city. After a shocking election, Larry Krasner, an outsider committed to ending mass incarceration, took over the prosecutor’s office responsible for sending people to prison. We […]

The post "America's Most Incarcerated City": Directors Ted Passon, Yoni Brook and Nicole Salazar | Philly D.A. first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? When we began producing this docuseries in 2017, the national conversation around the role of systemic racism in the justice system was in a different place. Back then the city of Philadelphia, where we live, was immersed in a reckoning with its position as America’s most incarcerated big city. After a shocking election, Larry Krasner, an outsider committed to ending mass incarceration, took over the prosecutor’s office responsible for sending people to prison. We […]

The post "America's Most Incarcerated City": Directors Ted Passon, Yoni Brook and Nicole Salazar | Philly D.A. first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Nicole Salazar earns 2021 Sundance Institute | Amazon Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction Filmmaking

Natalie Qasabian has been awarded the 2021 Sundance Institute / Amazon Studios Producers Award for Fiction Filmmaking for her film Run.

The award honours bold vision and a commitment to continuing work as a creative producer in the independent space. Qasabian’s husband and partner Sev Ohanian won the award two years ago for his work on Searching, which they produced together.

Qasabian produced Run with Sev Ohanian for Lionsgate and the film premiered on Hulu last autumn. Qasabian wrote the screenplay with Aneesh Chaganty, who presented the award in a virtual ceremony.

Six series will play in the festival with 10 titles in the Market.

A new anthology series titled This Is Music from directors including Wim Wenders and David Byrne is one of 10 international projects selected for the Co-Pro Series section of the Berlinale Co-Production Market 2021 (March 2-5).

The Berlinale Series has also selected six series to play in the online festival, which runs from March 1-5.

Scroll down for full list of Co-Pro Series, Berlinale Series and Series Market Selects titles

Produced by Norway’s Oslo Pictures, anthology series This Is Music is created by Bjørn Olaf Johannessen, who wrote Wenders...

The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the six titles that will take part in the latest edition of Berlinale Series. The shows will screen online during the first week of March when the European Film Market runs, and the team are currently discussing plans for presenting some of the shows during the festival’s planned summer event.

The line-up includes Philly D.A., the strand’s first docuseries, which follows the most controversial District Attorney in the U.S. and will arrive from its premiere at Sundance. Deadline recently revealed that Dogwoof has boarded the project, which comes from Oscar-nominated duo Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald.

Latin American TV will be represented for the first time with two titles: Amongst Men (Entre Hombres), an Argentinian HBO production, and The Last Days of Gilda (Os últimos dias de Gilda) from Canal Brazil.

Russell T Davies’ drama set during the AIDS crisis,...

Exclusive: Factual specialist sales outfit Dogwoof has taken rights on two Sundance series titles this year: Dutch three-parter Seeds Of Deceit, about a high profile scandal, and eight-part Philly D.A., which is co-produced by PBS Independent Lens.

Seeds Of Deceit will world premiere in Sundance’s Indie Series strand. Directed by Miriam Guttman, the doc is an investigation into the revelation that a respected Dutch fertility doctor, Dr. Karbaat, clandestinely inseminated over 65 of his patients with his own semen. The series examines how he got away with it for so long and the repercussions that haunt those affected: the emotional trauma of coming to terms with a changed, uncertain genetic origin.

The show was produced by Monique Busman and Michiel van Erp for De Familie Film & TV and co-produced by Dutch broadcaster Vpro.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Dogwoof on our documentary series Seeds Of Deceit.