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Apple Films has landed the feature doc Deaf President Now! from Deaf actor, filmmaker, and advocate Nyle Dimarco and Oscar-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim.

The feature tells the story of the 1988 protests at Gallaudet University, the storied university for Deaf or Hard of Hearing students, that led to the installment of the school’s first Deaf president, Dr. I. King Jordan.

The doc features exclusive interviews with Jordan, as well as the “Gallaudet Four” — Jerry Covell, Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, Tim Rarus and Greg Hlibok, who took leadership positions during the protests. Deaf President Now! also incorporates an experimental narrative approach — called “Deaf Point Of View” — using impressionistic visual photography and intricate sound design that is meant to thrust the audience into the Deaf experience.

“For far too long, the disabilities stories that have shaped the United States have been conspicuously absent from the history we tell,” said Dimarco. “This film not only...

If you’ve already dived into our massive fall movie preview, then you have a strong sense of what to have on your radar over the next four months. Now let’s examine September a little closer, already including a few new additions since our fall preview went up. Of course, from Venice to TIFF to NYFF, much of the month will be dedicated to our festival coverage, which you can follow here.

12. The Featherweight (Robert Kolodny; Sept. 20)

With the never-ending glut of biopics, particularly those centered in the world of sports, it can often feel like there’s not much new territory to cover. While Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw recently showed how a singular vision can elevate the genre, another film taking place partially inside the ring breathes new life. Robert Kolodny, who worked on the cinematography team of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Procession,...

Directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBain sat down to deep-dive into the political meaning of their new documentary Girls State in their new uInterview.

A follow-up to Moss and McBain’s Boys State, a documentary about an experiment in which 1,100 teenage boys from Texas came together to build a representative government, Girls State features 500 teenage girls as they work to build a democracy together. The film follows a diverse team of young female leaders from a vast variety of backgrounds as they construct a government from the ground up.

Moss explained what drove them to produce a sequel to their 2020 film. “[We] call Girls State a sibling to Boys State, not a sequel, which was a little bit of a way to give ourselves permission to make the film,” he told uInterview founder Erik Meers. “Boys State worked out so well, but we felt like there was unfinished business. We’re...

We will update this article throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2024 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting takes place from June 13 to June 24, with the official Emmy nominations announced Wednesday, July 17. Afterwards, final voting commences on August 15 and ends the night of August 26. The 76th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards are set to take place on Sunday, September 15, and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. Et/ 5:00 p.m. Pt.

Click on for more of our previous thoughts on what to expect at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards.

The State of the Race

The Emmy nominations for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special were definitely more predictable than their counterparts on the series end. Most of the projects recognized fit the mold of what has won recently, with one nominee “Girls State” even being...

“Jim Henson Idea Man” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18 ahead of its worldwide premiere on Disney+ on May 31, just in time to qualify for the 2024 Emmys. The film ultimately racked up eight nominations and leads our racetrack odds for Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special based on the combined predictions of Gold Derby users. But not everyone agrees with that consensus. The Expert journalists we’ve surveyed from major media outlets think differently.

Helmed by Oscar winner Ron Howard, “Idea Man” chronicles the life and career of Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets. It’s the most nominated film in its Emmy race, with bids for its cinematography, directing, picture editing, music composition, sound editing, sound mixing and writing in addition to its nom in the top category. It’s backed by five out of 11 Gold Derby Editors, 21 of our Top 24 Users and 20 of our All-Star Top 24, giving...

Three years after “Boys State” won the Emmy for Best Documentary Special, its first companion film, “Girls State,” is competing for the same honor. While it has solid potential to directly follow “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” as the third Apple TV+ special to take this prize, it will have to stand out from a crowd of strong contenders, including the same platform’s “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces.”

Unlike most Primetime Emmys, Best Documentary Special is a non-competitive area award that is bestowed upon any nominee that earns the approval of 90% of the members of the TV academy’s documentary peer group. This means that the five programs in the 2024 lineup are not vying for a single trophy and could all potentially prevail. However, if no nominees hit said 90% threshold, only the highest-rated one will win.

In order to determine which of this year’s nominees...

While they’ve only backed a few documentaries, notably De Palma, Boys State, Occupied City, and the re-release of Stop Making Sense, A24’s latest foray into the realm of non-fiction explores the psychic realm. Look Into My Eyes, from After Tiller, Miss Americana, and Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields director Lana Wilson, follows a group of New York City psychics as they conduct deeply intimate readings for their clients, revealing a kaleidoscope of connection, healing, and the eternal need to have witnesses to better see ourselves. Ahead of a September 6 release, the first trailer has now arrived.

Jake Kring-Schreifels said in his Sundance review, “Ask enough people what they think about psychics and clairvoyants, and you’ll probably get eye-rolls. Whether referencing the storefront tarot readers or the more seriously minded seers who perform seances and communicate with those who have transitioned into the afterlife, the impression of this spiritual trade is generally disbelief.

The man standing at the podium has the steady, stentorian voice of an authority figure, someone who issues orders and expects them to be heeded without question, and the look of a zealot in his eyes. “My fellow Americans,” he intones, betraying a slightly Southern lilt gilded by fire and brimstone. “Faith is a gift from God to us. Purpose is the ability to put that power to use.” There are mentions of a stolen election, a coup in progress, an attempt to steal the freedoms of true patriots. He...

Hearing that Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber’s documentary concerns a war game conducted to test the country’s readiness for a national security crisis, it was easy to imagine a scenario involving an international threat posed by, say, China or Russia. No such luck. It turns out that War Game chronicles an exercise revolving around a threat from within, namely the sort of insurrection that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. The film, receiving its U.S. theatrical premiere at NYC’s Film Forum, serves as a bracing reminder that such an event could occur again, and indeed seems even more likely should a certain Republican nominee for president decide to incite more violence.

The filmmakers have experience dealing with such concepts. Moss co-directed the acclaimed Boys State and Girls State, in which groups of young people attempted to form democratic governments; and Gerber and Moss made Full Battle Rattle, about the...

We love to celebrate narrative film here at The A.V. Club, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate documentaries just as much. We’re just over the halfway point of the year, and have already seen some great new entries like Jeff Zimbalist’s Skywalkers: A Love Story,...

"Six hours to save democracy." Decal & Submarine Deluxe have unveiled an official trailer for a deeply unsettling, fascinating, unforgettable documentary film titled War Game, from directors Jesse Moss & Tony Gerber. This first premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and caused quite a stir, attracting plenty of attention. The film is a "real-life political thriller" set on January 6, 2025 – War Game imagines a nation-wide insurrection in which some members of the US military defect in support of the losing Presidential candidate, while the winning candidate and his many advisors—played by an all-star roster of senior officials from the last five administrations (who actually know these jobs)—war games the crisis in the White House situation room. They have 6 hours to save democracy as the country teeters on the brink of civil war. In this doc, prestigious US officials simulate a coup after a disputed election. Insurgents take capitals,...

If there is another insurrection, the government is prepared. So is the sentiment behind simulation-documentary “War Game,” which thrusts government officials into an all-too-real scenario.

Documentarians Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber co-direct the feature centering on a group of national-security experts ranging from former senators to CNN pundits as they stage an elaborate war game to anticipate another insurrection.

Moss previously directed “Girls State” with Amanda McBaine, which also centered on a mock-government scenario. The sequel to “Boys State” debuted at Sundance, just like “War Game.”

The “War Game” synopsis reads: A real-life political thriller set on January 6, 2025, “War Game” imagines a nationwide insurrection in which members of the U.S. military defect to support the losing Presidential candidate, while the winning candidate and his advisors — played by an all-star roster of senior officials from the last five administrations — war games the crisis in the White House Situation Room. They...

US documentarians Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, the creative duo behind Apple TV+'s 'Boys State' and Amazon Prime Video's 'Mayor Pete', will head to Maroochy Rsl next month for the Australian International Documentary Conference (Aidc) and Screen Queensland's inaugural Regionality Sunshine Coast.

The post Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine headline Regionality Sunshine Coast appeared first on If Magazine.

Husband-and-wife documentarians Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss are fascinated by teenagers. On an anthropological level, but also in an emotional sense. Being the parents of two teenage daughters, it makes sense that they’d want to train their lens on other kids of their age to figure out what makes them tick. What’s more intriguing — and perhaps more daring in this tense world climate — is that they’d want to do so within the confines of such a staunchly political environment. Focusing on a leadership and citizenship program run by the American Legion in multiple states, “Boys State,” their first film in what has now become a series, was set in Texas and saw what McBaine described to IndieWire’s Editor-in-Chief Dana Harris-Bridson as a testosterone-fueled “running of the bulls.”

Speaking after an IndieWire & Apple TV+ screening of her and Moss’ recent installment, “Girls State,” at Vidiots Foundation in L.

As America grapples with the latest in a way-too-long series of Most Important Presidential Election Years in Our Lifetime, democracy and its fundamental building blocks – governance, consensus, civil discourse, the rule of law, the balance of power – face an equally foreboding precarity. Boomers and Gen-Xers ask themselves, How did we get here?, and turn to Millennials and Gen-Zers for hope.

The Girls and Boys State programs have, for nearly 90 years and in all 50 states, been in the business of cultivating and nurturing the next generation of leaders through intensive, week-long immersion programs in government and politics. Directors/producers/life partners Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine were drawn to this idea of twin crucibles – the program itself and adolescence – to explore their confluences of ideological inquiry amid a politically tumultuous time and the coming-of-age dynamic between private values and public personae. The Emmy-winning Boys State, released in 2020 through Apple TV+, gave...

When filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss first spoke with friends about the focus of their Apple TV+ documentary Girls State — a companion piece to their Emmy- and Sundance-winning 2020 documentary Boys State — they were surprised to hear about the expectations it conjured in their minds.

Following 500 teenage girls from Missouri as they navigate a weeklong immersion in a sophisticated democratic laboratory where they build a government from the ground up to address the most contentious issues of the day, the film would surely come down, the friends predicted, to mean girls looking, in Moss’ words, “to tear each other apart.”

In reality, in spite of the political polarization that defines the U.S. today, the situation at Missouri Girls State was altogether different.

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

Participants “actually do politics a little differently than you might expect from a teenage film. I think it’s a trope,...

As award-winning directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss prepared to shoot their new documentary Girls State, they had no way of knowing real-world events would intrude upon the production in a major way. Nor, of course, did their protagonists.

Just as hundreds of young women in Missouri were assembling for an annual exercise in mock government, the draft Dobbs opinion leaked, signaling the U.S. Supreme Court’s intent to reverse Roe v. Wade. McBaine and Moss join Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to discuss their film and how the Dobbs ruling impacted high school-age girls embarking on their campaigns for governor, state supreme court and other high offices.

The filmmaking couple calls Girls State a “sibling” – not a sequel – to their 2020 film Boys State, winner of the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Missouri’s Girls State and Boys State programs took place at the same time and same location,...

Documentary filmmaking has never been a profession one enters into to get rich — though for a brief period it seemed possible.

Cable expanded documentary’s reach to wider audiences in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and films like “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “March of the Penguins,” and “An Inconvenient Truth” became legitimate box-office breakthroughs, but nonfiction features on the whole remained something of a stepchild within the larger Hollywood ecosystem until 2017, when Netflix acquired Brian Fogel’s “Icarus” for $5 million.

At the time, the deal was one of the biggest ever for a non-fiction film. And it was followed by even bigger deals: In 2019 Netflix shelled out $10 million for Rachel Lears’ “Knock Down the House.” The following year Apple TV+ and A24 partnered to buy Jesse Moss’ “Boys State” for $10 million, and in 2021 Searchlight and Hulu bought Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s “Summer of Soul” for $12 million.

On the surface it seemed like people,...

Get ready to go gaga for another group of earnest teenagers hoping to change the world, or at least win a fake election at a famous youth retreat.

The contender to watch this week: “Girls State”

In 2021, “Boys State” picked up recognitions from the National Board of Review, Directors Guild of America, Emmys, and several critics groups, so of course we’re getting a sequel. This time, directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss move from Texas to Missouri to profile teenagers attending the eponymous mock-government program. The ambitious, excitable girls are just as fascinating as their male counterparts, and you can see them in action on Apple TV+.

Other contenders:

“The Zone of Interest“: If you still haven’t caught Jonathan Glazer‘s mesmerizing Holocaust drama, which won two Oscars and continues to spark controversy, it’s newly streaming on Max. “How to Have Sex”: Molly Manning Walker...

You may remember Boys State, the 2020 documentary in which filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss embedded themselves with the decades-old program that lets teenagers get a taste of the political process. Watching as hundreds of young Texans played out mock versions of campaigning, strategizing, stumping and either sticking to their ideological guns or compromising their values for votes, you could easily see the reflection of the real thing in miniature. These politicos-in-training were learning just how miraculous, how malleable and how broken our 21st century system for policy-making is, courtesy...

What would American democracy look like in the hands of exclusively women? What would it look like in the hands of teenage girls? A follow-up to the award-winning “Boys State,” the filmmakers return to follow 500 young female leaders across Missouri as they engage with an immersive experiment to build a government from the ground up. “Girls State” will make its streaming debut on Friday, April 5, on Apple TV+. You can watch with a 7-Day Free Trial of Apple TV+.

How to Watch 'Girls State' When: Friday, April 5, 2024 Where: Apple TV+ Stream: Watch with a 7-Day Free Trial of Apple TV+. 7-Day Free Trial$9.99+ / month apple.com About 'Girls State'

The Apple Original Film makes its streaming debut after its 2024 Sundance Film Festival debut. The film is the follow-up from directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, whose 2020 documentary “Boys State,” which tracked the journey of 1,100 teenage boys...

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What can you say about a month of entertainment that opens with a TV series about a charming sociopath and closes with a movie about tennis players in love? It’s tempting to say there’s something for everyone to watch but, more accurately, April offers a lot of choices for those with specific tastes. From the theater to streaming services like Prime Video and Max, the best...

Girls State tracks the high-schoolers taking part in a mock government simulation just as a devastating supreme court ruling is about to change everything

Nearly seven years ago, the film-makers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine went to Texas to see government in action, albeit one run by teenagers. The country was well into the Trump administration – Muslim bans and kids in cages dominated the headlines – when the two began filming an annual American Legion convention known as Boys State, a weeklong mock government simulation for 1,000 high school boys, in the summer of 2018. The duo tried to film a similar state program for girls, but were rebuffed; they ended up with Boys State, an incisive Apple TV+ documentary that captured the chaos, promise and peril of young masculinity in the US and went on to win the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020.

But what if the girls were present?...

Today, Apple Original Films unveiled the trailer for its critically acclaimed documentary feature “Girls State,” directed and produced by award-winning filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, and Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim’s Concordia Studio. A 2024 Sundance Film Festival selection, “Girls State” will premiere globally on Apple TV+ April 5, 2024.

After the widely celebrated, Emmy Award-winning documentary “Boys State,” also produced by Moss, McBaine and Concordia, made its buzzy premiere at Sundance in 2020, the inevitable question arose: What about Girls State? “Girls State” follows 500 teenage girls from across Missouri as they gather for a week-long immersion in an elaborate laboratory of democracy, where they build a government from the ground up, campaign for office and form a Supreme Court to weigh the most divisive issues of the day. In “Girls State,” the country is now deeper into democratic crisis, with civil discourse and electoral politics increasingly fragile under ever more extreme political polarization.

"Often when women start talking politics we get shut down." Apple TV has revealed the official trailer for the documentary film Girls State, the highly anticipated follow-up to the 2020 doc film Boys State by the same filmmakers - Amanda McBaine & Jesse Moss. This premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, just as Boys State did, and it will be streaming on Apple TV+ this April. "There's something in the air—it’s politics." What would American democracy look like in the hands of teenage girls? A political coming-of-age story and stirring reimagination of what it means to govern, Girls State follows young female leaders — from wildly different backgrounds across Missouri — as they navigate an immersive experiment to build a government from the ground up. Sundance also adds: "McBaine and Moss stay embedded in Girls State, following several charismatic candidates, but these aspiring change-makers keenly take note of the Boys State program,...

At the outset of Girls State, it seems as if filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss have deliberately set out to make a direct sequel to their 2020 documentary Boys State. Like any follow-up, they take the same general playbook and add in some wrinkles so the experience doesn’t feel like a rerun. Rather than following a group of rambunctious, ambitious teenage boys for a week in the mock government conference, this one’s for the girls.

Unlike their previous film’s larger-than-life Texan stomping grounds, which practically supplies its own mythology, the value of the setting here is subtler. McBaine and Moss selected a 2022 Girls State conference in Missouri for their project, which is notable primarily for being the state’s first instance of hosting events for both sexes simultaneously on the same campus. Try as they might to keep their documentary a self-sufficient microcosm of political anxieties and...

The Sundance Film Festival 2024 coverage continues with two entries involving youth and navigating social circles at a vulnerable age.

The first is a sequel to the documentary Boys State titled Girls State, where the girls run mock elections in a massive group.

The second film is a coming-of-age story called Didi, about an Asian American teenager learning to be true to himself in an awkward phase of life.

Both movies are derived from different genres but equally, have something to say about finding oneself in a large social gathering.

Should viewers see these movies?

Here are our capsule reviews of Didi and Girls State from Sundance 2024.

Girls State

Girls State is a documentary of a different flavor than its predecessor. The first entry was a captivating spotlight on how cutthroat politics can be, even among children. Boys State felt similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment, where personalities change when thrown inside a simulation.

The 40th edition of Sundance proved that despite corporate consolidation, there is still a market for independently made documentaries. While there haven’t been many sales so far, there has been strong buyer interest in two celeb-focused docs — “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” and “Will & Harper,” featuring Will Ferrell — and healthy interest in others.

“The market didn’t have a pulse six months ago,” says Submarine Entertainment sales agent Josh Braun, who came to the festival with nine documentaries seeking distribution, including “Daughters,” “Gaucho Gaucho” and “Union.” “So there was a reason to be a little bit fearful coming into Sundance. But now we are feeling a pulse. We are heading in a good direction. The patient still needs some treatment, but we are no longer in a Doa situation.”

While Submarine has not yet closed deals for any of the titles, Braun is optimistic, given the fact a...

There were a smattering of big sales and buzzy premieres, but as the 40th edition of Sundance ends, it’s impossible to ignore that the indie film business it champions is suffering from an identity crisis. The box office for art-house movies has yet to regain its pre-covid stride. Streaming services once inflated the prices for movies that debuted at the festival because they were desperate for content. Now they’re more conservative in their spending. In this era of economizing, the all-night bidding wars that made Sundance sizzle have become a thing of the past. That’s good for agents and filmmakers looking to get more shut-eye, but it’s not a great sign of the financial health of the industry.

Yet there was still plenty to celebrate. Movies like “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” and “Will & Harper” received emotional standing ovations, while “A Real Pain” and “It’s What’s Inside...

One of the biggest hits at Sundance and winner of the festival’s U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize in 2020, Boys State was a rare window into teenage politics at a divisive time. Directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, it showcased a week-long leadership program––sponsored annually by the American Legion and held in nearly every state––by chronicling several-hundred of Texas high school students gathering to form and choose a mock government. Outside of depicting the conference’s mechanics, Boys State showcased the diversity of Gen-z masculinity and previewed the next generation’s thought leaders, observing a handful of intriguing subjects jockey for position and learn how to attract groups of hormonal competition onto their side of the aisle.

Four years later, McBain and Moss have returned to Sundance with Girls State, the proverbial, gender-swapped sequel that attempts to achieve likeminded goals. Perhaps because Boys State didn’t acknowledge this parallel sister program,...

The list of accomplishments high school student Emily Worthmore reels off early in “Girls State” sounds impressive at first. Then it becomes a bit concerning. It’s not that the personable teen from suburban St. Louis has padded her resume — hardly. It’s that her list has the feeling of a too tightly wound drive to hit the right milestones on the way to being, as she hopes, the president in 2040. “Every election I’ve put myself in, I’ve won,” she says, “since fourth grade.”

So it comes as no surprise that Worthmore is among three young women featured in the Sundance-debuting documentary who have set their sights on the governorship of Missouri Girls State. For their engaging female-focused followup to 2020’s Texas-set “Boys State,” co-directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss traveled to the Show Me State in June of 2022 to show us the American Legion Auxiliary’s annual program for high school girls,...

Sundance film festival: Film-makers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine struck gold with their film on a mock government program for 1,000 teenage boys. Now, it’s the girls’ turn.

In 2018, film-makers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine struck gold – or, rather, tuned into it – when they attended a weeklong Texas program in which 1,000 teenage boys elect and run a mock state government. Their subsequent film, Boys State, bottled the potential and peril of the future – the idealism and ambition of youth, the capacity to change one’s mind, the allure of power, the corrosive codes of masculinity – into two hours at once terrifying and hopeful, winning the 2020 Sundance documentary grand jury prize.

Now the duo returns to the festival with Girls State, a similarly structured look at a Boys State sister program in Missouri. Though the mock government programs, run by the American Legion, remain separated by sex in the state, the...

Winner of the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2020, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ “Boys State” embodied the best and worst of the eponymous tradition that it captured on camera: An annual leadership program, funded by the American Legion and held in almost all 50 states since the 1930s, in which 1,000 or so hyper-ambitious teenage boys from all walks of life are given a week to form and elect a mock government.

On the one hand, their film offered a semi-realistic microcosm of the American system at work, and an optimistic preview of what Gen Z — at least its most politically engaged young men — might bring to the table as they become old enough to and run for office. On the other hand, the otherwise inclusive “Boys State” reinforced the American Legion’s history of preserving the status quo through a “separate but not so equal” approach...

Filmmaking team Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine follow-up their 2020 documentary Boys State, naturally, with Girls State, making its Sundance debut in the festival’s Premieres category. Much like their previous film, Girls State follows a diverse group of teenage girls across the state of Missouri who engage in a week-long immersive project that requires them to collectively construct a government from the ground up, which this time includes building a judicial branch on both local and state levels. With the project unfolding as Roe v. Wade threatens to be overturned, the girls also ruminate on how real-world legislature could infringe […]

The post “Crafting Stories With My Head and My Heart”: Editor Amy Foote on Girls State first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Filmmaking team Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine follow-up their 2020 documentary Boys State, naturally, with Girls State, making its Sundance debut in the festival’s Premieres category. Much like their previous film, Girls State follows a diverse group of teenage girls across the state of Missouri who engage in a week-long immersive project that requires them to collectively construct a government from the ground up, which this time includes building a judicial branch on both local and state levels. With the project unfolding as Roe v. Wade threatens to be overturned, the girls also ruminate on how real-world legislature could infringe […]

The post “Crafting Stories With My Head and My Heart”: Editor Amy Foote on Girls State first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

As more and more of the season’s precursor prizes are announced, one major Oscar mainstay has made its way home. Block out a solid chunk of time — it’s a long one.

The contender to watch this week: “Killers of the Flower Moon“

Fresh off an AFI honor and four National Board of Review distinctions, including Martin Scorsese for Best Director and Lily Gladstone for Best Actress, “Killers of the Flower Moon” has arrived on VOD ahead of its Apple TV+ streaming debut. The ambitious crime epic adapted from David Grann‘s nonfiction book about white men killing Osage Nation residents and stealing their oil headrights will surely continue this awards-season upswing when the Golden Globe nominations are announced on Monday, so now is the perfect time to catch up. Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and composer Robbie Robertson are among the movie’s other top candidates.

Other contenders:...

The Sundance Film Festival has always been about discovery. The reason so many agents, casting directors, producers, filmmakers, and executives attend the annual January festival is because they want to be there, on the ground, when the next Steven Soderbergh or Richard Linklater pops up. Or, even when they pop up again: Both veterans are bringing projects to this year’s fest.

While there was some trepidation going into this year’s programming selection that the post-pandemic production lull and two long strikes might impact the number or quality of submissions, lo and behold, the 2024 festival has broken the festival’s record with 17,435 submissions from 153 countries.

When we checked in (via a recent Zoom chat) with three Sundance executives to get the low-down on this year’s festival, they were bullish. And they had changes to share.

Every year, the Sundance Film Festival makes them; 2024 is no exception. For starters,...

Netflix Releases Trailer for “The Crown” Season 6, Part 2

Netflix has released the trailer for the second and final half of “The Crown” Season 6, concluding the reign of the award-winning period drama.

Part 2 of the final season, which premiered its first four episodes on Nov. 16, will pick up in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death as Queen Elizabeth (played by Imelda Staunton) must reflect on her life and legacy and pave the way for her successors, Charles and William.

Watch the trailer for “The Crown” Season 6, Part 2 below:

Dominic West, Jonathan Pryce, Lesley Manville, Claudia Harrison, Olivia Williams, Bertie Carvel, and Salim Daw make up the rest of the ensemble with Ed McVey, Luther Ford, and Meg Bellamy joining in the final part as Prince William, Prince Harry, and Kate Middleton, respectively.

The final six episodes of “The Crown” will premiere on Netflix on Dec. 14.

Sign Up $6.99+ / month netflix.com...

‘Sibiling’ to 2020 Sundance award winner is Concordia Studio presentation of Mile End Films production.

Apple Original Films has announced the documentary Girls State from the producers behind 2020 ‘sibling’ Sundance premiere and Emmy winner Boys State.

Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, who co-directed Boys State and The Mission, directed and produced the feature alongside Davis Guggenheim’s Concordia Studio.

It has wrapped and is expected to premiere in 2024, with Sundance an obvious candidate as launch pad, although Apple did not provide further guidance.

The documentary follows 500 teenage girls from Missouri as they gather for a week-long immersion in a democracy laboratory,...

Apple Original Films has set a new documentary feature Girls State, directed and produced by award-winning filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, and Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim’s Concordia Studio. After the widely celebrated, Emmy Award-winning documentary Boys State, also produced by Moss, McBaine and Concordia, made its buzzy premiere at Sundance in 2020, the inevitable question arose: what about Girls State?

The documentary follows 500 teenage girls from across Missouri as they gather for a week-long immersion in an elaborate laboratory of democracy, where they build a government from the ground up, campaign for office and form a Supreme Court to weigh the most divisive issues of the day.

In Girls State, the country is now deeper into democratic crisis, with civil discourse and electoral politics increasingly fragile under ever more extreme political polarization. As questions of race and gender equality in a representational democracy reach a fever pitch,...

Four top documentary filmmakers will reveal secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2024 awards contenders. They will participate in two video discussions to premiere on Tuesday, December 5, at 6:00 p.m. Pt; 9:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our contributing editor Charles Bright and a roundtable chat with all of the group together.

RSVP today to our entire ongoing contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

American Symphony (Netflix)

Synopsis: Explores a year in the life of Grammy Award winning musician Jon Batiste.

Bio: Lauren Domino was an Oscar nominee for “Time.” Other projects have included “Alone,” “The Earth Is Humming” and “Black Folk Don’t.”

Bobi Wine: The People’s President (NatGeo)

Synopsis: Follows Ugandan opposition leader,...

Updated with details about the next and final screening, which is “Stamped from the Beginning” on November 20. Learn more here.

This Monday, November 20, the next and concluding screening in our Art of the Doc series will be of Roger Ross Williams’ acclaimed “Stamped from the Beginning” at the Landmark Westwood. Doors open at 6:30pm with a pre-reception featuring beer, wine, and conversations with other documentary fans. Then at 7:30, the screening will begin, after which there will be a Q&a moderated by IndieWire’s Marcus Jones with director Roger Ross Williams himself. The film, based on the book by Ibram X. Kendi about how racist tropes permeate American culture, debuted to extraordinary acclaim at TIFF in September, and IndieWire’s Anne Thompson considers it a frontrunner in the Best Documentary Feature race at the Oscars.

New to our Art of the Doc series? Well, IndieWire has celebrated the...

The world will never know what was going through 26-year-old Christian missionary John Allen Chau’s head when he was shot and killed by arrows off the coast of North Sentinel Island. There are jokes, of course, and educated guesses, but the best most of us can do is search inside ourselves for the answer. That’s the approach “Boys State” directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine take with “The Mission,” using an investigation of Chau’s story as a Rorschach test of audiences’ own biases and beliefs.

Was Chau an evangelical martyr-hero who answered God’s calling and gave his life trying to convert a remote and hostile tribe? Or was he an arrogant and unprepared American, brainwashed by the church into undertaking a suicide mission? Chau can’t answer, and though he left behind detailed diaries and a string of social media posts, the filmmakers were obliged to...

What is the fine line between altruism and narcissism, and what happens when “higher-calling” religious beliefs blur those demarcations? That vague space is not exactly what celebrated doc filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine are trying to resolve in their compelling new documentary “The Mission.” Honestly, their story is more subtle and nuanced; a fairer and balanced look at the ideas of self-sacrifice, an empathetic examination of a tragedy, and yet a sobering probing of good intentions and the paths that lead us astray.

Continue reading ‘The Mission’: The ‘Boys State’ Directors Examine A Tragic Death & The Hubris Of Christian Messiah Complex [Telluride] at The Playlist.

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival. National Geographic Films releases the film in theaters on Friday, October 13.

In 2018, an Evangelical Christian man named John Chau made a covert voyage to North Sentinel Island to visit one of the last voluntarily “uncontacted” tribes on the planet. The people of the island enjoy the protection of the Indian government after choosing to eschew contact with modern society — and outsiders are prohibited due to their hostile attitude toward uninvited visitors. Nevertheless, the 26-year-old Chau ignored the advice of his family and attempted to preach his Christian beliefs to the islanders. He was killed with an arrow at the start of his second visit.

Chau’s story is the subject of “The Mission,” a new documentary from “Boys State” directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss. Using Chau’s extensive diaries and a long letter from his grieving father as a starting point,...

National Geographic documentary films specialize in telling stories of adventurers whose journeys put themselves at great risk, but few are more unbelievable than “The Mission.” NatGeo has released the official trailer for the upcoming documentary, set for theatrical release October 13.

The documentary focuses on the story of John Chau, an American evangelical Christian missionary. In 2018 and at the age of 26, Chau traveled to the extremely remote Andaman Islands, claimed by India but closer to Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal, on an unsanctioned missionary trip. There, he repeatedly visited North Sentinel Island, which is restricted by the Indian government to outside visitors because of the indigenous Sentinelese, a voluntarily “uncontacted people,” who live there. They’re considered so vulnerable to contamination from outside influences that the Indian government has armed marine patrols around the island to prevent landings. Chau somehow made it ashore, nonetheless. It did not go well.

The film,...

Being Mary Tyler Moore (HBO/Max)

James Adolphus’ doc out of SXSW could become the latest about a TV legend to land a nomination in this category, following Lucy and Desi in 2022, Love, Gilda in 2019 and The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling and Mister Rogers: It’s You I Like in 2018.

Judy Blume Forever (Amazon)

Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok’s doc celebrates the titular author of children’s books, with narration by her and testimonials from her fans. It’s a sweet tribute to someone many grew up on — not unlike the two docs about Fred Rogers that were nominated in this category.

Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields (Hulu)

Lana Wilson’s two-parter, unveiled at Sundance, pairs old film clips and footage with new interviews to explore how the subject’s beauty has long brought her rewards and objectification. Particularly interesting: her relationships with her mother and her kids.

If These Walls Could Sing...

“I felt like I was in a personal rut and a professional rut,” recalls Oscar-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim prior to directing “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.” “I felt like I’ve been making the same thing over and over again. I was looking for some joy in my work. And I read this interview with Michael where he’d had this conversation about his most recent book, and his writing was so good. The storytelling was so good, but also there was a humor, a surprising humor and wisdom in his book. I started to read it for myself, and as I read his books, then I listened to his books on tape. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this would be amazing movie!'” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” follows the life of beloved actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, exploring...

If producer-director Davis Guggenheim winds up coming away with an Emmy Award for his phenomenal Apple TV+ documentary film of Michael J. Fox’s life and career entitled “Still” that premiered May 12 on the streamer, his best move would be to immediately dedicate the win to the spectacular job done by his editor, a fellow named Michael Harte. I have in fact never seen a more brilliant job of storytelling and production flow than that turned in by Harte, who merges the personal and professional lives of Fox so brilliantly that it almost takes your breath away.

Unlike the majority of so-called celebrity docs that get made, “Still” doesn’t focus on friends, colleagues or even family members to tell the story of the subject at its center. It shines an unblinking spotlight on Fox himself, one that can be raw and harrowing to take in given the star’s...

Six TV documentarians will reveal secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2023 Emmy Awards contenders. They will participate in two video discussions to premiere on Tuesday, May 16, at 6:00 p.m. Pt; 9:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Denton Davidson and a roundtable chat with all of the group together.

RSVP today to our entire ongoing contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

This “Meet the Experts” panel welcomes the following Emmy contenders:

Dear Mama (FX)

Synopsis: It follows the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur and his mother, the Black Panther activist Afeni Shakur.

Bio: Allen Hughes is an Emmy nominee for “The Defiant Ones.” His career has included “Menace II Society,...