The new documentary 16 Shots from Academy Award(R) nominated director Richard Rowley (Dirty Wars) that examines the 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and the cover-up that ensued will premiere on Showtime on Friday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
The Quiet One directed by Oliver Murray, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the life and career of Bill Wyman, former founding member of The Rolling Stones. The documentary film will open in New York and Los Angeles on June 21 via Sundance Selects.
Disability activist and filmmaker Jason DaSilva will premiere When We Walk the follow-up to his 2013 documentary When I Walk, at the 2019 Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City on June 14, 2019. The second film in the ‘When They Walk’ trilogy confronts the U.S. Medicaid system and new personal challenges; Filmmaker Jason DaSilva explains the disparity between the different states and national healthcare crisis as he tries to be closer to his son who lives 2,000 miles away.
Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg is on a quest to explore the story of the iconic Statue of Liberty in the new documentary Liberty: Mother of Exiles. From Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato of World of Wonder (HBO’s Emmy(R)-nominated “Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking,”) the documentary follows Diane von Furstenberg, “godmother” of the statue, in her quest to discover how sculptor Auguste Bartholdi’s dream became a reality and what the statue means to people around the world. Liberty: Mother of Exiles will debut on HBO this fall.
The documentary Running with Beto, a behind-the-scenes look at Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate campaign, premiered at this year’s South By Southwest Film Festival, where it received the Audience Award for Documentary Spotlight. The film will make its TV debut on Tuesday, May 28, exclusively on HBO.
DocLands Documentary Film Festival hosted its annual DocPitch forum this past weekend and awarded director Chris Temple and editor Alejandro Valdés-Rochin with a $25,000 cash prize, provided by Project No. 9, for their documentary film currently in development, Five Years North.
AFI DOCS 2019 will open with the world premiere of HBO’s TRUE JUSTICE: BRYAN STEVENSON’S FIGHT FOR EQUALITY, directed by Peter Kunhardt, George Kunhardt and Teddy Kunhardt, and will close with RAISE HELL: THE LIFE & TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS, directed by Janice Engel. AFI DOCS runs June 19–23, 2019, in Washington, DC, and Silver Spring, MD.
Sheffield Doc/Fest announced the line-up of 180+ documentary features and shorts for its 26th edition, which runs from 6 to 11 June, 2019, under the tagline “Ways of Seeing” inspired by John Berger’s television series and book of the same name. The festival opens on Thursday June 6 with Diego Maradona, a wild and irreverent look at one of the world’s most iconic sportsmen, both on and off the pitch, during his infamous time in Naples.
Winner of the award for Best Documentary at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival For Sama documents Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to her daughter Sama. The documentary film takes the form of a letter from Waad al-Kateab to Sama. For Sama directed by Waad al-Kateab along with Edward Watts opens in US theaters on July 26.
Back to the Fatherland from filmmakers Kat Rohrer and Gil Levanon, follows the journey of three families in transition; Israeli grandchildren from the “Third Generation” and their respective grandparents. The film deals with both sides of the historic tragedy and the attempt to build their own future, without ignoring the past.
Sophie Huber’s Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes, is a revelatory journey behind the scenes of Blue Note Records, the pioneering label that gave voice to some of the most ground-breaking jazz artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. The film opens June 14th in New York City, and June 28th in Los Angeles with a nationwide theatrical release to follow.
Higher Ground Productions, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company in partnership with Netflix, today announced the company’s initial slate of upcoming projects. The content encompasses a wide range of fiction and non-fiction productions for all audiences including scripted, unscripted and documentary series, as well as full-length features and documentaries.