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One Vote[/caption]
Seven documentary Special Presentations including the World Premiere of James Keach’s Turning Point will screen at the upcoming 49th Annual Nashville Film Festival. Music journeys will also be depicted in
The King, starring Alec Baldwin, Tony Brown, Chuck D, Emmylou Harris, Ethan Hawke and Radney Foster, It All Begins with a Song and
Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Got To Be Me, starring Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Diahann Carroll, Billy Crystal and Quincy Jones.
The 2018 Documentary Special Presentations will also include the Tennessee Premiere of
Hal, starring Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges, Jon Voight, Judd Apatow and Rosanna Arquette and the Southeast US Premiere of One Vote starring Warren Buffett.
“The selection of these seven films represents the impact of music in documentaries and the collective storytelling prowess of both entertainment genres as well as the enormous talent featured in documentaries,” said Artistic Director Brian Owen. “For seven films to include the incredible music talent as well as such icons as Warren Buffett, Dan Rather, Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Rosanna Arquette and Quincy Jones is an absolute dream for the festival, particularly in bringing them to Tennessee for the first time.”
Below are the 2018 selections in the category:
Documentary Special Presentations
Fail State (Southeast US Premiere) – In an expansive political exposé, FAIL STATE uncovers the dark story behind the rise of predatory for-profit colleges and how a cabal of politicians and unscrupulous business tycoons sold out the dream of American higher education.
Director: Alexande
r Shebanow, Producers: Julia Glausi, Terrence Crawford, Tyler Comes, Dan Rather (USA)
Hal (Tennessee Premiere) – Hal Ashby’s obsessive genius led to an unprecedented string of Oscar®-winning classics, including Harold and Maude, Shampoo and Being There. But as contemporaries Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg rose to blockbuster stardom in the 1980s, Ashby’s uncompromising nature played out as a cautionary tale of art versus commerce.
Cast: Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges, Jon Voight, Judd Apatow, Rosanna Arquette, Director: Amy Scott, Producer: Christine Beebe, Lisa Janssen, Jonathan Lynch, Brian Morrow (USA).
It All Begins with a Song: The Story of the Nashville Songwriter (World Premiere) – Their melodies stick in your head. Their words hook into your soul. And while their work deeply affects millions, few know their names. This is a celebration of one of music’s most important forces: the Nashville songwriter.
Director: Chusy, P
roducer: Butch Spyridon, John Godsey, Deana Ivey, Kellie Shannon (USA)
The King (Tennessee Premiere) – Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki takes a musical road trip across the U.S. in Elvis Presley’s 1963 Rolls Royce during the 2016 presidential election, comparing Elvis’s transition from country boy to “The King” to America’s transformation into an empire.
Cast: Alec Baldwin, Tony Brown, Chuck D, Emmylou Harris, Ethan Hawke, Radney Foster, Director: Eugene Jarecki, Producers: Christophe
r Frierson, Georgina Hill, Eugene Jarecki, David Kuhn (USA).
One Vote (Southeast US Premiere) – Filmed in five locations on a single day, ONE VOTE captures the compelling stories of diverse American voters on Election Day 2016.
Cast: Warren Buffett, Brenda Williams, Michael Hiser, Jennifer Bondy, Claude Bondy, James Higgins, Director: Christine Woodhouse, Producer: Emily Wachtel (USA)
Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Got to Be Me (Tennessee Premiere) – SAMMY DAVIS JR.: I’VE GOT TO BE ME is the first major film documentary to examine Davis’ vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America.
Cast: Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Diahann Carroll, Billy Crystal, Quincy Jones, Director: Samuel D. Pollard, Producer: Sally Rosenthal (USA)
Turning Point (World Premiere) – It’s been called the final frontier of medicine, the real health care moonshot, the holy grail of science. Alzheimer’s disease — the most feared of all maladies, with no way to cure, stop or even slow its insidious progression. But now, after decades of perseverance in the lab, researchers are on the cusp of a scientific breakthrough that could be the first step toward making Alzheimer’s itself a distant memory.
Director: James Keach, Producer: James Keach (USA)
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Nancy Schwartzman’s debut documentary feature Roll Red Roll, following a notorious high school sexual assault case in Steubenville, Ohio, will world premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
Roll Red Roll unpacks toxic masculinity, gender-based violence, sports culture, and the larger systems of complicity at play. With a fast-paced narrative, the storytelling unfolds like a true-crime mystery.
Go behind the headlines of notorious high school sexual assault to witness the social media-fueled “boys will be boys” culture that let it happen. In small-town Ohio, at a pre-season football party, a horrible incident took place. What transpired would garner national attention and result in the sentencing of two key offenders. As amateur crime blogger Alex Goddard uncovers disturbing evidence on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, documenting the assault of a teenage girl by members of the beloved high school football team, questions linger around the collusion of teen and adult bystanders. Roll Red Roll explores the complex motivations of both perpetrators and bystanders in this story, to unearth the attitudes at the core of their behavior. It is a cautionary tale of what can happen when adults look the other way and deny that rape culture exists. With unprecedented access to police documents, exhibits and evidence, the documentary feature unflinchingly asks: “why didn’t anyone stop it?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJze9-ZNIeU
HBO Documentary Films has acquired the rights to the true-crime bestseller “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer,” by Michelle McNamara, and will develop a documentary series based on the book, it was announced today by Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller, executive vice presidents, HBO Documentary Films.
“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” is a meticulous exploration of the case of an elusive, violent predator who terrorized California in the late ’70s and early ’80s by journalist Michelle McNamara, who died tragically while investigating the unsolved crimes. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and afterword by McNamara’s husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by McNamara’s lead researcher, Paul Haynes, and a close colleague, Billy Jenkins.
A chilling investigation of the mysterious serial killer and the wreckage he left behind, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” is also a compelling self-portrait of the author that reveals her obsession with solving crimes, and her unflagging search for the truth and for justice for the victims and their families.
“HBO taking on this story will advance the passionate pursuit that Michelle shared with dozens of men and women in law enforcement? – ?to solve the mystery of one of California’s most notorious serial killers,” commented Oswalt.
Creator of the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, McNamara was determined to find the violent psychopath she dubbed “The Golden State Killer,” who committed 50 home-invasion sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten murders. Then he disappeared, eluding multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area. Obsessed with the case three decades later, McNamara pored over police reports, interviewed victims and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was. “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” also explores her own past, including her years growing up in Oak Park, Ill. in a large family, and the reverberations of the unsolved murder that haunted her youth.
Published earlier this year, the book debuted at #1 on the New York Times combined print and e-book bestseller list. “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer” was hailed by the New York Times as “a vivid and meticulous investigation” and “a wrenching personal account from a writer who became consumed by her subject.”
The Netflix documentary “Mercury 13” directed by David Sington and Heather Walsh is a remarkable story of the women who were tested for spaceflight in 1961 before their dreams were dashed in being the first to make the trip beyond Earth. An Official Selection of the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival and the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Mercury 13 will premiere on Netflix on April 20, 2018.
On April 9, 1959, NASA introduced their first astronaut class of all men, Mercury 7, to the world.
This is the story of the 13 women who were just as deserving of their place in space.
Mercury 13 is a remarkable story of the women who were tested for spaceflight in 1961 before their dreams were dashed in being the first to make the trip beyond Earth. NASA’s ‘man in space’ program, dubbed ‘Project Mercury’ began in 1958. The men chosen – all military test pilots – became known as The Mercury 7. But away from the glare of the media, behind firmly closed doors, female pilots were also screened. Thirteen of them passed and, in some cases, performed better than the men. They were called the Mercury 13 and had the ‘right stuff’ but were, unfortunately, the wrong gender. Underneath the obsession of the space race that gripped America, the women were aviation pioneers who emerged thirsty for a new frontier, but whose time would have to wait. The film tells the definitive story of thirteen truly remarkable women who reached for the stars but were ahead of their time. A Netflix original documentary directed by David Sington (The Fear of 13) and Heather Walsh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpiVx2mQhKI
A personal journey that unfolds like a thriller, The Feeling of Being Watched charts journalist Assia Boundaoui’s investigation into a secret FBI counterterrorism probe of her Arab-American neighborhood outside of Chicago – code-named “Operation Vulgar Betrayal”- and its enduring impact on her family and community. 
The Feeling of Being Watched[/caption]
With unprecedented access, The Feeling of Being Watched weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker’s examination of why her community—including her own family—fell under blanket government surveillance. Assia struggles to disrupt the government secrecy shrouding what happened and takes the FBI to federal court to compel them to make the records they collected about her community public. In the process, she confronts long-hidden truths about the FBI’s relationship to her community. The Feeling of Being Watched follows Assia as she pieces together this secret FBI operation, while grappling with the effects of a lifetime of surveillance on herself and her family.
The Feeling of Being Watched was written and directed by Assia Boundaoui and produced by Boundaoui and Jessica Devaney. Director of photography was Shuling Yong and the film was edited by Rabab Haj Yahya with illustrations by Molly Crabapple and original music by Angélica Negrón. Executive producers are Jim Butterworth, Daniel J. Chalfen, Dan Cogan, Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Debra Mcleod, Jay K. Sears, Bill Harnisch, Ruth Ann Harnisch, Alexa Poletto, Michael D. Mann, Barry W. Rashkover, and Vijay Dewan.
Assia Boundaoui is an Algerian-American journalist who has reported for the BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, VICE, and CNN. Her debut short, a film about hijabi hair salons for the HBO Lenny documentary series, premiered at Sundance in 2018, and she has worked in an editorial capacity on the production of a number of documentaries, including HBO’s Emmy Award-winning Manhunt (2013). Assia has a Master’s degree in journalism from New York University and is fluent in Arabic. The Feeling of Being Watched is her feature debut.
HBO Sports is teaming up agin with IMG’s Original Content group for a five-part documentary series chronicling tennis icon Serena Williams at a pivotal moment in her personal and professional life. Being Serena debuts Wednesday, May 2 (10:00-10:30 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, followed by other new episodes subsequent Wednesdays at the same time.
Being Serena will give viewers unprecedented access to Williams during her pregnancy, new motherhood and marriage, while documenting her journey back to supremacy on the court. Viewers will experience her life from every angle as the intimate first-person show delves into her landmark career, family life and expanding role as a businesswoman and investor in the worlds of tech, fashion, fitness and philanthropy.
“HBO is honored to work with Serena Williams on such a personal project,” says Peter Nelson, executive vice president, HBO Sports. “Even though she has been in the spotlight since her teenage years, Serena continues to capture the imagination. With our partners at IMG, we look forward to giving viewers a revealing, behind-the-scenes portrait of her life on and off the court.”
“Serena Williams is a force unlike any other,” says Mark Shapiro, co-president of WME and IMG. “Her entire life is one of the hero’s journey, and it has been a privilege to work with her as she enters this next phase. HBO was an incredible partner in developing a unique look into Serena’s world, and we look forward to sharing this all-access story with the world in May.”
Serena Williams, 36, is one of the most dominant forces tennis has ever seen, with 39 Grand Slam titles, four Olympic Gold Medals and the most women’s singles match victories in Grand Slam history. Her supremacy on the court earned her Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year honors in 2015 and made her a four-time winner of the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year, first in 2002 and most recently in 2015.
In Jan. 2017, Williams bested her sister Venus in the final match of the Australian Open, marking her seventh time winning that singles event. Four months after her historic victory, Williams revealed that she and her fiancé, Alexis Ohanian, were expecting their first child, confirming that she was eight weeks pregnant when she won her 23rd Grand Slam singles title. On Sept. 1, Williams gave birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. Williams and Ohanian wed soon after in a stunning ceremony before family and friends in New Orleans on Nov. 16.
Williams will return to the tennis circuit this spring to compete in her first Grand Slam event of the year at the French Open in late May.
For more than a decade, HBO Sports has been responsible for some of the most compelling unscripted sports programming, with a stylish and contemporary approach marked by unrestricted access. “Hard Knocks,” launched in 2001 in partnership with NFL Films, has won 15 Sports Emmy(R) Awards, and the groundbreaking all-access reality franchise “24/7” has earned 18 Sports Emmy(R) Awards.
Being Serena marks the third collaborative docu-series for HBO Sports and IMG. The first was 2016’s “Gonzaga: The March to Madness,” chronicling the Gonzaga men’s basketball team’s march to its 18th consecutive NCAA men’s basketball tournament berth, followed by 2017’s Primetime Emmy(R) nominee “UConn: The March to Madness,” spotlighting the powerhouse University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball team as it sought a fifth consecutive national championship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udW7HcmDMJY
I Am Evidence[/caption]
Produced by Mariska Hargitay, star of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and directed by Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir, I Am Evidence exposes the alarming trend of unsolved rape cases. The eye-opening documentary debuts Monday, April 16 (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET/PT), on HBO.
Despite the power of DNA to solve crimes, hundreds of thousands of rape kits, containing crucial DNA evidence, are currently languishing untested in police-evidence storage rooms across the country. Behind each one of these kits is a sexual-assault survivor waiting for justice to be served, and a perpetrator potentially evading prosecution.
Earlier this week, on the 90th birthday of Fred Rogers, Focus Features released the new trailer for “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom). “
UNBANNED: THE LEGEND OF AJ1[/caption]
One October, the documentary chronicling radio host Clay Pigeon as he talks to a diverse cross-section of people throughout New York city, exploring a microcosm of themes and issues including race, religion, economics, politics and culture, will be released nationally starting Friday, May 11.
Filmed entirely in October of 2008, a time when gentrification is rapidly displacing the working and middle classes, Wall Street is plummeting, and then-Senator Barack Obama is making his first presidential bid, One October is a lyrical time capsule that captures the heart and spirit of New York. When seen from our current vantage point, the film foreshadows the roiling political upheaval spreading across the country today in 2018. Directed by Rachel Shuman and executive produced by three-time Academy Award® nominee Edward Norton (“Primal Fear,” “American History X” and “Birdman”), this captivating feature documentary, which had its World Premiere at the 2017 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, chronicles intrepid radio host Clay Pigeon as he talks to a beautifully diverse cross-section of people throughout the city, exploring a microcosm of themes and issues including race, religion, economics, politics and culture. With today’s news filled with ratings-hungry, sensationalist headlines and political pundits yelling over one another, Pigeon is quite the antithesis with his man-on-the-street style interviews, offering an authentic, warm-hearted and more humanitarian approach to journalism.
Maysles Cinema in Harlem, NYC, where several of the scenes in the documentary were filmed, will host a week-long theatrical release of One October, screening along with the short documentary THE MONOLITH, directed by Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr., about pioneering NYC artist Gwyneth Leech, starting Friday, May 11. One October will also be released nationally on VOD on May 11 via Passion River Films on iTunes, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Microsoft XBOX and other digital platforms. The film will also screen nationwide in 
Unapologetic[/caption]
Nine filmmakers and six projects have been selected for Film Independent’s 2018 Documentary Lab, an intensive five-week program designed to help filmmakers who are currently in post-production on their feature-length documentary films.
This year’s projects span the globe – from a film about undocumented youth in the US, to an indigenous family in the Andes standing up to one of the largest gold producers in the world, to an unexpected environmental film about invisible elves, the free market and the surprising power of belief told through an Icelandic grandmother’s quest to save a threatened landscape.
“We’re delighted to welcome this talented group of filmmakers who will be joining us for the eighth year of the Documentary Lab from diverse regions across the US and as far away as Egypt,” said Jennifer Kushner, Director of Artist Development. “Through mentorship, career development and a lively collaborative work environment, the Lab provides support to filmmakers as they work to bring these meaningful nonfiction stories to audiences.”
Through a series of meetings and workshops, the Documentary Lab provides creative feedback and story notes to participating filmmakers, while helping them strategize for the completion, distribution and marketing of their films.
Additionally, the program serves to advance the careers of its Fellows by making introductions to film professionals who can advise on both the craft and business of documentary filmmaking. Lab Fellows attend multiple guest speaker and workshopping sessions with established documentary directors, institutional funders, legal professionals, festival programmers and distributors, and each is paired with an experienced Creative Advisor who provides one-on-one support and insight as the Fellows ready their projects for release.
This year’s Documentary Lab Advisors and Guest Speakers include Ramona S. Diaz (