Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, credited with taking down President Richard Nixon in 1974 after the Post broke the Watergate story, exposing the largest political scandal in American history, is the subject of the documentary The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee.
Told primarily in his own words, The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee is an intimate portrait of this formidable man, tracing his remarkable ascent from a young Boston boy stricken with polio to the one of the most pioneering and consequential journalistic figures of the 20th century when it debuts Monday, December 4, exclusively on HBO.
Ben Bradlee’s career spanned the most critical moments of the second half of the 20th century. As a foreign correspondent for Newsweek in the ’50s, Bradlee cut his teeth reporting from the frontlines of wars in the Middle East. In Washington, he befriended young Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy and later gained unprecedented access to the White House. By the ’70s, he had transformed the Washington Post from an undistinguished local paper into a national powerhouse, publishing the Pentagon Papers, breaking Watergate and challenging the New York Times for supremacy.
Taking on the political establishment and ushering in a new era of investigative journalism, the tough-talking, chain-smoking Bradlee came to epitomize the modern newspaper editor. Today, when the First Amendment and the press are under constant attack, Bradlee’s fortitude in the face of withering criticism has never been more relevant.
The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee delves into the highs and lows of Bradlee’s personal life and career, and features previously unseen home movies, photographs, archival footage and interviews with a who’s who of American journalism, Washington insiders, and family and friends who knew him best, including: Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Quinn Bradlee, Courtland Milloy, David Maraniss, David Remnick, Don Graham, George Vaillant, Henry Kissinger, Ben Bradlee Jr., Jim Hoagland, Jim Lehrer, John Dean, Norman Lear, Richard Cohen, Robert Kaiser, Robert Redford, Sally Bedell Smith, Sally Quinn, Tina Brown and Tom Brokaw.
John Maggio (“Looking for Lincoln”) directs; Peter Kunhardt, Teddy Kunhardt and George Kunhardt (HBO’s Emmy(R)-winning “Jim: The James Foley Story“) produce.
Documentary
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THE NEWSPAPERMAN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BEN BRADLEE to Debut on HBO
Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, credited with taking down President Richard Nixon in 1974 after the Post broke the Watergate story, exposing the largest political scandal in American history, is the subject of the documentary The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee.
Told primarily in his own words, The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee is an intimate portrait of this formidable man, tracing his remarkable ascent from a young Boston boy stricken with polio to the one of the most pioneering and consequential journalistic figures of the 20th century when it debuts Monday, December 4, exclusively on HBO.
Ben Bradlee’s career spanned the most critical moments of the second half of the 20th century. As a foreign correspondent for Newsweek in the ’50s, Bradlee cut his teeth reporting from the frontlines of wars in the Middle East. In Washington, he befriended young Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy and later gained unprecedented access to the White House. By the ’70s, he had transformed the Washington Post from an undistinguished local paper into a national powerhouse, publishing the Pentagon Papers, breaking Watergate and challenging the New York Times for supremacy.
Taking on the political establishment and ushering in a new era of investigative journalism, the tough-talking, chain-smoking Bradlee came to epitomize the modern newspaper editor. Today, when the First Amendment and the press are under constant attack, Bradlee’s fortitude in the face of withering criticism has never been more relevant.
The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee delves into the highs and lows of Bradlee’s personal life and career, and features previously unseen home movies, photographs, archival footage and interviews with a who’s who of American journalism, Washington insiders, and family and friends who knew him best, including: Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Quinn Bradlee, Courtland Milloy, David Maraniss, David Remnick, Don Graham, George Vaillant, Henry Kissinger, Ben Bradlee Jr., Jim Hoagland, Jim Lehrer, John Dean, Norman Lear, Richard Cohen, Robert Kaiser, Robert Redford, Sally Bedell Smith, Sally Quinn, Tina Brown and Tom Brokaw.
John Maggio (“Looking for Lincoln”) directs; Peter Kunhardt, Teddy Kunhardt and George Kunhardt (HBO’s Emmy(R)-winning “Jim: The James Foley Story“) produce.
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Insightful and Funny Docu Film TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE! Sets Release Date | Trailer
The insightful and funny Take My Nose… Please! by Joan Kron goes in depth with a comedic take from the top female comedians on the subject of women and plastic surgery and their career as artists. Interviews, clips and commentary from some of our legendary comics including Roseanne Barr, Phyllis Diller, the late Joan Rivers,Judy Gold, Julie Halston, Kathy Griffin, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykies, Lisa Lampanelli, Giulia Rozzi, and Adrianne Tolsch add to the magic of this film.
Take My Nose… Please! is the debut feature film from longtime former Allure Magazine editor now turned filmmaker, Joan Kron. For Joan, at the amazing age of 89 years-old, documentary film making is now her new career.
The film will open exclusive one week engagements in New York on October 6 at the Village East Cinemas, and then October 13 in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica in Santa Monica. It will open nationally following these cities.
Take My Nose… Please! is a seriously funny and wickedly subversive look at the role comedy has played in exposing the pressures on women to be attractive and society’s desire/shame relationship with plastic surgery. More than 15 million cosmetic procedures were performed in the US in 2014. And 90% of them on were done on women. Yet, for those who elect to tinker with Mother Nature, especially for high-profile women, plastic surgery is still a very dark secret. Funny women, though, are the exception. From Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers to Roseanne Barr and Kathy Griffin, comedians have been unashamed to talk about their perceived flaws, and the steps taken to remedy them. For these dames, cosmetic surgery isn’t vanity, it is affirmative action – compensation for the unfair distribution of youthfulness and beauty.
By admitting what their sisters in drama deny, comic performers speak to women who feel the same pressures, giving them permission to pursue change (or not to) while entertaining us.
Take My Nose… Please! follows two comedians as they deliberate about going under the knife. Emily Askin, an up-and coming improv performer, has always wanted her nose refined. Jackie Hoffman, a seasoned headliner on Broadway and on TV, considers herself ugly and regrets not having the nose job offered in her teens. And maybe she’d like a face-lift, as well. As we follow their surprisingly emotional stories, we meet other who have taken the leap – or held out.
Putting it all in perspective are psychologists, sociologists, the medical community and cultural critics. And for comic relief and the profundity only comedians can supply. The film includes commentary from Roseanne Barr, Phyllis Diller, the late Joan Rivers,Judy Gold, Julie Halston, Lisa Lampanelli, Giulia Rozzi, Bill Scheft, and Adrianne Tolsch.
FESTIVALS AND AWARDS:
Audience Award – Miami International Film Festival Audience Award – Berkshire International Film Festival Official Selection – Newport Beach International Film Festival; San Francisco Doc Fest; Arizona International Film Festival; Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival; San Luis Obispo Film Festival; Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival; and more
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Six Documentary Films Win 2017 SFFILM Documentary Film Fund Awards
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The Feeling of Being Watched[/caption]
SFFILM announced the six winners of the 2017 SFFILM Documentary Film Fund awards totaling $125,000, which support feature-length documentaries in postproduction.
Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched, RaMell Ross’ Hale County, This Morning, This Evening, Leslie Tai’s How to Have an American Baby, Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family, Heaven Through the Back Door by Anna Fitch and Banker White, and A Machine to Live In by Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke, were each awarded significant funding that will help push them towards completion.
The SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has an excellent track record for championing important films that have gone on to earn great acclaim. Previous DFF winners include Peter Nicks’s The Force, which won the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Directing Award for documentary and SFFILM Festival’s Bay Area Documentary Award, and will be released this fall by Kino Lorber; Peter Bratt’s Dolores, which won the 2017 SFFILM Festival Audience Award for Documentary Feature following its Sundance premiere; Jamie Meltzer’s True Conviction, which won a Special Jury Mention for Documentary Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival; and Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, which won Sundance’s Directing Award for documentary and was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature; among many others.
Since its launch in 2011, the SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has distributed nearly half a million dollars to advance new work by filmmakers nationwide. The 2017 Documentary Film Fund is made possible thanks to an expanded gift from the Jenerosity Foundation.
The panelists who reviewed the ten finalists’ submissions are Jennifer Battat, founder of the Jenerosity Foundation; Noah Cowan, SFFILM Executive Director; Caroline von Kühn, Director of Artist Development at SFFILM; Jenny Slattery, Associate Director of Foundations and Artist Development at SFFILM and independent producer Corey Tong.
“We are thrilled to support these six filmmaking teams, each of which is telling an important story with boldness and passion,” remarked the jury. “This group of projects represents a wide range of artistic visions, subjects, and approaches to nonfiction filmmaking—from the intimate portrayal of an independent woman’s last days to an arresting journey into the surreal, futuristic city of Brasilia. We very much look forward to supporting these films as they evolve, make their way into the world, and leave their imprint on audiences, fellow filmmakers, and our collective sense of what can be achieved through the documentary form.”
2017 DOCUMENTARY FILM FUND WINNERS
The Feeling of Being Watched – Assia Boundaoui, director/producer; Jessica Devaney, producer – $25,000 When a filmmaker investigates rumors of surveillance in her Arab-American neighborhood in Chicago, she uncovers one of the largest FBI terrorism probes conducted before 9/11 and reveals its enduring impact on the community. Hale County, This Morning, This Evening – RaMell Ross, director; Joslyn Barnes and Su Kim, producers – $15,000 What is the experience of coming-of-age in the Black Belt region of the US? This film presents the lives of two young men in a series of visual movements that replace narrative arc with orchestral form. Heaven Through the Back Door – Anna Fitch and Banker White, co-director/producers; Sara Dosa, producer – $20,000 Heaven Through the Backdoor is a contemplative documentary that tells the story of Yo (Yolanda Shae), a fiercely independent 88-year old woman whose unique brand of individualist feminism impacts how she chooses to live in the final years of her life. (Former SFFILM FilmHouse resident; Bay Area-based project) How to Have an American Baby – Leslie Tai, director/producer; Jillian Schultz, co-producer – $20,000 There is a city in Southern California that abounds with pregnant women from China. Told through multiple perspectives, How to Have an American Baby is a kaleidoscopic voyage behind the closed doors of the Chinese birth tourism industry. (SFFILM FilmHouse resident; SFFILM fiscally sponsored filmmaker; Bay Area-based project) A Machine to Live In – Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke, co-directors; Sebastian Alvarez, producer; Andrew Benz, co-producer – $20,000 Hovering over what remains of Brazil’s modernist future, this film looks at how social control, rational design, and space-age architecture gave rise to a vast landscape of transcendental and mystical utopias. (Bay Area-based project) Midnight Family – Luke Lorentzen, director; Kellen Quinn, producer; Daniela Alatorre,and Elena Fortes, co-producers – $25,000 In Mexico City, 16-year-old Juan Ochoa struggles to legitimize his family’s unlicensed ambulance business, as corrupt police in the neighborhood begin to target this cutthroat industry.
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Video: Watch Trailer for Showtime Documentary GEORGE MICHAEL: FREEDOM
Here is the trailer the Showtime documentary “George Michael: Freedom.” Filmed before Michael’s untimely passing, the documentary is narrated by the singer, who was heavily involved in the making of the film that serves as his final work.
“George Michael: Freedom”, will premiere on Saturday, October 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.
“George Michael: Freedom” covers the span of his entire career, but concentrates on the formative period in the late Grammy(R) Award winner’s life and career, leading up to and following the making of his acclaimed, best-selling album “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” and his subsequent, infamous High Court battle with his record label that followed, while also becoming poignantly personal about the death of his late partner and first love, Anselmo Feleppa. Filmed before Michael’s untimely passing, the documentary is narrated by the singer, who was heavily involved in the making of the film that serves as his final work. GEORGE MICHAEL: FREEDOM features Michael’s incredible, unseen archival and private home footage, giving viewers a first-person account of this dramatic period in his life – revealing how he became one of the most influential recording artists of all time who alone fought a corner for all artists by challenging the standard recording contract helping to rewrite the rules of the music industry. He talks about why he stepped out of the limelight and turned his back on celebrity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdzK6Iw94Kg
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VIDEO: Watch Trailer for Documentary NUDE, Chronicling Fashion Photographer David Bellemere
The documentary “Nude” explores perceptions of nudity in art by chronicling the creative process of fashion photographer David Bellemere.
In anticipation of the October 29th, 2017 premiere of the film, Starz released the official trailer and key art for the new original documentary “NUDE” from Director and Producer Anthony B. Sacco and Producer Josh Shader which follows treats! magazine founder Steve Shaw and photographer David Bellemere’s NU Muses project.
“NUDE” – a feature-length documentary – explores perceptions of nudity in art by chronicling the creative process of fashion photographer David Bellemere. Commissioned by NU Muses founder Steve Shaw to shoot a fine art calendar of nude photographs to debut at Art Basel in Miami, Bellemere’s unique methods and visual style are examined. The film also looks at the creative and business aspirations of Shaw, plus how social media shapes the lives of today’s young models.
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VIDEO: Watch Trailer for Heartbreaking Documentary KINGDOM OF US Premiering at London Film Festival
Here is the trailer for the documentary Kingdom of Us set to premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 7th ahead of its global launch on Netflix on October 13th.
How does a family deal with memories of a traumatic event? It’s a question sensitively examined in this moving documentary. In her quietly watchful debut, Lucy Cohen impresses with a delicate, powerfully effective exploration of grief, identity and family bonds. For over three years, Cohen filmed a mother and her seven children – whose father’s suicide left them financially ruined. Incorporating family archive footage and capturing the surrounding West Midlands landscape, Kingdom of Us records the siblings’ emotional recovery, piecing together their broken past and contemplating fears and aspirations for their future. Cohen’s film highlights youthful power and resilience, as the family travel the rocky road towards hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc8_spETMBY
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VIDEO: Netflix Debuts THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON Trailer
Netflix debuted the trailer for The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, documentary on the self-described “street queen” of NY’s gay ghetto found floating in New York’s Hudson River in 1992.
The documentary that premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, launches on Netflix on Friday, October 6, 2017.
Who killed Marsha P Johnson? When the beloved, self-described “street queen” of NY’s gay ghetto was found floating in the Hudson River in 1992, the NYPD chalked it up as a suicide and refused to investigate. However, as shown in Academy Award(R) nominated director and journalist David France’s (How to Survive A Plague) new film, it’s a decision many questioned.
Having played a pivotal role in the previous year’s Stonewall Riots, in 1970, Johnson and fellow trans icon Sylvia Rivera formed the world’s first trans-rights organization, STAR (Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries). And despite their many challenges over the years-homelessness, illness, alcoholism-Marsha and Sylvia ignited a powerful and lasting civil rights movement for gender nonconforming people.
Now, a quarter century later, at a time of unprecedented visibility and escalating violence in the transgender community, Marsha’s old friend and fellow activist Victoria Cruz has taken it upon herself to reexamine what happened to Marsha. Dipping deep into jaw-dropping archival footage of another era of New York City life, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson follows as this champion pursues leads, mobilizes officials, and works to tell the story of Marsha’s life and get to the bottom of Marsha’s death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pADsuuPd79E
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Netflix to Release Chris Smith’s Documentary on Jim Carrey’s Portrayal of Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon
Netflix will release director Chris Smith’s deep dive into actor Jim Carrey’s time spent portraying famed and complicated comedian Andy Kaufman. The film titled “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton” use approximately 100 hours of footage shot on the set of Man on the Moon documenting Carrey’s transformation into Kaufman for four months.
In 1999 Milos Forman cast Jim Carrey to play cult comedian Andy Kaufman in his biopic Man on the Moon. What followed was an intensely bizarre and emotional film production. Surrounded by Kaufman’s friends and family on set, Carrey thoroughly “became” Andy and, alternately, Tony Clifton, Kaufman’s obnoxious lounge singer alter ego. Much like Kaufman’s comedy, Carrey’s acting took on a performance art quality during the film. He never broke character on set, the cast and the crew referred to him as either ‘Andy’ or ‘Tony’ depending on who he was embodying (he had created complete and separate identities for each).
Jim Carrey earned critical acclaim and a Golden Globe for the performance, but many of the production’s most Kaufmanesque moments played out behind the scenes, thankfully captured on video by Andy’s former girlfriend, Lynne Margulies and former writing partner, Bob Zmuda. In Jim & Andy, Carrey looks back at the resulting footage 18 years later, reflecting on how he and Andy came up in oddly parallel universes, his experience channelling Andy and Tony and more broadly the spiritual journey of his career.
The VICE Documentary Films production premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival and is produced by Academy Award – winner Spike Jonze, and VICE Films’ Danny Gabai and Brendan Fitzgerald.
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BLACK LIVES MATTER Documentary Tackles South African Miners Working Conditions | Trailer
Black Lives Matter is a documentary on the tens-of-thousands of miners working and living in abysmal conditions across South Africa. The film has been selected to screen at the Montreal International Black Film Festival, and has been nominated in the Best Documentary Feature Category.
The film that screened last year at the Durban International Film Festival puts the Canadian based mining firm Ivanhoe in the spotlight, taking the Marikana Massacre as its starting point, but digging deep into the history of the mining sector as well as the political backstory that led up to the tragedy.
Director Joseph Oesi, a South African filmmaker and TV journalist, was moved to produce the film after witnessing the devastating events of August 16th 2012 play out on TV screens across South Africa and the world. He explains his motivation for making the film, “South Africa has certainly set a course, fueled by a betrayal to the original course set by the original struggle heroes and to the Freedom Charter. Mining, at the heart of the country’s economy, has underpinned the course in the interest of big business. In essence the struggles, sufferings from Colonialism and Apartheid still persist in modern day South Africa to the disappointment of the vast majority.”
Black Lives Matter, powerfully demonstrates that even since this defining moment, nothing has changed for most miners, and mining communities across South Africa. Oesi explains the message of the film further, ““Black Lives Matter explores how the mineral wealth, rightfully belonging to the people of South Africa, has been sold to capitalist interests for the enrichment of a few elite and at the expense of the country. It also shows how traditional communities have been divided by this process. The corruption at all levels of society impacts not only on the moral fabric of our society, but also on the working class poor.”
In South Africa, 22 years ago, the African National Congress came to power. This, many believed, would signify an end to racism and oppression, and our people would prosper. But today inequality and economic disempowerment are still rife. The corruption and power grabbing at all levels of society impacts not only on the moral fabric of our society but, more importantly, on the working class poor.
The massacre of 34 striking mineworkers at a mine called Marikana brought these issues into sharp focus. Now, in an area called Mokopane in South Africa’s Limpopo province, tensions between the community and the mining companies, and communities and their traditional leaders, seem set to explode, with equally dire consequences. Black Lives Matter explores how the mineral wealth, rightfully belonging to the people of South Africa, has been sold to capitalist interests for the enrichment of a few elite and at the expense of the country – and how traditional communities have been divided in this process.
This film takes us on a journey through three rural communities – the Mogales, the Kekanas, and the Mapelas. What they have in common is that the richest platinum bearing reef in the world runs underneath their land – and that international mining companies have made dubious deals with traditional leaders whose very legitimacy is questioned by the communities they supposedly serve.
https://vimeo.com/168244259
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Kino Lorber to Release FILMWORKER and HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD from Telluride 2017
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Filmworker[/caption]
Tony Zierra’s Filmworker and Rüdiger Suchsland’s Hitler’s Hollywood, two documentaries that had their North American premieres at the 2017 Telluride Film Festival, has been acquired by Kino Lorber for release in the North America in 2018.
Zierra’s homage to Kubrick’s right-hand man had its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and will also show at the upcoming New York Film Festival, while Suchsland’s follow-up to his 2014 film From Caligari to Hitler will premiere at New York’s Film Forum next April.
Filmworker is focused on the work and life of Leon Vitali, the actor who played Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and subsequently abandoned his acting career to become Kubrick’s dedicated assistant. For more than two decades, Leon played a crucial role behind-the-scenes, helping Kubrick make and maintain his legendary body of work. The complex, interdependent relationship between Vitali and Kubrick was founded on devotion, sacrifice and the grueling, joyful reality of the creative process. Tony Zierra directed, shot and edited the film and Elizabeth Yoffe produced.
Rüdiger Suchsland’s Hitler’s Hollywood captures an entirely different dimension of filmmaking by focusing on the most controversial period of German film history – and examining titles produced during the Third Reich, from blatant propaganda to seemingly ‘harmless’ entertainment. About 1000 feature films were made in Germany in the years between 1933-45, but only a few were created as overtly Nazi propaganda films. Suchland’s incisive analysis shows how even the most innocent entertainment carries with it a subversive ideological – and in this case Nazi – message.
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VIDEO: Watch Breathtaking Magic of Fireworks in Trailer for BRIMSTONE & GLORY
Here is the trailer for Brimstone and Glory, a documentary about the National Pyrotechnic Festival in Tultepec, Mexico, in celebration of San Juan de Dios, patron saint of firework makers.
The film directed by Viktor Jakovleski, will be released in theaters on October 27.
The National Pyrotechnic Festival in Tultepec, Mexico is a site of festivity unlike any other in the world. In celebration of San Juan de Dios, patron saint of firework makers, conflagrant revelry engulfs the town for ten days. Artisans show off their technical virtuosity, up-and-comers create their own rowdy, lofi combustibles, and dozens of teams build larger-than-life papier-mâché bulls to parade into the town square, adorned with fireworks that blow up in all directions. More than three quarters of Tultepec’s residents work in pyrotechnics, making the festival more than revelry for revelry’s sake. It is a celebration that anchors a way of life built around a generations-old, homegrown business of making fireworks by hand. For the people of Tultepec, the National Pyrotechnic Festival is explosive celebration, unrestrained delight and real peril. Plunging headlong into the fire, BRIMSTONE & GLORY honors the spirit of Tultepec’s community and celebrates celebration itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36iHKZmeH60

Ahead of its premiere at the