Brillo Box (3 Cents Off), tracks the remarkable journey of an Iconic Andy Warhol sculpture from one family’s living room through the global art market.
In 1969, Lisanne Skyler’s parents bought an Andy Warhol “Brillo Box (3 Cents Off)” sculpture for $1,000. An exact replica of a shipping carton for Brillo soap pads, Warhol’s Brillo Boxes were at first dismissed by the art world. But 40 years later, with Warhol’s reputation as a contemporary-art visionary long secured, the same piece sold for more than $3 million at a record-breaking Christie’s auction.
Blending a humorous family narrative with Pop Art history, and debuting the week of Warhol’s 89th birthday, Brillo Box (3 Cents OFF) follows this iconic work as it makes its way from a New York family’s living room to the contemporary global art market, exploring the ephemeral nature of art and value, and the decisions that shape a family’s history. An official selection of the 54th New York Film Festival, the documentary debuts Monday, August 7 (10:00-10:40 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.
In 1964, Andy Warhol shocked the art world by making hundreds of replicas of supermarket shipping cartons and presenting them as art. His most notorious were the Brillo Boxes, which he created by silk-screening the original Brillo packaging art, designed by abstract impressionist James Harvey, onto wooden boxes that were the exact same sizes as the supermarket originals. It is believed Warhol made 93 large white boxes and 17 smaller yellow ones.
Originally selling for $200, a yellow Brillo Box emblazoned with a “3 Cents OFF” burst was purchased for $1,000 from the OK Harris Gallery in New York in 1969 by Martin and Rita Skyler. Looking to add value to his acquisition, Martin Skyler persuaded gallery owner Ivan Karp to get Warhol to sign the bottom of the piece, which was not Warhol’s customary practice at the time.
Parents of an infant daughter, Lisanne, the Skylers spent two years with the Brillo Box, which Martin placed inside Plexiglas to prevent damage. Looking for fresh art to augment their collection, he decided to trade the Brillo Box for a drawing by abstract artist Peter Young in 1971. Forty years after the Skylers sold their Brillo Box, Lisanne Skyler, now a filmmaker, learned it was going to be auctioned in New York at Christie’s. She filmed the auction, and, combining that footage with archival video, reenactments and interviews with her parents and contemporary art world figures, began to reconstruct her family’s Brillo Box history.
After Warhol’s death in 1987, interest in his work started to build; starting in 1995, prices for his art doubled annually for more than a decade. In 1988, London advertising magnate Charles Saatchi bought the Skylers’ Brillo Box for $35,200; five years later, the piece was sold to a private collector for $43,700 and returned to New York. Two years later, in a soft art market, Robert Shapazian, one of the world’s foremost collectors of modern art and the founding director of the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, bought the piece for the same price, and kept it until his death in 2010.
When the Brillo Box went on sale again that year, Christie’s estimated it would fetch between $600,000 to $800,000, its value enhanced by the condition and provenance, including Warhol’s signature and the ownership of Saatchi and Shapazian. Following an international bidding war, however, the Skylers’ Brillo Box sold to a private collector for $2,650,000. The addition of a $400,500 buyer’s premium brought the final price tag to a staggering $3,050,500. While Martin maintains a stoic front about the loss of such a treasure, a more regretful Rita recalls the personal memories it evokes.
In addition to interviews with Martin and Rita Skyler, BRILLO BOX (3 Cents OFF) includes insights from several high-profile names in the contemporary art world, including: Laura Paulson, chairman, Americas at Christie’s; Jessica Todd Smith, the Susan Gray Detweiler Curator of American Art and Manager of the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; art critic and historian Irving Sandler; Eric Shiner, former director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; writer, curator and dealer Kenny Schachter; artist Nancy Mozur; artist and teacher Phung Huynh; Daniel Wolf, producer of “Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film”; John Armaly, president and CEO of Armaly Brands, owner of the Brillo brand; and Peter Young, the artist whose work replaced the Brillo Box in the Skyler home.
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The Sundance award-winning film Unrest in which Jennifer Brea documents her fight to overcome Myalgic Encephalomyelitis aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, will be released in the US in the Fall. The will open in New York on September 22, followed by Los Angeles and San Francisco on September 29, with a nationwide release to select cities to follow. Unrest will open in theaters in the U.K. on October 20. This was first exclusively reported by Variety.
Unrest world premiered in the documentary competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize for editing. It has since screened at SxSW, CPH:DOX, HotDocs, River Run (Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature), Nashville Film Festival (Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature), and the Sheffield Doc/Fest (Illuminate Award), among other festivals.
Jennifer Brea is an active Harvard PhD student about to marry the love of her life when suddenly her body starts failing her. Hoping to shed light on her strange symptoms, Jennifer grabs a camera and films the darkest moments unfolding before her eyes as she is derailed by M.E. (commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), a mysterious illness some still believe is “all in your head.”
In this story of love and loss, newlyweds Jennifer and Omar search for answers as they face unexpected obstacles with great heart. Often confined by her illness to the private space of her bed, Jen is moved to connect with others around the globe. Utilizing Skype, she unlocks a forgotten community with intimate portraits of four other families suffering similarly.
Jennifer Brea’s wonderfully honest portrayal asks us to rethink the stigma around an illness that affects millions of people. Unrest is a vulnerable and eloquent personal documentary that is sure to hit closer to home than many could imagine.
HBO has released a new trailer for the documentary DIANA, OUR MOTHER: HER LIFE AND LEGACY. The documentary debuts on Monday, July 24 (10:00-11:10 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO. to celebrate the life and work of Diana, Princess of Wales, in the 20th year since her tragic death.
DIANA, OUR MOTHER features interviews with HRH The Duke of Cambridge and HRH Prince Harry, both of whom talk openly about their mother and pay tribute to the many ways her influence has shaped their lives. The film offers a fresh and revealing insight into Princess Diana through the personal and intimate reflections of her two sons and her friends and family, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, to bring together a unique portrait of an iconic person who touched the lives of millions.
The 65-minute film includes never-before-seen photographs of Diana, taken from an album that she had assembled. The brothers look through the private family album and recall some of the most joyful and touching moments from their childhood.
Studying a photo of The Princess holding him while pregnant with Prince Harry, Prince William says, “Believe it or not, you and I are both in this photograph, you’re in the tummy!”
Prince Harry says, “This is the first time that the two of us have ever spoken about her as a mother.”
Prince William says, “She was very informal and really enjoyed the laughter and the fun.”
Prince William and Prince Harry share some of their earliest memories of their mother, recall the final conversation they had with her before her tragic death in August 1997, and discuss their feelings in the aftermath of losing her. Prince William explains how he keeps her memory alive for his own children.
The documentary also celebrates the achievements of Diana’s work and her sons’ determination to continue the campaigns that were closest to her heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9AFcZgGCNw
Kristen Bell today premiered the music video for “Tell Me How Long” from Netflix original documentary 
Steven Spielberg, one of the most famous filmmakers in the world, will be the subject of a new documentary SPIELBERG that will debut exclusively on HBO on Saturday, October 7, 2017. Directed and produced by award-winning documentarian Susan Lacy, the feature-length documentary examines Spielberg’s filmography in depth, revealing how his experiences fed his work and changed it over time.
Steven Spielberg has built an unrivaled catalogue of groundbreaking films over the course of his nearly 50-year career. Charting the evolution of this iconic figure, Lacy draws on nearly 30 hours of exclusive interviews with the director, who opens up about his bittersweet childhood and lifelong obsession with moviemaking, his precocious early work as a TV “wunderkind,” his rise to fame through an incredible string of blockbusters, his later forays into more serious dramatic films, and the personal and professional relationships he’s cultivated through the years.
SPIELBERG also includes insights from members of Spielberg’s family, as well as friends and colleagues, plus clips and behind-the-scenes footage from many of his milestone films, including “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Arc,” “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Bridge of Spies” and many more.
Lacy interviewed more than 80 subjects for the film, ranging from A-list celebrities, to directors and producers, to industry insiders, including J.J. Abrams, Christian Bale, Drew Barrymore, Cate Blanchett, Francis Ford Coppola, Daniel Craig, Daniel Day-Lewis, Brian de Palma, Laura Dern, Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Dreyfuss, Ralph Fiennes, Harrison Ford, David Geffen, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Holly Hunter, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ben Kingsley, Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas, Liam Neeson, Martin Scorsese, Oprah Winfrey and Robert Zemeckis.
The result is a remarkably intimate portrait that combines Spielberg’s compelling first-person narrative with an in-depth exploration of the creative process and craftsmanship that have set him apart, highlighting themes such as separation, reconciliation, patriotism, humanity and wonder, which recur throughout his work.
Susan Lacy is the creator and former executive producer of the celebrated WNET series “American Masters,” which is shown on PBS nationwide. She has won countless awards, including ten Primetime Emmys(R) for Outstanding Documentary Series and 12 Peabody Awards. As executive producer of “American Masters,” Lacy produced a library of 250 films exploring the lives of America’s most enduring cultural icons, from Charlie Chaplin to James Baldwin to Bob Dylan. She has also directed films on subjects as diverse as Leonard Bernstein, David Geffen, Joni Mitchell, Judy Garland, Paul Simon, Rod Serling and Lena Horne.
The 30 for 30 documentary, “George Best: All by Himself,” directed by BAFTA award-winning director Daniel Gordon (Hillsborough), recounts the tale of the beloved but bedeviled soccer superstar George Best.
The film will debut on Tuesday, July 20 at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN leading into the Manchester United vs Manchester City game.
He was one of the best soccer players of all time; a handsome, charismatic lad from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who worked wonders with the ball and thrilled Great Britain. But George Best was also the lead in a Shakespearean tragedy fueled by drink and excess and depression. This 30 for 30 film tells his story through evocative footage and testimony by those who knew him at his best – and at his worst.
There’s a lot of ground to cover – from his electric debut with Manchester United at the age of 17, through the glory years that brought ManU the 1968 European Cup, to his adventures in the North American Soccer League. “George Best: All by Himself” will make viewers understand why an estimated quarter million people lined the route of his funeral cortege in 2005.
“I wanted to make a film that dug beneath the surface of the caricature of ‘Britain’s First Pop Star Soccer Player’ and tell a tale of emotional depth that takes us on George’s rollercoaster journey of a life,” said director Daniel Gordon. “This is a cautionary tale. It is a story of addiction and what can happen to someone who has so much at such a young age, who reaches unimaginable heights – and then hits the ‘self-destruct’ button throughout the rest of his descent to rock bottom.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvU3xW1QjCY
Netflix has released the trailer and poster for Bryan Fogel’s award winning documentary 
In the audacious documentary Icarus, director Bryan Fogel’s bold gambit was this: to investigate doping in sports, Fogel (an amateur bike racer) would dope himself, observe the changes in his performance, and see if he could evade detection. In doing so, he was connected to a renegade Russian scientist, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
When the truth is more complex than imagined, and accusations of illegalities run to Russia’s highest chains of command, the two realize they hold the power to reveal the biggest international sports scandal in living memory. Exemplifying the special bond between filmmaker and subject, this is a vital portrait of the sacrifice some people will make to stand up for truth. Icarus places you at the heart of an international game of cat and mouse, where a miscalculation can cost you your life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXoRdSTrR-4
Netflix has released the trailer for the documentary series Daughters of Destiny directed by Oscar(R) winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth, set to launch globally on July 28, 2017.
Daughters of Destiny is a 4-part Netflix original documentary series that chronicles the lives of five girls from Indian families who are among the so-called “Dalit” caste and most impoverished communities in the world. The series witnesses the girls grow up (ranging in age from 7 to 23 over the course of the 4 episodes) while they are raised at Shanti Bhavan, a unique co-ed residential school in Tamil Nadu. The expectation for these girls and all the children who attend Shanti Bhavan is that they must grow up to support themselves, lift their families and communities out of poverty and contribute to the larger world.
Directed by Academy Award(R) winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth (Freeheld, Best Documentary Short, 2007), the series highlights the struggle of students as they strive to define themselves, re-define gender and class and create a new future for the generations that will come after them. The strength and power of the girls’ own storytelling and dramatic experiences over the 7 years of filming from the gates of Shanti Bhav, into their homes brings viewers through their stories of family, love, loss, hard work and courage. An original music score by Academy Award(R) and Emmy winning composer A.R Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire, 2008), punctuates this emotional journey.
As we watch them grow up, they travel between home and school, and are forced to navigate the stark contrasts between family traditions and their modern and global views and knowledge. Daughters of Destiny highlights the journey of a generation of children on the precipice of a new life that is inconceivable to their ancestors, and brings into question the notions of fate, free will and the human longing for opportunity, purpose and meaning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b49QEQsNUj0