#Documentary
Guest Post: How Women Inspired Me to Pay It Forward and Become a Mentor
By Mimi Chakarova I was 21 when I first met her. I was carrying a large portfolio case, sweating all the way from the train station to her gallery. I can’t tell you what she wore that day. All I...
Trailer Watch: Five Frontline Camerawomen Share Their Stories in Tribeca Title “No Ordinary Life”
Heather O’Neill’s documentary “No Ordinary Life” centers on five pioneering frontline and combat camerawomen: Maria Fleet, Jane Evans, Cynde Strand, Mary Rogers, and Margaret...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Maria Carolina Telles – “You Are Not a Soldier”
Maria Carolina Telles is a showrunner, director, screenwriter, and journalist. Telles is known for creating and directing the docu reality series “Reto Imposible” for Natgeo Latin...
Nancy Buirski’s Next Doc Will Go Behind the Scenes of “Midnight Cowboy”
Nancy Buirski’s filmography has covered miscarriages of justice (“A Crime on the Bayou”), the intersection of racism, misogyny, and sexual violence (“The Rape of Recy Taylor”), and a...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Chris J. Russo – “Lady Buds”
Chris J. Russo’s award-winning short films have screened all over the world, including at the Sundance Film Festival, and have been broadcast on Showtime, PBS, IFC, LOGO, and Netflix. She is a...
Over-Parenting Doc “Chasing Childhood” Acquired by Abramorama
Margaret Munzer Loeb and Eden Wurmfeld’s exploration of contemporary childhood and parenting has found a home. Abramorama acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Chasing Childhood.” A...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Bobbi Jo Hart – “Fanny: The Right to Rock”
Bobbi Jo Hart is an award-winning American/Canadian documentary filmmaker with Adobe Productions International, based in Montreal. Her most recent feature documentary, “I Am Not a Rock...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Shannon Walsh – “The Gig is Up”
Shannon Walsh has written and directed feature documentaries “The Gig is Up,” “Illusions of Control,” “Jeppe on a Friday,” “À St-Henri, le 26 Août,” and “H2Oil,” as well as...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Svetlana Rodina – “Ostrov – Lost Island”
Svetlana Rodina has worked as a reporter and host for various television programs on the RTR channel. In 2011, she became the editor-in-chief of the documentary department of United Media Group, one...
Trailer Watch: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers Explores the Opioid Crisis in “Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy”
“We can’t sit back and expect things to change without doing the work,” we’re told in a trailer for “Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy.” Currently screening...
Diane Warren Documentary Now in Production, Bess Kargman Directing
Legendary songwriter and musician Diane Warren is getting her own documentary. A press release has announced a doc feature about Warren is now in production from director Bess Kargman (“Defying...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Luciana Kaplan – “The Spokeswoman”
Argentina-born, Mexico-based Luciana Kaplan has dedicated her career to documentary filmmaking and teaching. Her films have won support grants from the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes,...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Irene Vélez-Torres – “Bajo Fuego”
Irene Vélez-Torres is a professor at the University of Valle who specializes in socio-environmental conflicts and ethno-racial inequalities. While engaging in research, she frequently applies...
Join the Girls Club for a Conversation with “Allen v. Farrow” Director Amy Ziering
Amy Ziering, a producer and director of docs such as “The Invisible War,” “The Hunting Ground,” and “On the Record,” will join the Girls Club to discuss her latest...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Roser Corella – “Room Without a View”
Berlin-based independent filmmaker Roser Corella started her career as video-journalist for Catalan television, but her interest in the human stories behind global issues moved her to self-produce...
1996 USA Women’s Basketball Team Getting “30 for 30” Treatment at ESPN
Kristen Lappas is bringing the story of the Women’s Dream Team to ESPN. The “Blackfeet Boxing” director will helm a feature doc about the gold medal-winning 1996 USA Women’s...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Ann Shin – “A.rtificial I.mmortality”
Ann Shin is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. Her debut novel, “The Last Exiles,” was published earlier this year by Harper Collins. The book is partly based on her experience...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Celina Escher – “Fly So Far”
Celina Escher is a Swiss-Salvadorean filmmaker telling stories about women as well their pursuits of empowerment, artistic processes, and their sociopolitical contexts. Her film “Verde Olivo” was...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet the Team Behind “Only the Ocean Between Us”
Khaldiya Amer Ali is Syrian filmmaker living in Za’atari Refugee Camp, Jordan. Her short film “Another Kind of Girl” premiered at Sundance; screened at Cannes and SXSW; was featured on The New...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Mia Halme – “People We Come Across”
Director and writer Mia Halme has a background in journalism. Her documentaries have been screened in various festivals around the world. “Forever Yours” (2012) was awarded the...
Apply Now: Firelight Media’s Documentary Lab
Firelight Media, a company specializing in non-fiction film by and about people of color, is now accepting applications for its Documentary Lab. The 18-month fellowship supports racially and...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Annabel Verbeke – “Four Seasons in One Day”
Annabel Verbeke is a documentary filmmaker whose film “Les Enfants de la Mer/Mère” won eight international awards and was selected by over 20 global film festivals. “We Will Remember Them”...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Maéva Ranaïvojaona – “Zaho Zay”
Maéva Ranaïvojaona is a French filmmaker with Malagasy origins, living and working in Paris and Vienna. She wrote, produced, and directed two short films that have been shown and awarded at several...
Nicole Newnham to Direct Doc About Pioneering Feminist Sex Researcher Shere Hite
Oscar-nominated “Crip Camp” director Nicole Newnham had lined up her next project. She is set to helm a feature documentary about groundbreaking sex researcher Shere Hite for NBC News...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Anaïs Taracena – “The Silence of the Mole”
Documentary filmmaker and producer Anaïs Taracena has directed short films “Los Médicos de la Montaña,” “Entre Voces,” and “Desenredar el Ser,” which have been screened at...
May 2021 Film Preview
By Vicki A. Lee and Kara Headley Since 1992, the United States has observed Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month every May, paying tribute to the monumental role Asian and...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jessica Beshir – “Faya Dayi”
Jessica Beshir is a Mexican-Ethiopian director, producer, and cinematographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She made her directorial debut with her short film “Hairat,” which premiered at...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Sheona McDonald – “Dead Man’s Switch: a crypto mystery”
Sheona McDonald is an an award-winning filmmaker who worked in the Canadian film and television industry as a writer, producer, and director for over two decades. Her recent films include “Into...
Trailer Watch: Nancy Buirski Revisits “A Crime on the Bayou” and Exposes Institutional Racism
An examination of justice, allyship, and activists working together to dismantle institutional racism, Nancy Buirski’s “A Crime on the Bayou” tells the story of Gary Duncan, a Black...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Yasmine Mathurin – “One of Ours”
Yasmine Mathurin is a Haitian-Canadian writer, director, and award-winning podcast producer. She produced the audio-fiction podcast “The Shadows,” which won Gold in the fiction category at the...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Redfearn – “Apart”
Jennifer Redfearn is an Academy Award-nominated director. She directed and produced “Sun Come Up” about a small island community losing their land to rising seas. “Sun Come...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Margaret Byrne – “Any Given Day”
Margaret Byrne is an award-winning filmmaker. She directed and produced “Raising Bertie,” a feature documentary following the lives of three African American boys growing up in rural...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Louise Detlefsen – “It Is Not Over Yet”
Louise Detlefsen’s latest documentary feature film, “Fat Front,” had its international premiere at IDFA 2019. Her films have been shown on both television and at festivals all over...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers – “Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy”
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor. She’s a member of the Kainai First Nation — Blood Tribe, Blackfoot Confederacy — as well as Sámi from Norway. Her...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Chloe Fairweather – “Dying to Divorce”
Chloe Fairweather is an award-winning director who specializes in observational documentary and the telling of complex true stories. The Welsh-born filmmaker started out in TV production over 10...
Trailer Watch: “In Our Mothers’ Gardens” Celebrates the Strength and Resiliency of Black Women
“Like most Black women, I would say that the women in my family are complicated,” says one of the characters featured in “In Our Mothers’ Gardens.” Set to premiere May 6...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Caitlin Durlak – “Dropstones”
Caitlin Durlak is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker whose non-fiction work has spanned media such as web series, short film, feature film, and VR storytelling. Her short film “Persistence of...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Ngo – “Faceless”
Jennifer Ngo is an award-winning journalist who believes that true stories will always matter. For over five years, she wrote for the South China Morning Post, where her reporting earned her a Human...
Hot Docs 2021 Preview: Rockers Reuniting, a Trailblazing Political Candidate, the Opioid Crisis, & More
North America’s largest documentary festival kicks off today. Featuring 219 films from 66 countries, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival runs through May 9. The...
Exclusive: Mental Health & the Criminal Justice System Collide in Trailer for Hot Docs’ “Any Given Day”
“When half the mental health clinics in Chicago closed, the jail population exploded,” director Margaret Byrne informs us in an exclusive trailer for “Any Given Day,” her...
Trailer Watch: Mariem Pérez Riera Pays Tribute to Rita Moreno in “Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It”
Rita Moreno and some of her biggest — and most famous — fans reflect on her legacy in “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.” Mariem Pérez Riera’s Sundance...
Losing and Finding Yourself: Crowdfunding Picks
Sometimes, to learn who you are, you have to lose something. This can be a painful process or a joyful one, depending on what you have lost. The important thing is that, through this process, you...
Hannah Berryman’s “Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm” Acquired by Abramorama
The star-studded story of the first residential recording studio is coming to home cinema May 14. Abramorama has secured U.S. distribution rights to “Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm”...
“144” Doc About WNBA’s 2020 Season in COVID-19 Bubble Gets ESPN Premiere Date
ESPN Films is offering an all-access look into a WNBA season like no other. “144” takes viewers inside the bubble of the 2020 season, which saw the league creating a single site at the...
Sabrina Van Tassel’s “The State of Texas vs. Melissa” Acquired by Hulu
Sabrina Van Tassel’s portrait of the first Hispanic woman on death row is now streaming on Hulu. Variety confirms the platform picked up U.S. streaming rights to “The State of Texas vs....
Parker Hill & Isabel Bethencourt’s Coming-of-Age Doc “Cusp” Lands at Showtime Documentary Films
Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s intimate portrait of three teenage girls living in rural Texas has found a home. Showtime Documentary Films acquired worldwide rights to “Cusp,”...
Serena Williams Sets Docuseries as First Project Under Amazon TV Deal
Serena Williams is heading to Amazon Studios. The tennis superstar has inked a first-look television deal with the company, which will see her developing scripted and unscripted projects, Variety...
Maya Sarfaty’s Holocaust Doc “Love It Was Not” Lands at Greenwich Entertainment
Maya Sarfaty’s award-winning documentary about the romance between an Auschwitz prisoner and a Nazi will be released in North America this fall. Deadline confirms “Love It Was Not” has...
Tamara Mariam Dawit’s “Finding Sally” Will Air as Part of WORLD Channel’s “AfroPoP” Series
Tamara Mariam Dawit’s investigation into a family mystery is headed to WORLD Channel. A press release has announced “Finding Sally” will debut on WORLD Channel as part of its...
Trailer Watch: “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” Pays Tribute to the Groundbreaking Show
Marilyn Agrelo is taking us back to “Sunny Days” spent with Elmo, Bert, and Big Bird. The “Mad Hot Ballroom” director’s latest offering, “Street Gang: How We Got...
“No Ordinary Man” and “Les Nôtres” Acquired by Oscilloscope
Oscilloscope Laboratories has secured U.S. rights to Aisling Chin-Yee’s and Chase Joynt’s “No Ordinary Man,” a documentary about a misunderstood transmasculine trailblazer,...