CURRENT NEWS

Actor takes role that imitates real-life immigration struggles

Actor Ezekiel Pacheco takes on a role that resembles some of the immigration struggles he faces in real life. ABC’s Armando Garcia sits with him to discuss his first lead role in “At The Gates.”

February 9, 2024

Picturehouse Sets Spring Release For Documentary ‘Carol Doda Topless At The Condor’

By Anthony D’Alessandro

January 26, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: Picturehouse will release the documentary, Carol Doda Topless at the Condor, exclusively in theaters on March 22 in New York and San Francisco, followed by a March 29 debut in LA, with a further breakout to 40-plus markets.

The doc, from San Francisco filmmakers Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker, premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival. The nonfiction feature follows a daring young woman who fired one of the first shots in the sexual revolution of the 1960s and became an international sex symbol and a San Francisco tourist attraction second only to the Golden Gate Bridge. Doda went from cocktail waitress to international icon and defender of sexual freedom. Pic was produced by Metallica co-founder and drummer Lars Ulrich. 

The docu is based in part on Three Nights at the Condor, a memoir by Benita Mattioli, the wife of Condor co-owner Pete Mattioli. Carol Doda Topless at the Condor brings together a compelling array of Doda’s contemporaries, including dancers, club owners, bartenders and others, who share their first-hand experiences. The film also features interviews with academics who have studied Doda’s role in redefining attitudes toward female nudity, as well as candid interviews with Doda herself.   

Carol Doda is a provocative story and a nostalgic love letter to San Francisco in the ’60s,” says Bob Berney, CEO of Picturehouse. “Marlo and Jonathan take the audience back to the days before the Summer of Love and the sexual revolution, using amazing archival footage of the city that essentially makes it another character in the film. We are pleased to once again collaborate with Lars Ulrich, after previously releasing Metallica’s groundbreaking film THROUGH THE NEVER.”

“I was drawn to Carol Doda’s story because of her courage,” says co-director McKenzie. “She was a trailblazing entrepreneur who took risks to achieve her dreams. There were consequences for her choices, and she faced them with charm and humor. Carol helped move culture towards accepting nudity as a part of the human experience that can be embraced and delighted in.”

Co-director Parker adds: “I knew Carol personally. She was such an important part of San Francisco’s cultural history, which had an impact on the whole country. I wanted to make sure her story was told. At a time when there weren’t a lot of options for women, Carol created a career for herself that resonated on many levels.  She had charisma.  She had courage. And I believe she loved what she did.”

Industry execs offer insight on the film industry, future of Sundance

By Rick Brough, 
David D’Arcy

February 9, 2024

Industry executives John Sloss, Bob Berney, and Richard Lorber discuss the state of the film industry and how it has changed with regards to buying and selling at festivals. They also talk about the films they are most excited about for this year’s Sundance, then give their thoughts on the future of the festival.

Christopher Nolan Charms Sundance, Denies Being “Independent Filmmaker” and Recalls How “No One Wanted” Seminal Film ‘Memento’

By Chris Gardner

January 19, 2024

For some artists, the duties and demands of awards attention can be a lifelong dream come true. For others, it’s a slog. Or worse. Christopher Nolan may fall in the latter category, based on what his Oppenheimer star Robert Downey Jr. said from the stage on Thursday night in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival’s opening night gala.

“During this wildly social season, in the wake of resounding global reaction to the Oppenheimer phenomenon, Chris and I shared a vulnerable moment of existential query. He placed his hand on my shoulder, got a little misty and whispered, ‘I’m beginning to wonder, is it possible: Death by schmoozing?’ Adulation, congratulations, celebration, being thanked and honored is as desirable to him as being tarred, feathered and pilloried.”

If that’s true, Nolan didn’t show it nor did he flinch during his time inside the DeJoria Center in nearby Kamas, Utah, where he was honored with an inaugural Sundance Institute Trailblazer Award. In fact, he held the capacity crowd in the palm of his hand while delivering the night’s longest speech, clocking in at more than 10 minutes. It was bookended with an anecdote about a call with Comcast boss Brian Roberts over the fate of Oppenheimer and mixed in with an intellectual examination of what it truly means to be an independent filmmaker.

Of the latter subject, Nolan asked, “Was I ever an independent filmmaker?” He thinks not. “I’ve never been an independent filmmaker because I don’t think you can be. I think painters are independent. I think poets can be independent. As filmmakers, we’re so dependent on other people.”

He used Memento as a prime example. “A lot of people know that Memento came to Sundance. A lot of people know that it was a hit, and it enabled so much more that came after it for us. But not a lot of people know that what really happened with that film is we finished it and then somebody, not me, had the bright idea of screening for all of the independent distributors at the same time to try and sell the film, get a bidding war going or whatever. And they all passed,” he said of the 2000 film starring Guy Pearce as an amnesia-rattled man attempting to find his wife’s killer. “No one wanted the film. In the year or so after that, we were in terrible limbo, we never knew whether anyone would ever see this film.”

Nolan then detailed the heroes of the story, citing Aaron Ryder and Bob Berney among them as champions of his vision, who helped set up a new distribution avenue for it through Newmarket Films. He credited Berney with suggesting they bring the film to Sundance, and used the anecdote to credit festivals for offering filmmakers the chance to merge with moviegoers.

“If you can get your film here, it’ll fill the seats and you’ll connect with an audience. They won’t always see eye to eye with you or whatever, but you’ll be experiencing that pride of ownership. If that little fire that you already had in you that could get you to the festival gets fanned, the flame grows bigger. You carry that when you climb down the mountain, then you go and become part of a cog in a much bigger machine.”

Speaking of, Nolan eventually circled back to that phone call he and Emma Thomas had with Roberts, “waiting for the head of Comcast to get on the line.” He wasn’t optimistic about the conversation because they were thinking, “We’ve just sold his studio, a three-hour film about quantum physics and the apocalypse, and it’s R rated. I don’t know, maybe somebody finally figured out what we’d done or whatever.”

But to his surprise, Roberts hopped on the call and “said something that was completely shocking.” The Comcast chief told Nolan that he and his father were skiing in Deer Valley in 2001, and on a whim decided to check out a film at the Sundance Film Festival by an unknown director. Yep, it was Memento.

“In that moment I could hear Emma’s relief on the other end of the phone, and in my relief, a couple of things occurred to us. One, we’re probably going to be OK, this is going to work out. He liked the film just as he did in his day. But also, I mean, it’s a quarter of a century later and I’m still being fucking discovered by Sundance. What point do I get to move on? But all of that was by way of saying that the experience you have here as a filmmaker is unique in all the world and carry it with you through your whole career. I could not be more grateful for the experience that I had here 23 years ago and for getting this award tonight. It means the world to me.”

Downey, an awards season standout who seems to be enjoying his Oppenheimer run and the swirl of events, brought the comic relief tonight as he’s known to do. About Nolan, he said, “Confidentially, he needs his spirits lifted. He’s a bit blue because a terrible tragedy has befallen him, and I don’t need to bring this up, Emma, I know it’s very personal. He has become recognizable on the street, and he recoils as though from a hot flame from this new and most unwelcome reality.”

It’s not necessarily a surprise, especially here in Park City, where he’s heralded as a hero. Downey noted that 23 years ago, Nolan with his brother Jonah, took home the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Memento from the festival. And he went on to deliver such films as Insomnia, The Dark Knight trilogy, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet. Downey also praised Nolan’s work on Oppenheimer by calling it “basically Hollywood backwards” with “nary a drop of creative compromise, ahead of schedule, under budget.” (It’s also cleaned up during awards season, even receiving a new round of BAFTA nominations earlier today.)

Much is made of Nolan’s on-set rules, and Downey called it “a monastic and devotional energy,” with the closest comparison being “a hundred people making a watch. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Downey also paid tribute to Emma Thomas, Nolan’s longtime producing partner and wife, who “energetically, somehow both apologizes for and reinforces the necessity of every creative decision and the level of respect they give and require is frankly astonishing.” He continued: “Because they lead from the front, you faithfully follow, and because she blocks for him, he’s free to be as independent a voice as has ever existed in cinema, while telling stories that remind us of the interdependency of the human experience.”

The gala’s other big experiences came courtesy of Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song who received a Vanguard Award for fiction presented by Acura and her producer Christine Vachon of Killer Films; Maite Alberdi taking home a Vanguard Award for nonfiction presented by Acura and presenter Jodie Foster; and Sundance Institute board member Pat Mitchell earning a Vanguard Award for philanthropy (and two standing ovations) from Mary Robinson, first female president of Ireland.

Among those in attendance were Darren Aronofsky, Jason Blum, Jennifer Grey, Rory Kennedy, Roger Ross Williams, Danny Ramirez, Ondi Timoner, Lío Mehiel and others. Amy Redford read a special message written by her father, Sundance chief Robert Redford, who offered apologies for missing the festivities and praise for his longtime friend Mitchell.

“Simply put, Pat is a force for good, a catalyst for positive change, somebody who has dedicated her time, her expertise, and her energy to making a difference by using the power of media and storytelling to shine a light on the people and the issues and the challenges of our time.”

Then there was Kristen Stewart who was honored by actor pal Jesse Eisenberg with a Visionary Award. She said the trophy arrived at the perfect moment (“It is so well-timed. I need this”) as she’s trying to get a new movie off the ground while here celebrating the debut of two new ones, Love Me and Love Lies Bleeding. “Thank you for lighting a fire under my ass and letting me know my whole life implicitly and explicitly that it is possible. Sundance is the fucking shit. I love being here.”

NatGeo’s ‘The Territory’, About Indigenous Brazilian Group’s Daring Fight To Protect Their Land, Wins Emmy For Exceptional Merit

By Matthew Carey

January 7, 2024

The makers of National Geographic’s The Territory are celebrating their win at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, one of the most prestigious awards in nonfiction.

The prize, voted on by a special jury, was shared by director-producer Alex Pritz, producers Darren Aronofsky, Sigrid Dyekjær, Will N. Miller, Gabriel Uchida, and Lizzie Gillett, and executive producer Txai Suruí. Their film centers on the Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people, who face constant assault as they try to protect their territory within Brazil’s Amazon rainforest from invasion by outsiders. As Deadline previously wrote about the film, those invaders are “engaged in burning down great swaths of the rainforest for mining, logging, clearing land for cattle and homesteading.”

The film also underscores what’s at stake with each acre of Brazilian rainforest that goes up in smoke — it is the ecological health of the Earth that hangs in the balance.

“To receive the recognition of our peers, alongside such an incredible group of nominees, is an unbelievable honor,” Pritz told Deadline after his Emmy win. “We share this award with communities around the world who are standing up in defense of our planet’s continued habitability and fighting for a better future.”

Among those who attended the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony Sunday night were Neidinha Bandeira, a defender of the Uru-eu-wau-wau who is one of the main characters in the documentary. She previously told Deadline, “The Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous territory is important for the whole planet, because of its nature and biodiversity and because it’s fighting climate change.”

Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau, an emerging leader of his Indigenous group, also attended the Emmy ceremony. He participated in the film and has taken an active role teaching his people how to shoot and edit video so that they can be better represented in media narratives about their land.

In an interview with Deadline last year, Bitaté said of The Territory, “It brings to the forefront the fight of my people. It displays for the world the situation we live in. We know that the challenge that we face — that we have always faced in our territory — is being represented now to the world beyond Brazil. People are talking about it. I feel very good about that.” He added, “We are also calling on the government of Brazil to protect all of our regions and our communities. We need help not only here in my community, but throughout all of our Indigenous territories.”

The Territory features exceptional photography, both aerials allowing viewers to see how much of the rainforest is being chewed up, and the life that exists under the remaining canopy, down to the almost imperceptible movements of insects.

“I really wanted visually to be able to move between the big and the small, because this story is about the climate and about the planet and these really huge forces, the rise of populist authoritarianism and these huge themes — manifest destiny,” Pritz told Deadline previously. “But it’s also about the individual characters… and we wanted to make a film that was able to move between the macro level forces and the micro level people and regional conflicts that encapsulates it. Trying to build a visual language where we can move between satellite imagery of the continent where you see, over 30 years, how many trees have been lost and what this really looks like and then go all the way down to like one caterpillar and really just focus on that.”

Fellow nominees in the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking category included Last Flight Home, directed and produced by Ondi Timoner and produced by David Turner; The Accused: Damned Or Devoted?, directed and produced by Mohammed Ali Naqvi, and Aftershock, directed and produced by Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee.

According to the TV Academy, the purpose of the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking Award “is to both honor and encourage profound social impact, significant innovation of form, and remarkable mastery of filmmaking technique.” As the TV Academy’s rules note, “All applicants for candidacy in this juried award [are] required to submit a written statement that expresses the program’s qualifications as a Documentary Film with Exceptional Merit.”

Picturehouse Sets Fall Release For ‘At The Gates’

By Anthony D’Alessandro October 4, 2023

Augustus Meleo Bernstein’s new movie At the Gates is getting a November 3 theatrical release date in New York and Los Angeles from Picturehouse.

The Beacon Pictures and Five Towers production stars Miranda Otto, Noah Wyle, Ezekiel Pacheco, Vanessa Benavente and Sadie Stanley. Bernstein wrote and directed in his feature debut.

In the movie, Ana (Benavente), a housekeeper from El Salvador, brings her teenage son Nico (Pacheco) to help her clean an affluent family’s Los Angeles home. But after being told by her employers Marianne (Otto) and Peter Barris (Wyle) that immigration officers are searching for her, she accepts the invitation to shelter in their house until the crisis blows over. As days go by and the interactions between the two families become increasingly tense, Nico begins to question their hosts’ true intentions.

The pic’s theatrical rollout follows several festival stops including New York Latino Film Festival, where it won the Best U.S. Narrative Prize, the Woodstock Film Festival, and SCAD Savannah Film Festival.

At the Gates is a gripping combination of noir and political commentary that creates a tense and emotional ride,” says Bob Berney, CEO of Picturehouse. “Set in what could be the not-too-distant future, the film asks how far you would go to protect your family.”

Bernstein also produced along with Jhanvi Motla and Paulo Torre. The film’s cinematographer is Alan Torres, and Julia Newman composed the score. Executive producers are Colleen Camp, Berney, Armyan Bernstein and Rodrigo Garcia.

“I believe in the power of film to make social change,” Augustus Meleo Bernstein said. “I have tried to make a film with a lot of heart that is also a thrilling, captivating experience.”

Read the article on deadline.com.

"PAN’S LABYRINTH, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, Y TU MAMA TAMBIAN, BRIGHT STAR are four of The Hollywood Reporter's critic picks for the best 50 films of the 21st Century (so far)."

By Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden, Lovia Gyarkye, Leslie Felperin, Jordan Mintzer

April 6, 2023

Why now? Why not?

Sure, we’ve yet to hit the quarter-century mark, when these sorts of lists tend to start landing. But we’ve arguably already lived through 100 years’ worth of upheaval, progress, pain, destruction, hope and heartache in the world — not to mention the film industry — since 2000. We thought it as good a time as any to look back at the films that have, to us, stood the ever-unfolding test of time.

In the spirit of transparency, our methodology went something like this: We all offered up titles we thought were worthy of consideration (an initial list of well over 100 movies). Everyone voted “yea” or “nay” on each of those titles. The films with the most yeas — about 80 — advanced to the next round. Everyone scored each title from 0 to 3. We tallied up the points, and then hashed it out from there. Countless emails and a few long Zoom meetings later, we had our list.

Our only parameters: All six of us had to love, like or at least respect every film on the list. And we did not consider anything from 2022; it just felt too soon (translation: after the forever-long awards season, we needed a breather from talking about TárEverything Everywhere All at Once and the rest of ’em).

Picking the movies we love the most, while being mindful of variety and inclusivity, significance and staying power, was difficult (we know: world’s smallest violin). We wanted our list to reflect the breadth of world cinema and of our tastes, but we also didn’t want to placate or pander or allow fear of Film Twitter or Outrage Twitter (or any Twitter) to weigh on our process.

That doesn’t mean we weren’t plagued by doubts along the way. What are we missing? Who are we leaving out?  Why this movie and not that one? We know certain omissions and selections are bound to incite eye rolls, grumbles and maybe a shriek or two.

But we tried to stay true to our love of movies, these movies, and others that didn’t make the cut. (Remember, it’s only 50!) The final list is a reflection of that love, but also of a system that favors certain stories and storytellers at the expense of others. If the list is not a model of representational balance, call us out — we can take it — but also continue to call out an industry that hasn’t given us a more diverse landscape of voices to love, hate and argue over.

The most conspicuous, surprising (including to us) and, surely to some readers, infuriating, thing about our list is how many masters are missing. After all our deliberating, point tallying, reconsidering, revoting, retallying and re-deliberating, none of the following directors cracked the top 50 films or 15 honorable mentions: Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Spike Lee, Gus Van Sant, Jean-Luc Godard, David Cronenberg, Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Alexander Payne, Jim Jarmusch, James Gray, Jia Zhangke, Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Asghar Farhadi, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Ditto polarizing though prolific auteurs like Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Lars von Trier.

This wasn’t the result of any kind of “out with the old, in with the new” intention. In some cases — Scorsese, Spike, Godard — we felt their best work was pre-21st century. In Spielberg’s case, there were several films that had love (including Minority Report and West Side Story), but none that united all six of us in full-throated enthusiasm. In other cases, as in Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, Malick’s The New World and The Tree of Life, and Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, there were ardent supporters but also just-as-ardent detractors.

In other words, we didn’t reverse-engineer the list by starting with great directors and pulling from their filmographies; we allowed the titles to emerge organically, via memory and good old-fashioned brainstorming. (Five directors — or six if you count the Coens separately — ended up with two films apiece on the list: Jane Campion, Joel and Ethan Coen, Alfonso Cuarón, David Fincher and Richard Linklater. For more stats and specifics about the results, read this breakdown.)

Straight-up studio comedy, action, sci-fi and horror are largely, though not entirely, absent from our final selections (cue the cries of film-critic elitism). We love those genres, we swear! Movies like BoratThe 40-Year-Old VirginCollateralThe Bourne UltimatumMaster and Commander and, yes, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy were all in contention at one point or another. But the scarcity of this type of entertainment on our list reflects what we see as a certain creative impoverishment in those genres over the past few decades. The lack of risk-taking in mainstream filmmaking, the sameness and safeness of so much of that “product,” results in few of those movies lingering in the mind for longer than their runtimes.

We could go on and on about the shortcomings of our work here — not enough animation! — but that’s what we count on you for! Without further ado, here are what we consider the 50 best films of the 21st century so far.

(Read the list on hollywoodreporter.com)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding's Slow Rollout Strategy Worked Like A Charm

By Deepayan Sengupta
May 11, 2023

To commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the hit romantic comedy “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” The Ringer did an oral history of the film. Part of the conversation revolved around the movie’s distribution strategy, noting that the slow rollout was a deliberate choice that reaped dividends.

One of the reasons was to ensure the film didn’t get lost in wide release amidst blockbuster juggernauts such as Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man.” However, Bob Berney, who was the head of distribution for IFC at the time, also had another reason for the strategy. In an early screening, he witnessed a member of the audience fall out of her seat in laughter, leading to her breaking her hip and needing medical attention.

Berney decided that was the atmosphere in which the movie would best thrive, and aimed for small screenings that had a much better chance of selling out, leading to a communal experience where the laughter would spread throughout the audience.

“We all together made a conscious decision to keep it special, keep it limited, keep it sold out,” Berney said. “We always felt like if we expanded, it may have done well, but it could have just easily fallen off before it became so widely known.” The film’s distribution peaked at around 1,000 screens, far lower than big-budget films would get. The film’s limited release helped boost its popularity to the point that IFC ran out of film prints and had to tell theater owners to call back the next week for more copies.

The rollout strategy allowed “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” to be a success where other movies would have faltered. A key indicator of the film’s success was that it continued making money in theaters even after it had been sold to airlines to be shown as an in-flight movie. It ultimately made over $240 million domestically.

Jonathan Sehring, who was the president of IFC Films at the time that “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” was released, told The Ringer that it’s unlikely that the film’s theatrical success would be replicated in today’s streaming environment. Streaming services, he noticed, allow for a guaranteed immediate profit, which is less risky than taking the movie to theaters.

Bob Berney noted that the extended theatrical release of the film is also unlikely in the modern distribution environment. He noted that “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” would not have had the opportunity to grow gradually today, as the box office returns from the first two weekends are the markers of success and the present climate does not give movies a chance to grow and find their audience.

Berney said that the quick turnaround from a theatrical release to a streaming or VOD release would also have hindered the cult classic, especially with studios who use the films to market their own streaming services. The mix of these factors makes it unlikely that a film could find success today the way “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” did.

Read article on looper.com.

National Geographic Dominates PGA Award Documentary Film Nominees With ‘Fire of Love,‘ ’Retrograde‘ and ’The Territory’

By Clayton Davis
Dec. 12, 2022

National Geographic Films dominated the 2023 Documentary Motion Picture nominees for the upcoming 34th Producers Guild Awards. The studio landed three of the seven spots with “Fire of Love” from Sara Dosa, “Retrograde” from Matthew Heineman and “The Territory” from Alex Pritz.

In addition to the Nat Geo trio, other nominees included HBO’s “All That Breathes,” Netflix’s “Descendant,” CNN and Warner Bros’ “Navalny” and Showtime’s “Nothing Compares.” All seven are in the discussion for Oscar recognition this year.

The Producers Guild Awards honors excellence in motion picture and television productions, as well as the most notable names in the industry who are shaping the producing profession.

PGA nominees for docs haven’t had the best track record of translating to Oscar attention, which differs from the narrative feature category. However, it strongly correlates to appearing on the Oscar doc shortlist of 15 films, which began voting today. Last year, seven of the eight PGA nominees made it to the shortlist, and four were ultimately nominated by the Academy — “Ascension,” “Flee,” “Writing with Fire” and winner “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).”

When it comes to winners, in the last decade, four PGA winners became Oscar winners — “Searching for Sugar Man” (2012) “Amy” (2015), “O.J.: Made in America” (2016), “My Octopus Teacher” (2020) and the aforementioned “Summer of Soul.”

The nominees for sports, children’s and short form television programs will be announced on Friday, Dec. 16. For the theatrical motion pictures, animated features, television series and specials and televised/streamed motion pictures, they will be revealed on Thursday, Jan. 12. The winners will be announced on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023.

The Producers Guild of America represents over 8,500 producers. It is a non-profit trade organization that represents, protects, and promotes the interests of all producing team members in film, television and new media.

The full list of nominees is below; all are being vetted for individual producer eligibility.

  • “All That Breathes” (HBO)
  • “Descendant” (Netflix)
  • “Fire of Love” (National Geographic Documentary/Neon)
  • “Navalny” (CNN/Warner Bros.)
  • “Nothing Compares” (Showtime)
  • “Retrograde” (National Geographic)
  • “The Territory” (National Geographic)

Read the current nominees for best documentary feature on Variety Awards Circuit. Make sure to bookmark the 2022-2023 Awards Season calendar for all key dates and timelines for the season.

National Geographic & Picturehouse Drops ‘Retrograde’ Trailer, Announces “Unprecedented” Release Plan For Matthew Heineman’s Afghanistan Withdrawal Documentary

By Matthew Carey
Nov. 7, 2022

EXCLUSIVE: We have your first look at Matthew Heineman’s gripping new film Retrograde from National Geographic Documentary Films, a visceral, ground-level immersion into the last nine months of America’s long war in Afghanistan.

In addition to releasing the trailer today, National Geographic also announced what it called a “robust” release plan for the documentary, including theatrical, broadcast and streaming: Picturehouse will premiere Retrograde in theaters this Friday in New York and Washington D.C., followed a week later by Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Colorado Springs, Colo., and Dallas. The documentary will premiere on National Geographic Channel on Thursday, December 8, then becomes available to stream on Disney+ the next day in the U.S. only (with a broader international rollout to come). The film debuts on Hulu on Sunday, December 11.

Heineman, winner of multiple Emmys, two DGA Awards and an Oscar nominee for 2015’s Cartel Land, gained extraordinary access to a unit of U.S. Army Special Forces – better known as the Green Berets – for Retrograde, as they fought alongside Afghan National Army forces in Helmand Province.

“It took years, really, to get permission both within the Green Beret community and ultimately at the highest levels of [U.S.] government and military to get permission to embed,” Heineman told Deadline. “It was the longest embed that they’d ever granted anybody in the Special Forces community.”

After President Biden announced in April 2021 that he was ordering the withdrawal of the last remaining U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan, Heineman remained behind with Afghan National Army troops and their commander, the dynamic Gen. Sami Sadat. The director documented the emotion of Green Berets as they were forced to tell their Afghan Army counterparts that their long partnership was over.

“Like most of the films I’ve made,” the director observed, “they start out as one thing and they end up as something completely different.”

A release about the film noted, “Retrograde captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives: one of the last U.S. special operations forces units deployed there, a young Afghan general and his corps fighting to defend their homeland against all odds, the civilians desperately attempting to flee as the country collapses, and the Taliban take over. From rarely seen operational control rooms to the frontlines of battle and the chaotic Kabul airport during the final U.S. withdrawal, Heineman’s latest film offers a cinematic and historic window onto the end of America’s longest war and the costs endured for those most intimately involved.”

As the Taliban gobbled up territory after the U.S. exit, Heineman and his co-cinematographers Timothy Grucza and Olivier Sarbil filmed Gen. Sadat and his troops trying to hold the line against the surging Taliban. As Taliban fighters bore down on the capital, the filmmaking team captured the human drama at the airport in Kabul as Afghan civilians desperate to evacuate pleaded for a seat aboard the last U.S. military transport planes leaving the country.

“There’s a thousand reasons why the Afghan Army lost to the Taliban. And this film is not an examination of that,” Heineman said. “This film is not an attempt to figure out the how and the why and the who. This film is an attempt to humanize this experience.”

Retrograde is an unflinching and masterful document of the complications and consequences of war,” commented Carolyn Bernstein, executive vice president of scripted and documentary films for National Geographic. “We are thrilled to give this important film an unprecedented release plan ― in theaters, on National Geographic Channel and streaming on both Disney+ and Hulu ― in order to reach the widest audience possible.”

The documentary premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September and was recently named to DOC NYC’s shortlist of the year’s best feature docs. Last month, it earned a nomination for Best Political Documentary at the 2022 Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.

Retrograde is an Our Time Projects production directed by Heineman and produced by Caitlin McNally and Heineman. Executive producers are Carolyn Bernstein, Baktash Ahadi, David Fialkow and Joedan Okun; the film is edited by Pablo Garza, Heineman and Grace Zahrah, with cinematography as noted above by Grucza, Heineman and Sarbil. Music is by H. Scott Salinas.

'The Territory' Review: Saving The Amazon, One Camera At A Time

By Claire Shaffer
August 18, 2022

“Save the rainforest” has been a constant refrain among environmentalist groups for the past half-century, but no recent film captures the immediacy of the threat better than “The Territory,” Alex Pritz’s documentary feature debut, which had its premiere earlier this year at Sundance.

National Geographic Documentary Films acquired the rights to the movie after it screened, and given the distributor’s current interest in gripping thrillers (“Free Solo,” “Fire of Love”), it’s no surprise that this feature, covering the embittered conflict between Brazilian cattle ranchers and an Indigenous group in the Amazon rainforest, fits right into its lineup. But “The Territory” is more than meets the eye, revealing its most profound observations in stages across its running time. The film’s luscious cinematography captures the sun-dappled island of jungle where the Uru Eu Wau Wau reside, a land slowly being consumed by flames as farmers and other settlers illegally raze the forest for pastures, with few repercussions.

While the two opposing groups are given near-equal amounts of screen time, Pritz does not draw a false equivalency between the two; in fact, the longer time is spent with the farmers, the more alarming their gap of understanding toward the Uru Eu Wau Wau becomes. A particularly zealous cattle rancher, whom Pritz repeatedly returns to, describes his settlement as a divine right and bemoans the Indigenous group’s defense of their territory: “Why should they be allowed to stay? They do not work the land, they just live in it.”

Pritz heightens the stakes with the story of Neidinha Bandeira, a Brazilian environmental activist who has received death threats because of her work. But it’s only after the Uru Eu Wau Wau choose to trek deeper into their land — a decision brought on by both a violent tragedy and the looming threat of the Covid-19 pandemic — that the film takes on a life of its own. Bitaté, a young leader for his people, works with other Uru Eu Wau Wau members to set up drones and additional cameras to document illegal settlers in their home. (When a journalist requests to send cameramen into the jungle to follow their guerrilla activism, Bitaté responds, “Send us the shot list — we’ve got it covered from here.”) Cinematography credit is shared between Pritz and Tangãi Uru Eu Wau Wau.

To see the villagers take matters into their own hands, capturing proof of the encroachment on their land that the government chooses to ignore, is a special kind of thrill.

20 Years Married: How ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ Became a Smash Hit

By Alison Herman
Read at theringer.com

IFC Films

On the long list of movies that don’t get made anymore, the romantic comedy is typically at the top. In technical terms, this isn’t strictly true; as the mid-budget film has been driven out of the multiplex to free space for blockbusters and IP, it’s found a foothold on streaming services eager for couch-friendly content. The Netflix rom-com is practically a category unto itself, delivering standbys like Set It Up, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and Always Be My Maybe. This past Valentine’s Day, viewers had their pick between I Want You Back, on Amazon Prime Video, and Marry Me, the Jennifer Lopez vehicle that paired its theatrical run with a day-and-date release on Peacock.

But even as the romantic comedy survives, it’s dwindled from its peak. That heyday is typically associated with established celebrities like Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock and the star vehicles built on their proven appeal. (Today, Bullock’s The Lost City is a charming throwback; in 1998, it’d be just another week at the box office.) Yet the most financially successful rom-com of all time—the film that draws the greatest contrast between the genre’s past as a cultural juggernaut and its present as a sweet diversion—didn’t have a single star in its cast. It wasn’t produced by a major studio. It never even hit no. 1 at the box office, despite spending five months playing in wide release. At the time, the stupendous success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding was extraordinary. Today, it’s practically unthinkable.

Written by and starring then-unknown actress Nia Vardalos, My Big Fat Greek Wedding isn’t structured like a typical rom-com, in part because it wasn’t conceived as one. The plot may hinge on the nuptials between Toula (Vardalos), a Greek American waitress, and Ian (John Corbett), the mild-mannered teacher she meets at work. But the relationship that truly drives the story is between Toula and her loud, overbearing, tightly knit family. Throughout the movie, Ian and Toula stay on largely solid ground. It’s Toula’s ambivalence toward her relatives that changes, helped along by a few squirts of Windex. “The story was to be told through Ian and Toula’s eyes, but it was about the family—the smothering, ever-suffocating, loving family,” Vardalos tells The Ringer. Because the conflict was largely internal, she felt free to cut down on more conventional, external sources of strife. “I wanted very, very much to not follow the standard romantic comedy formula of ‘he cheats on the girl and wins her back,’” she explains. “I didn’t want them to break up, because the only villain in the screenplay was the world against Ian and Toula.” Structural quirks aside, My Big Fat Greek Wedding nonetheless became the high-water mark for the romantic comedy as a commercial force, eventually grossing more than $350 million worldwide on a $5 million budget. The film’s triumph wasn’t entirely commercial; Vardalos received an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay alongside such luminaries as Todd Haynes, Alfonso Cuarón, and eventual winner Pedro Almodóvar. Greek Wedding would ultimately yield a short-lived sitcom on CBS, which fizzled after just seven episodes, and a sequel in 2016, to modest success. (The premiere was sponsored by Windex.) The extended afterlife wasn’t what anyone anticipated when My Big Fat Greek Wedding first hit theaters, 20 years ago today. “I never, in a million years, thought the movie was going to do what it did,” says Jonathan Sehring, the former president of Greek Wedding distributor IFC Films. And in 2022, it probably wouldn’t. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is, in some ways, a timeless story about culture clash and immigrant solidarity. Its unlikely breakout as a bona fide phenomenon is also the product of a bygone era, one where word of mouth and the luxury of time could help a small, charming comedy beat out The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers to become America’s fifth highest-grossing film of 2002. It’s a fairy tale romance that became a fairy tale in itself.

Most accounts of My Big Fat Greek Wedding start with the one-woman show of the same name Vardalos staged in Los Angeles. But that origin story reverses the true order of events. The script for My Big Fat Greek Wedding isn’t based on the stage show; the show itself was adapted from a script Vardalos wrote after she was fired by her then-agent. “She said, ‘I’ve been sending you out like crazy. But the problem is—what are you, anyway?’ And I said, ‘I’m Greek,’” Vardalos recalls. “She said, ‘Well, that’s the problem. You’re not a visible minority … and there aren’t any Greek roles.’”

At the time, Vardalos—a Canadian expat who’d spent time performing with Chicago’s Second City—had been scraping by on voice-over work and occasional bit parts on shows like Boy Meets World and Curb Your Enthusiasm. In the absence of explicitly Greek stories, Vardalos strung together some of her own, borrowing a friend’s computer with Final Draft pre-installed and channeling the anecdotes she’d been telling at parties for years. Some of the details were changed: Two sisters were consolidated into one; the fictional family ran a restaurant; the setting switched from Winnipeg to Chicago. But some of the most memorable details from the movie are entirely true to life. It’s hard to make up a story as vivid as Aunt Voula’s lump that turned out to be her twin, though comic legend Andrea Martin puts her own stamp on the delivery.

Once Vardalos had the screenplay, she had to convince Hollywood’s gatekeepers it was worth producing. (Her manager at the time took three months to even read the script, Vardalos says.) It’s here where the one-woman show comes in. Vardalos rented out a 99-seat theater, hired a stage manager she knew from her Second City days, and promoted the show by handing out flyers at local Greek Orthodox churches. Looking to expand the audience, she scraped together $500 for a one-time-only ad in the Los Angeles Times. It happened to find exactly the right audience.

Rita Wilson, the actress and singer, is one of the most notable Greek Americans to break out in the entertainment industry. She’s also married to Tom Hanks, who had recently started his production outfit Playtone—named for the fictional record label in That Thing You Do!—with Gary Goetzman, the former child star who partly inspired the character Gary Valentine in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza. Wilson had recently caught some live theater in New York and was curious about the offerings on the West Coast. Then she spotted an ad in the L.A. Times that seemed right up her alley.

Based on Wilson’s raves, Hanks and Goetzman went to see Vardalos’s work for themselves and jumped at the chance to expand Playtone’s film slate beyond Hanks’s own starring roles. (The company’s first credited feature was 2000’s Cast Away.) Vardalos had other suitors prior to Playtone, but most wanted her to relinquish the lead role and change the characters to fit into a more recognizable immigrant community, like making the Portokalos clan a Hispanic family. “I was like, ‘Listen … J.Lo would be amazing. I will write something else for her. However, this is a Greek family,’” Vardalos recalls. Only Playtone had no problem with Vardalos channeling her firsthand experience—or casting herself as Toula.

“I never thought, ‘Oh, my God, they’re going to replace me with Julia Roberts’ in that meeting,” Vardalos says of her first formal sit-down with the Playtone crew. “But for every second outside that meeting, that’s what I thought.” Vardalos’s contract had a standard provision that said she could be replaced within the first three days of filming in case of gross incompetence. On day four, she shot a scene when Toula cries while trying to convince her father to let her go to night school downtown. Freshly secure in her dream job, Vardalos shed real tears.

At the time, Hanks had a years-long relationship with the premium cable channel HBO, collaborating on acclaimed miniseries like Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon, the 1998 space drama that Hanks led as a producer and director. To secure financing, Hanks and Goetzman turned to the actor’s serial patron. HBO wouldn’t typically contribute to movies it wasn’t airing itself. (“We didn’t do that shit,” executive Chris Albrecht memorably told journalist James Andrew Miller for Miller’s oral history of the network.) But Hanks was a special enough case for HBO to make an exception, ultimately underwriting about half of My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s budget.

Playtone’s other major producing partner would be Gold Circle Films, whose president Paul Brooks still calls Vardalos’s screenplay “one of the best scripts I’ve ever read.” IFC’s Sehring credits Brooks with pushing for My Big Fat Greek Wedding as a true theatrical experience, though Brooks says now it was a no-brainer: “We viewed it as a film that if we got lucky with it, could just reach families everywhere,” he says. As niche as a comedy hinged on Greek American in-jokes may seem, plenty of viewers can relate to the idea of an overbearing parent or the awkwardness of assimilation. “We thought it was just so relatable. Everybody, no matter where they come from, no matter what part of the world, sees themselves, and their families, in this movie.” My Big Fat Greek Wedding even opens with a textbook “lunch box moment,” a trope now so established it’s inspired entire critical essays. Just swap in moussaka for the traditional food of your choice.

“The joke is that Nia wrote My Big Fat Greek Wedding and I directed Fiddler on the Roof,” says director Joel Zwick. “Because that’s how I perceived it. I saw my family.” Zwick had largely worked in television prior to Greek Wedding, including the sitcom Bosom Buddies, Hanks’s breakout role opposite the late Peter Scolari. When Hanks sent him the script, Zwick found himself nodding along. “Even though it was about Greeks, it wasn’t very far from the Jewish people,” Zwick recalls. “I mean, my father didn’t do Windex, but [he] had this insane thing that everybody who was famous was Jewish”—just like Toula’s dad insists every word, including “kimono,” comes from Greek. By being specific, My Big Fat Greek Wedding ended up universal.

It’s one thing to make a good movie, and quite another to get people to see it. Were My Big Fat Greek Wedding made today, it’s easy to imagine it topping Netflix’s Top 10 for a week before the content churn gives way to some new flash in the pan. It’s less easy to see how it could go toe-to-toe with Star Wars or the MCU—though as it turns out, part of the distribution strategy was making sure the movie didn’t directly compete with behemoths like the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, which premiered just weeks after Greek Wedding first hit theaters.

The first time Bob Berney saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, he watched a woman literally fall out of her seat laughing and break her hip. The screening had to pause so she could get medical attention, but IFC’s then–head of distribution had seen enough. “We decided to start small and try to recreate that full house atmosphere in every way we could,” Berney says now. Most comedies may not feature explosions or stunts, but they can benefit just as much from the theatrical experience as any blockbuster—not that you’d know that from how few get brick-and-mortar releases these days.

At first, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was marketed like a supersized version of the one-woman show, with screenings held at Greek Orthodox churches and booths rented at Greek cultural fairs. The limited release focused on cities like Chicago with major Greek populations, and expanded gradually, to make sure showings were packed enough to achieve the communal, contagious laughter that first sold Berney on the project (minus the personal injury, of course). Most importantly, Playtone, Gold Circle, and IFC never let the movie get too big, keeping theaters packed and the scale modest. My Big Fat Greek Wedding eventually did big-budget numbers, but it was never truly competing for screens with epic studio fare.

“We all together made a conscious decision to keep it special, keep it limited, keep it sold out,” Berney explains. “Like, let’s not cave to the pressure of the exhibitors, or even ourselves, to get ahead of the skis just because it’s doing well. We always felt like if we expanded, it may have done well, but it could have just easily fallen off before it became so widely known.” My Big Fat Greek Wedding stayed on around 1,000 screens—not 1,500, or 2,000, or 3,000—for most of its run, which Berney considers crucial to its success. (By comparison, Warner Bros.’ latest franchise tentpole Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore just opened at more than 4,000 theaters nationwide.) The scarcity strategy worked; at one point, Sehring recalls, a staffer had to record a voicemail message for frantic theater owners explaining that IFC had no more prints on hand and to call back the next week.

As a result, Greek Wedding didn’t explode and fade away. It kept going, and going, and going, past anyone’s expectations for how long the frenzy would last. “On July 4 weekend, it crossed $20 million, and I was like, ‘We’re done. Okay, that’s it.’” Vardalos says. Sehring assumed the cutoff would be when the film was sold to the airlines, when the domestic box office total was already at a stupendous $100 million. Who would go see a movie in a theater when you could watch it at 10,000 feet? But Greek Wedding was still less than halfway to its eventual haul. At first, the audience skewed older, a demographic that isn’t prioritized by today’s young-oriented event movies. Only gradually did Greek Wedding break into the zeitgeist—though once it did, it stayed there for months.

Everyone involved with the film had a different “aha” moment when they realized how big the craze had gotten, or would become. For Vardalos, it was when Eugene Levy—Martin’s former costar from SCTV—gave her a co-sign after a preview at Montréal’s Just for Laughs. For Berney, it was when actor Michael Constantine, who died last year, threw the opening pitch at a Mets game and unveiled a bottle of Windex to thunderous applause. For Sehring, it was when he saw the movie on a plane and could feel the cabin physically shaking with laughter. Regardless of when it sunk in, the sheer scope still surprises, as does the longevity. During the pandemic lockdowns, Berney caught a drive-in screening on the roof of a parking garage. The jokes still landed, even in a car.

Sehring understands why most producers wouldn’t gamble on a theatrical release for a movie like Greek Wedding today, considering the viable alternatives. “If you’re a producer and somebody is covering your costs plus 20 percent, plus 50 percent—hey, that’s better odds than saying, ‘I’m going to take this movie out theatrically,’” he acknowledges. “That’s why the streaming model looks so attractive.” But he’s still a believer in the theatrical experience, which is why he recently helped work on the rollout of Drive My Car. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour drama is a very different movie from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but both help challenge the idea of what a rewarding theater experience can be.

Berney, who currently runs the entertainment company Picturehouse after a stint at Amazon, doubts the current landscape could support a slow burn like Greek Wedding’s. “Even with the traditional theatrical windows, it’s become blockbuster after blockbuster after blockbuster,” he says. “If anything, movies are just going to come in and out quicker than ever as the windows shorten and movies go to either (video on demand) or streaming faster than they ever did.” Companies with their own in-house streaming services to promote, like Disney and WarnerMedia, seized on the pandemic to shorten the window between a movie’s premiere and when it’s available at home. (After controversial, audacious experiments like WarnerMedia releasing its entire 2021 slate day-and-date on HBO Max, standard practice seems to be settling around 45 days, just half of the once-conventional 90-day window.) Meanwhile, what does get released in theaters is increasingly judged on its first weekend or two of returns, an instant gratification that’s the opposite of what made Greek Wedding such a smash.

Regardless of whether there will be more hits like My Big Fat Greek Wedding to come, the original still endures. Vardalos is well aware it’s still her calling card, even as she’s moved onto other projects. She’s currently working on a comedy serial for Audible about motivational speakers in Rochester, New York, though she still hopes to round Greek Wedding out into a trilogy. “I know a lot of people say, ‘I’m not that person,’ or ‘I want to do other things,’” Vardalos says. “But I am that person. I am Toula. I’m totally okay with it.” It’s a cliché to urge your audience to be themselves. But like all the best rom-coms, My Big Fat Greek Wedding embraces clichés fiercely enough to give them new life.

Arashi Pre-Hiatus Final Concert Film RECORD OF MEMORIES To Hit AMC Theatres For One Night Only From Picturehouse

Picturehouse

Picturehouse is set to release the pre-hiatus final concert film of the Japanese boyband pop sensation Arashi exclusively in AMC Theatres for one night only on March 22.

The Arashi Anniversary Tour 5×20 Film RECORD OF MEMORIES was released by Shochiku on Nov. 26, 2021, and grossed $39.5M, making it the highest grossing live-action film in Japan in 2021.

Arashi has consistently been a top performing act since their debut in 1999, and are composed of five members: Masaki Aiba, Jun Matsumoto, Kazunari Ninomiya, Satoshi Ohno and Sho Sakurai. In 2019, their compilation studio album 5×20 All the BEST!! 1999-2019 was named the best-selling album of the year worldwide, and most of their singles and albums have ranked as top sellers on the Oricon music charts.

In addition to music, the band are actors with Ninomiya having appeared in Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning film, LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

RECORD OF MEMORIES showcases the group’s 20th anniversary tour “5×20,” which was their last concert in front of a live audience prior to their current hiatus. The film was directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi (FIRST LOVE, 12 SUICIDAL TEENS) who also made the group’s debut film PIKA☆NCHI in 2002. Tsutsumi used over 100 cameras during the production. The tour itself, attended by 2.37M people, broke records for concert admission in Japan. A documentary about the group called, ARASHI’S DIARY-VOYAGE, following the trajectory of the group’s members in the two years leading up to their hiatus, is now available on Netflix in 28 languages and 190 countries.

The theatrical release of RECORD OF MEMORIES is being handled between Picturehouse and GAGA Corporation, the pic’s international sales agent.

Ed Harris & Amy Madigan To Star In SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND At Picturehouse

Ed Harris, Amy Madigan
AP

Husband and wife Ed Harris and Amy Madigan will star in SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND, a $4.5 million budgeted indie that will be produced by Picturehouse, John Boccardo’s Blind Faith Productions and Neil Koenigsberg. Lou Howe is directing from his adaptation of Dennis McFarland’s critically acclaimed 1995 novel.

Harris and Madigan have previously starred together in several features including GONE BABY GONE, PLACES IN THE HEART, ALAMO BAY, THE LAST FULL MEASURE, THE RULES DON’T APPLY, SWEETWATER, RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGA to name a few including the Harris-directed Oscar winning POLLOCK. Harris earned an Oscar nom for playing artist Jackson Pollock and Madigan co-starred as Peggy Guggenheim. The two are also starring in Harris’ THE PLOUGHMAN which he’s also directing and in pre-production on. Both Harris and Madigan have co-starred in theatre productions such as the world premiere of Beth Henley’s “The Jacksonian” in Los Angeles and New York; in the revival of Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer winner “Buried Child” in New York and London; and most recently, in the world premiere of David Rabe’s newest play “Good for Otto” in New York.

In SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND, Harris and Madigan play siblings with a dark past riddled with unresolved family issues. Harris is a world-weary war correspondent who returns to the small town of his youth to reunite with his sister, a librarian at the local school for blind children. Together they confront these issues as they strive to solve the cold case murder of a blind student who disappeared years before.

“It will be wonderful to see the magic Amy and Ed will bring to SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND,” Bob Berney, CEO of Picturehouse tells Deadline. “It’s a terrific gift for Lou to have these two actors portraying an estranged brother and sister in this exciting new drama.”

Come December, Harris will be seen co-starring in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE LOST DAUGHTER, which is winning rave reviews from its Venice and Telluride premieres. He is currently filming the fourth season of HBO’s “Westworld” in addition to prep on THE PLOUGHMEN, which also stars Robert Duvall. Madigan will next be seen in Scott Cooper’s thriller ANTLERS.

SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND will be Howe’s second feature film. The Harvard and AFI graduate wrote and directed the well-received GABRIEL, which earned its star Rory Culkin a Gotham Award nomination, as well as an Annenberg Fellowship from the Sundance Institute for Howe.

Koenigsberg, a founder of PMK PR and also a talent manager, was a producer on films A WALK ON THE MOON, AMERICAN HEART, THE GIVER and TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL. He originally optioned the novel and brought it to the attention of Berney and Boccardo.

Boccardo produced the recent documentary THE FABULOUS ALLAN CARR and was executive producer of WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?.

CAA Media Finance will arrange for the film’s financing and will rep the pic’s distribution rights.

Picturehouse is a Los Angeles based film marketing and distribution company led by CEO Bob Berney and COO Jeanne R. Berney. The company acquires, markets and distributes global content across all platforms. Originally formed in 2005 as a joint venture between Time Warner’s HBO Films and New Line Cinema, the Picturehouse brand has a long history of storied excellence.

BECOMING COUSTEAU: Film Review | Telluride 2021

Jacques Cousteau
National Geographic

In the opening minutes of Liz Garbus’ new documentary, famed explorer and filmmaker Jacques-Yves Cousteau is shown talking to a group of young children. As he patiently answers their questions about his work and life under the ocean, they gaze at him in rapt wonder. Filmgoers, especially those of a certain age who grew up devouring his iconic television series “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau”, will feel exactly the same way while watching BECOMING COUSTEAU, receiving its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.

Although his reputation has somewhat faded with time, it’s hard to overstate how revolutionary Cousteau’s film and television work was. Nowadays, you can’t channel surf for more than two minutes without encountering a beautifully photographed nature documentary. In 1956, however, when his Oscar- and Palme d’Or-winning feature doc THE SILENT WORLD (co-directed by Louis Malle) became an unlikely commercial hit, there were very few films utilizing underwater photography.

 Garbus’ documentary takes a deep dive (apologies for the pun) into Cousteau’s life and career, using copious amounts of archival video and audio footage, as well as excerpts from diary entries read by actor Vincent Cassel, to deliver an immersive, intimate biographical portrait. While clearly laudatory in detailing its subject’s impressive achievements, the film doesn’t shy away from addressing some problematic professional and personal aspects, including his early neglect of his parental responsibilities.

As a young man, Cousteau aspired to becoming a French Navy pilot, but his life changed when he was involved in a serious car accident at age 26 that left him with severe injuries. When he began swimming to help himself recuperate, he became fascinated by free diving and spearfishing. “It seemed like the act of a mythical demigod,” he says of the latter.

“I became an inventor by necessity,” Cousteau says. He created a waterproof housing for movie cameras so he could film underwater and co-invented a revolutionary breathing apparatus, the Aqua-Lung, in order to dive deeper and longer. In 1951, he converted a former British minesweeping boat into a research vessel dubbed Calypso, which became iconic via his films and television series, and inspired John Denver’s 1975 hit song.

Along the way he married Simone Melchior, who loved the sea as much as he did. Nicknamed “The Shepherdess,” she oversaw operations aboard the Calypso even while avoiding the media spotlight.

Cousteau disdained the term “documentary” for his cinematic efforts, referring to them instead as adventure films. Television producer David Wolper recognized the potential of his work, resulting in the hit television series “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau”, which ran on ABC from 1968 to 1976. When Cousteau began emphasizing environmental themes in a largely downbeat manner, the ratings suffered and the show was dropped, although he created a second series for PBS that ran for several more years.

The documentary chronicles Cousteau’s evolution from prospecting for petrochemical companies to finance his expeditions to becoming a staunch environmentalist, creating the Cousteau Society to spotlight the fragility of underwater ecosystems. He spearheaded efforts to protect Antarctica and was involved in the creation of the first Earth Summit, held in 1992. He’s shown posing for the event’s official photo, chatting and laughing alongside dozens of world leaders.

Garbus doesn’t shy away from dealing with Cousteau’s sometimes messy personal life. His obsessive dedication to his work kept him away from sons Philippe and Jean-Michel for long periods when they were young. Philippe later became instrumental in his father’s career but died in a plane crash when he was only 38. A severely depressed Cousteau declared, “I’m going to work to the bitter end. That’s my punishment.” Simone died of cancer in 1990, and six months later he married the much younger Francine Triplet, with whom he already had two children.

BECOMING COUSTEAU succeeds beautifully in its goal of reminding viewers of Jacques Cousteau’s important legacy of underwater exploration and environmental activism. Consistently engrossing as well as informative, the film delivers a richly humanistic portrait of a complex, indefatigable figure who introduced multiple awestruck generations to the wonders beneath the sea.

BECOMING COUSTEAU: Film Review | Telluride 2021

By Todd McCarthy
Read at deadline.com

Jacques Cousteau
National Geographic

The multiple generations who grew up mesmerized by the underwater cinematic adventures of Jacques-Yves Cousteau will be able to learn a good deal more about the man’s life and work in BECOMING COUSTEAU. Among the many gifts of Liz Garbus’ filled-to-the-gills documentary is the way it positions the French explorer as an initially unwitting pioneer of the environmentalist movement, which took shape in his literal wake. This National Geographic Films production, set to bow in October after its Telluride Film Festival premiere, will add much to older audiences’ appreciation of the man’s achievements, while younger viewers will learn how he changed perceptions of the sea beneath in profound ways.

Kids who grew up watching Lloyd Bridges in “Sea Hunt” on television in the late ’50s and early ’60s had no idea that swimming with the fishes for prolonged periods unattached to long oxygen tubes was unheard of in their parents’ generation. The first of many surprises in this account of the French seafaring explorer’s life is that Cousteau himself co-invented the Aqua-Lung, a wearable air tank that allowed for prolonged deep dives unconnected to tubes from the surface. It went on the market in 1946.

It was only by accident that the young Frenchman ended up in the water in the first place. After joining the French navy in 1935, Lt. Cousteau broke 12 bones in an accident and found that frequent swimming sped his recovery. Two others then joined him in some pioneering underwater photography, and the desire to go ever-deeper led Cousteau to “become an inventor by necessity.”

The “Three Diving Musketeers” developed air tanks that allowed them to go down an unheard-of 60 meters without a suit, but then one of them died at 120 meters. Lead-souled shoes enabled the explorers to stay down on the sea floor, and for several years diving provided something of a respite from the war raging above and around them.

An amateur cinematographer from his early teens, Cousteau kept developing new ways to photograph underwater and, in 1951, with the assistance of charitable contributions and volunteers, he was able to purchase a boat, the Calypso, which for years served as his home base.

Early on he engaged Louis Malle as a camera operator, which led to a collaboration that produced LE MONDE DU SILENCE (THE SILENT WORLD), the first documentary to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1956. It subsequently copped an Oscar and was a big hit internationally.

There were some initial missteps about which Cousteau was ashamed, notably the killing of some sea creatures for his film and collaborations with oil companies to find deposits under the ocean floor. But by the 1960s deep underwater exploration was seen as a parallel event to the manned journeys into outer space, another new frontier. Cousteau became a household name thanks to the David Wolper’s ABC series “The Undersea World”, which was on ABC for 10 years beginning in 1967. Overall, Cousteau’s shows, consisting of 550 hours of archival material, scored 40 Emmy nominations and 10 wins.

Given how Cousteau himself was photographing his activities from the very beginning, Garbus had an embarrassment of riches to draw upon, and there are moments when it feels like panic is nearly creeping in as she endeavors to jam in tidbits about her subject’s personal life (two wives, long absences, the death of one of his sons, the dissolution of his TV contract) as the man became ever-more famous and busy. “I’m a bad husband and a bad father,” he confesses at one point, and it’s easy to see how the subject’s nomadic, off-the-grid life was not conducive to anything resembling a coherent family life.

It was on one of the Calypso’s journeys through the Persian Gulf that the Calypso’s crew discovered oil in Abu Dahbi, from which Cousteau and company were able to benefit. Later, he was a key figure in the first Earth Summit. Publicly, the man was a popularizer, someone who put a hitherto little-regarded aspect of global life firmly on the map. Privately, he became increasingly pessimistic about the environment, sensing the economic interests were prevailing over ecological concerns.

BECOMING COUSTEAU will well serve as a reminder and clarifier for those who remember him from their youth, and an invigorating introduction for those meeting him for the first time. There’s a lot more to experience and learn from where this stuff came from.

Picturehouse