Category Archives: In the Works

First-time feature director Michelle Groskopf and producer Laurie Gwen Shapiro (co-director, KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT and producer, FINISHING HEAVEN) have found an intriguing subject for their doc, MODEL BOXERS: NYC’s underground Friday Night Throwdowns – a regularly held FIGHT CLUB-lite of sorts attended by those in-the-know in the modeling industry and populated largely (but not exclusively) by male model combatants.

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Pablo Miralles, Michael Whalen, and Roberto Donati, three multihyphenate UCLA graduate film school alums, are currently in production on GRINGOS AT THE GATE, a feature documentary that explores US/Mexican relations and national identity through the lens of fútbol/soccer.

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Director Lee Hirsch, who won both the Audience Award and the Freedom of Expression Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival (and later an Emmy) for his documentary AMANDLA! A REVOLUTION IN FOUR PART HARMONY, is currently finishing a new film on the violence facing young people in schools, THE BULLY PROJECT.

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Emmy-nominated documentary film editor Sari Gilman, whose credits include Judith Helfand & Daniel B Gold’s BLUE VINYL, Hali Lee & Peter von Ziegesar’s PROM NIGHT IN KANSAS CITY, and Rory Kennedy’s GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB and THE FENCE, among others, is in the process of directing her first documentary feature, a portrait of a 15,000 person strong Floridian retirement community, KINGS POINT.

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Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross previously made THE ATOM SMASHERS, about the Fermilab’s search for the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle,” which screened on PBS’ Independent Lens. Their Chicago-based company, 137 Films, “promotes science literacy through story-telling,” and they’ve got quite a story to tell in their current production, THE BELIEVERS (formerly known as THE EXPERIMENT).

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First time director Cathryne Czubek is working with producer Jessica Wolfson (TRUST US THIS IS ALL MADE UP, CRAZY SEXY CANCER) on a promising documentary project about women who own guns, A GIRL AND A GUN. The filmmakers recently successfully completed a $10,000 Kickstarter campaign, but tax-deductible contributions can still be made – more information is available on the page, as is a link to the Facebook page and mailing list sign-up to keep you updated on future developments.

The character-driven documentary focuses on four individuals with complex relationships to guns – their pro-gun beliefs seem more informed by personal histories touched by violence against their families or themselves than by Second Amendment NRA dogma. Given the statistics about rape and violence against women, this sadly makes their stories instantly relatable to a large portion of a potential female audience. They also serve as a counterpoint to pop culture’s glorification of violence, and women’s role as, alternately, helpless victim or Lara Croft heroine. A GIRL AND A GUN looks poised to intelligently engage in a dialogue that intersects feminism, civil liberties, violence against women, women’s self-empowerment, and media portrayals of women and of violence.

Nancy Buirski, the Founder and initial Director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, is at work on her directorial debut, LONG WAY HOME: THE LOVING STORY, a feature documentary on Richard and Mildred Loving, who were at the heart of the landmark 1967 Loving v Virginia Supreme Court case that led to the federal legalization of interracial marriage. She’s currently running a Kickstarter campaign with just two weeks to hit her target of $15,000, so if you’re interested in supporting it, consider making a donation soon to specifically support the licensing fees anticipated for the archival heavy project.

I’m especially intrigued by the archival cinema verité footage of the couple that Buirski describes on her Kickstarter page – with a project like this one that is likely at least known in broad strokes by the general public, having access not only to the subjects but to rich period footage can go a long way to creating a sense of immediacy and relevancy for a present-day audience. With the continued debate over same-sex marriage keeping a focus on legislation dictating when and where love between two consenting individuals is permitted, and who those individuals have to be, LONG WAY HOME also has the potential to influence current opinion by providing much-needed context about past attempts to legislate the institution of marriage. Keep an eye out for Buirski’s film on the festival circuit in 2011.

As mentioned earlier this week, I’m going to try to write more often about documentaries currently in progress. Like MANHATTAN LULLABY, Dima Dubson’s HOW TO ACT BAD also has a Kickstarter campaign page – take a look. He’s aimed relatively high, trying to reach $20,000, and has about three weeks left to hit his target, so if you’re inclined to support the project, act soon.

I recently met with Dima to discuss his plans for his documentary, which follows bad boy musician Adam Green around his native New York, Los Angeles, and Europe. The film isn’t intended to be a musician-on-tour doc, however – instead, HOW TO ACT BAD seeks to provide a window into an artist’s creative process. Ideally, this will make the film work for viewers who have no idea who Green is (though more of a cult presence stateside, his star is on the rise in Europe, and particularly in Germany), mitigating the problem of many musician-focused docs that assume the audience will have the same knowledge of and fascination with the subject that the filmmaker has. With Green’s full participation, Dima has enviable, unfiltered access to his subject, which, judging from the trailer alone, is giving him a lot to work with in crafting this portrait. I’m very curious to see how the project ultimately takes shape.

It’s been months since I’ve included a spotlight on a documentary in progress, and I figured this would be a good time to rectify that. I like to know about new projects in the pipeline, and I’ve found it useful to monitor sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo for interesting sounding documentaries that are seeking crowdfunding support.

One such project is by my friend Sara Alize Cross (Producer of Margaret Brown’s THE ORDER OF MYTHS, Associate Producer of Henry Alex Rubin & Dana Adam Shapiro’s MURDERBALL), who is producing and directing a documentary about NYC’s Colony Records entitled MANHATTAN LULLABY. Take a look at the project’s Kickstarter campaign page (and consider contributing if you can – she has about a month to raise a bit over $3000 at this writing).

Sara’s approaching the film as a history of not only the record store, but of the radical transformation of its Times Square location over its 60+ year history – while also addressing the changes to the music industry that have made standalone stores like it into rarities. I’m looking forward to seeing how the project continues to take shape, and how it can make use of its New York City locale and celebrity connections, but also go beyond that specificity to connect with broader audience with an interest in music, music history, and the struggles of small businesses in a recession economy.

A few months back, I helped indieWIRE relaunch its long-running but recently dormant monthly “In Production” column, which spotlighted upcoming films that were currently, well, in production. Together, we took a broader approach for the relaunch of the column, expanded it into a regular weekly column, and renamed it “In the Works”.

I’m always curious about what filmmakers are working on, so in addition to tweeting about iW‘s column, I’ll occasionally spotlight some of these types of projects here as well.

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