Category Archives: In the Works

A filmmaker sets out to investigate the legend of a Nazi war criminal hiding out on a remote Brazilian island… with a chimpanzee bride.

Filmmaker David Romberg grew up in Brazil’s Ilha Grande, where his father sought refuge from political persecution in his native Argentina. As a boy, he was told of the local bogeyman, a hermit inhabiting the other side of the island who, it was said, had taken a female chimp as a wife. Years later, Romberg returns to the island to seek out the truth behind this bizarre legend, and discovers strange parallels between his family’s story, that of other political dissidents who made the island their home during the tumultuous 1970s, and that of the “Man of the Monkey” – a Nazi who escaped persecution at the end of WWII. Continue reading →

Despite the dangers, Chernobyl’s Dead Zone has been the unlikely home of a group of defiant elderly women for more than 25 years.

While on location at Chernobyl working on a PBS series, filmmakers Holly Morris and Anne Bogart noticed smoke coming from a chimney in what is supposed to be an uninhabitable area. Investigating, they were surprised to discover a community of two hundred, mostly widows, who claim the land as their ancestral birthright, in spite of its toxicity. Living in the Dead Zone, these Ukrainian babushkas have been largely isolated since the fall of the Soviet Union. They share their stories of defiance and survival in a post-apocalyptic setting in Morris and Bogart’s film. Continue reading →

The true story of a 1970s soul music group that was founded and recorded albums behind bars.

Serving time in prison in 1968, teenager Reginald Haynes decided to start a singing group as a way to try to focus on the positive during his incarceration. By 1970, his group, The Escorts, were performing for inmates, staff, and visitors, unexpectedly gaining the attention of seasoned Motown producer, George Kerr, who proposed working with the group to record the first album behind prison walls. After years of red tape, they succeeded, and The Escorts hit the charts, eventually releasing two albums before Haynes’ story took an unexpected turn. Producer Christopher Black, a lover of classic soul, gathered director Corbett Jones and producers Anna Rau and Josiah Bultema to explore the past and the present of the group, now known as The Legendary Escorts, against the backdrop of late 20th century African American history – from civil rights to soul music, institutionalized racism to penal reform. Continue reading →

An in-depth and sensitive look at the lone survivors of commercial airplane crashes.

Director Ky Dickens profiles four people who, through the vagaries of fate, were the single survivors of otherwise fatal plane accidents. Having suffered through not only the physical trauma of a deadly crash, but also the emotional impact of losing loved ones, these individuals have typically been reticent to share their stories. Eschewing sensationalism, Dickens provides them with a platform to revisit their past and try to make sense of what it meant for them to survive when so many others perished. Continue reading →

The director of PHYLLIS AND HAROLD turns her camera on her husband and collaborator, best known for MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ.

After learning that his Jewish father might have collaborated with Hitler, theatre director and actor André Gregory launched an inquiry into his past, providing an entreé for director Cindy Kleine to finally make a film about her husband’s life. Weaving the story of his unusual upbringing and far-flung adventures – made famous in conversation with actor Wallace Shawn in Louis Malle’s beloved 1981 treatise on art and life – with the behind-the-scenes of Gregory and Shawn’s present-day collaboration, an adaptation of Ibsen’s MASTER BUILDER, Kleine approaches the same fundamental questions about art, artists, and the creative process as figured in the earlier film – but from her own unique and intimate position. Continue reading →

One of the producers of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS joins the director of the synchronized swimming doc SYNC OR SWIM to tell the story of the champion Olympic diver.

Producer Will Sweeney and director Cheryl Furjanic explore the life and legend of Greg Louganis, considered by many the greatest diver of all time. A four-time Olympian – though he, like the rest of the US team, was unable to compete in 1980 due to the US boycott – Louganis quickly moved from a child prodigy to become a household name and an inspiration to many athletes. One of the indelible moments of the 1988 Olympic Games came when he recovered from a concussion in a preliminary round to go on to win the gold medal. However, in 1994, when he revealed he was gay and HIV positive, he faced a backlash that resulted in the disappearance of most of his lucrative endorsements, and he largely fell out of the public eye. Furjanic and Sweeney’s film explores the Olympian’s eventful and complex past while following him in the present as he returns to the diving board to mentor the 2012 US Olympic diving team. Continue reading →

With a body of documentary work that explores his and other African-American lives, the creator of the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion is finishing his newest doc and multimedia outreach project about the history of African American photography.

Thomas Allen Harris, whose past films like THAT’S MY FACE/E MINHA CARA and TWELVE DISCIPLES OF NELSON MANDELA have often blended the autobiographical with cogent social and historical analysis of race and identity, has been at the forefront in recent years in encouraging other African-Americans to explore their own past through the DDFR project. Simultaneously, he’s been working on this expansive, multi-faceted exploration of the historical intersection of African Americans and photography, from the birth of the medium to the present. The film, which will screen on PBS and will include a transmedia component, will document how African Americans have employed the power of the photographic medium to counter mainstream depictions and distortions of their lives, empowering them to control their own representations, and, importantly, to change consciousness and prejudices. Continue reading →

Against a harsh winter and an even harsher economic climate, working class America is revealed in a snowmobile competition in the north woods of Michigan.

In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, an annual snowmobile race draws thousands to observe family members and friends participate in a dramatic competition. This becomes the backdrop for an observational documentary about three of the families in the community. Filmed over two years, Nick Bentgen and Lisa Kjerulff’s portrait reveals not only the spectacle of the race, but the quiet lives of some of those involved as they struggle with the fallout of the economic crisis to provide for their families and survive in difficult times. Continue reading →

Just in time for Father’s Day, a spotlight on a project exploring LGBT families through the lens of a filmmaker with a transgender dad.

Growing up in a small conservative Michigan town, Sharon Shattuck had a happy family, but it was different from the others: her father, originally named Michael, is transgender, and renamed herself Trisha. While this led to some anxiety for Shattuck – chiefly because of concerns over what the townsfolk might say – her expectations were upended. In response to this experience and to rhetoric against same-sex marriage rights that questions the validity of anything but heterosexual parents, Shattuck seeks to document the realities of LGBT families in America by offering not only a portrait of Trisha and their relationship, but of other families around the country. Continue reading →

The director of CLEANFLIX explores post-industrial Detroit through the stories of three men who call the Motor City home.

No American city has seen the impact of the Great Recession moreso than Detroit. It was one of the main destinations for the millions of African-Americans who traveled from the South during the Great Migration, lured by the automotive and manufacturing industries which helped foster an African American middle class. As these industries gave way to cheaper resources outside the US in recent decades, the city has been on the decline, exacerbated by the sharp economic downturn of the past five years. Director Andrew James uses the stories of three African American men – notably from different generations, with ages ranging from 21-63 years old – to tell the story of the city in microcosm. Taking a ground level approach, James reveals their personal struggles to survive and to thrive in their city despite its difficult realities. Continue reading →