Latest in Documentary

Leon Gast, the veteran filmmaker who won a Documentary Feature Oscar for helming the 1996 “Rumble in the Jungle” pic When We Were Kings, died Monday. He was 85. The news was confirmed by the Woodstock Film Festival, of which Gast was a founding advisory board member and a 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree. Gast…

When the documentary Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) sold for a record $12 million+ out of Sundance, it was just the latest piece of good news in a breakthrough year for production house Concordia Studio. The company, founded in 2017 by Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim and Laurene Powell…

After dealing with a narcissist in the White House for four years, it may be difficult to imagine a politician who doesn't make everything about themself. But consider Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, who nearly won election in 2018 to become the country's first Black woman governor. After…

HBO Max is celebrating International Women’s Day by announcing the upcoming documentary LFG (aka Let’s F*cking Go). The docu from Oscar winners Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine gives a no-holds-barred, inside account of the U.S. women's national team's ongoing fight for equal pay as told by Megan Rapinoe, Jessica…

The Oscar-shortlisted short documentary A Concerto Is a Conversation is a classic two-hander, the kind of story with two protagonists of equal importance. In this case the characters are Horace Bowers Sr., a 92-year-old entrepreneur in South Los Angeles, and his grandson, 31-year-old Kris Bowers, a much sought-after…

The Mars documentary attacks! Amazon Studios, Film 45, Amblin Television and Tripod Media are co-producing Good Night Oppy, a feature about the Mars exploration rover Opportunity. Ryan White (Assassins) directs the pic, which is in production and tells the inspirational true story of the veteran interstellar vehicle…

Got a new agenda, With a new dream, I'm kicking out the old regime, Liberation, elevation, education. The lyrics of Janelle Monáe's Oscar shortlisted song, "Turntables" are a call for accountability flavored with positive promise. Written for the Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés-directed documentary about Georgia political…

A romantic notion persists that after the Nazis conquered France in 1940 almost the whole French nation rose up heroically to join the Résistance. Not so, as the Oscar-shortlisted short documentary Colette affirms. "There was 1-percent of the population who were actually resisting," producer Alice Doyard notes of the…

For LGBTQ people in Chechnya, life has become a nightmare. The Russian republic has never been very hospitable to gays, but in 2017 the Chechen government launched an outright purge against perceived members of the LGBTQ community. "People in Chechnya who are suspected of being lesbian, gay or bisexual, are facing a…

EXCLUSIVE: Discovery+ continues to ramp up it documentary slate. The fast-growing streamer has acquired rights to Rebel Hearts, the Pedro Kos-directed documentary that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It will now get a theatrical release as well as a global bow on the streamer later this year. Rebel Hea…

Time, the most honored documentary of the past year, has been described as a film about mass incarceration. That's true enough, but director Garrett Bradley sees another theme at its heart. "Time in my mind is a love story," she tells Deadline. "It’s a story about a 21 year pursuit to unify a family." The love story…

Greenwich Entertainment has acquired U.S. distribution rights to writer and director Ted Braun's documentary ¡Viva Maestro!  from Participant Media. A theatrical release is planned for later this year. Cinephil is also repping foreign sales on the pic at EFM. ¡Viva Maestro! explores the artistry, beliefs and…