Rachel Lears film follows AOC and three other Democratic women "insurgent" candidates
Netflix has come out the winner in a bidding war for Rachel Lears' documentary Knock Down the House, spending $10 million to acquire the film, according to a new report.
Deadline.com says the streaming giant outbid rivals including Neon, Focus Features, and fellow streamers Hulu and Amazon. Negotiations kicked into high gear after the Sundance premiere of the film, which features Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other Democratic women candidates who took on entrenched Democratic incumbents in the 2018 primaries. Knock Down the House was one of the hottest tickets at the festival, in part because of anticipation AOC would make an appearance to support the film. But a day before the premiere she cancelled plans to attend Sundance, citing the need to stay in Washington as the government resumed functioning after the more than month-long partial shutdown. She ended up participating in a Q&A following the premiere via Skype; her co-stars Cori Bush of Missouri, Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia and Amy Vilela did appear in person in Park City, Utah.
Knock Down the House went on to claim both the Audience Award for US Documentary at Sundance and the Festival Favorite honor, which goes to the most popular film in the entire feature lineup as voted on by moviegoers.
Knock Down the House was one of a slew of documentaries to sell at Sundance, a list that includes Sea of Shadows, which went to National Geographic; Where's My Roy Cohn?, and David Crosby: Remember My Name, both bought by Sony Pictures Classics; The Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary (Hulu); American Factory (Netflix); Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (Roadside Attractions), and Wu Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (Showtime). Per Deadline, Sea of Shadows fetched $3 million, American Factory went for nearly that much, and Amazing Jonathan sold for $2 million.
Curry tells NFF: "The campaign and I are feeling each other out"
Filmmaker Marshall Curry documented Cory Booker's political rise in 2005's Street Fight, about the young Democrat's campaign for mayor of Newark, New Jersey. The director may embark on a sequel of sorts as Booker aims for a much higher office.
Curry was recording last week as the junior senator from New Jersey launched his run for the Democratic presidential nomination, becoming the 10th candidate to join the race. Curry tells Nonfictionfilm.com he is in talks for what could turn into a film about the senator's White House bid. "I've been considering a film on the presidential run, and the campaign and I are are feeling each other out," the director tells Nonfictionfilm.com exclusively. "I don't want to do it unless I have extraordinary access and we're still negotiating that a bit." Curry earned an Oscar nomination for Street Fight, which followed Booker on his bruising battle to unseat longterm incumbent Newark mayor Sharpe James. Booker lost to Sharpe in 2002, but ran again in 2006 in what had all the makings of another bitter contest with James (the incumbent eventually opted against running and Booker swept into office).
Curry tells us he's already gathered some good material for his potential presidential campaign doc.
"They [Booker's team] gave me great access over the past few days as I filmed him at home, preparing for the announcement and the kickoff itself," he says. "The new campaign is so much bigger and more professional than the Street Fight days. But it was really surprising to see how similar Cory -- the person -- is to sixteen years ago when I first started filming him."
The director earned the third Oscar nomination of his career this year with the short documentary A Night at the Garden. The seven minute-long film is built around archival footage of an American Nazi rally held in Madison Square Garden in New York in 1939, the eve of World War II. "My new short doc...I think is as political as Street Fight, if not more so," Curry tells Nonfictionfilm.com. "It's about something that happened 80 years ago, but I think the Academy is responding to it because of how it speaks to our current political situation: a leader takes the stage at Madison Square Garden and attacks the press; he tells that audience that they need to take America back from the minorities who are destroying it; and a protester is beaten up while the audience laughs and cheers. I wish it felt like a historical event, but it unfortunately it feels really relevant." The film can be seen in its entirety here. He appears at Chinese Theatre in Hollywood as documentary about him competes for Oscar At an IMAX screening of Free Solo in Hollywood, subject Aex Honnold was greeted like a rock star --which of course he is, in more ways than one. Members of the Motion Picture Academy and the IDA were among those invited to the event at the TCL Chinese Theatre, which has booked the Oscar-nominated film for a week-long run on the super big screen. Gasps could be heard from the capacity audience during the film, which documents Honnold's mind-boggling ascent of Yosemite's El Capitan, without ropes. E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin directed the film, which has made almost $15 million in theatrical release so far. As the credits rolled and the theater was still dark, an unassuming Honnold walked to the space in front of the screen. As spectators realized who was in their midst, they gave the climber a standing ovation. Honnold said Academy rules forbade a Q&A so he invited people to say hello in the lobby, an offer that met with an enthusiastic response. The video below gives some idea of the scene. Filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar to receive 2019 Tribute at Full Frame doc festival2/6/2019 Reichert and Bognar just won the directing award for US Documentary at Sundance Fresh from a big win at the Sundance Film Festival, the directing duo of Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert are about to add another award to their distinguished careers. The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina has announced it will present the filmmakers with the festival's 2019 Tribute honor. As part of the tribute, the festival will screen a "curated selection from their significant body of work." It’s the gathering of our tribe, under warm skies and wafting barbecue scents. “To put it simply, they are family," Full Frame Artistic Director Sadie Tillery said of Bognar and Reichert. "Over the years, they’ve joined us as filmmakers, curators, jurors, teachers, and two of the most engaged audience members I’ve ever met. It means so much to us to highlight their remarkable filmmaking and their impact on the documentary community.” Reichert is a three-time Oscar nominee for Union Maids (1978), Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists (1983) and the 2010 short documentary The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant--the latter film co-directed with Bognar. Bognar and Reichert's 2006 film, A Lion in the House, won the Emmy for Outstanding Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking. “We’ve been coming to Full Frame for 18 years, and love the festival, the people, and the community dearly,” Bognar and Reichert said in a statement. “It’s the gathering of our tribe, under warm skies and wafting barbecue scents. We come to Full Frame for deep immersion into cinema, for recovery after long, hard work, for restoration of our faith in the documentary practice." Bognar and Reichert's latest film, American Factory, won the US Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday. In a sense it's a sequel to The Last Truck, because it was shot in the same plant in Moraine, Ohio that GM used to operate. The new feature documentary focuses on what happened when a Chinese auto glass giant took over the space for a new factory, testing the capacity of Chinese ownership and American workers to succeed under one roof.
But Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old ends up No. 1 over weekend
Free Solo still hasn't reached the summit of its box office potential after a remarkable 19 weeks in theaters. The documentary about Alex Honnold's perilous ascent of Yosemite's El Capitan rock face -- without ropes -- made a stunning $1.25 million at the box office over the weekend, thanks to the addition of hundreds of IMAX screens. According to audience measurement firm comScore, the film by E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin has now made a total of $14,851,341, pushing it past RBG, which finished its run with just over $14 million. Only Won't You Be My Neighbor? made more money at the box office among nonfiction films in the past year, collecting $22.8 million.
Free Solo and RBG are among the five feature documentaries that will compete for an Academy Award at the end of the month. Free Solo's mega-weekend was not enough to make it number one at the doc box office, however. That honor went to Peter Jackson's World War I film They Shall Not Grow Old, which made $2.4 million. The 3D documentary, which features colorized war footage, has made a total of $10,778,647, comScore reported. They Shall Not Grow Old played at 735 locations, versus 483 for Free Solo. Its per-screen average came in at $3,318, ahead of $2,589 for Free Solo. |
AuthorMatthew Carey is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. His work has appeared on Deadline.com, CNN, CNN.com, TheWrap.com, NBCNews.com and in Documentary magazine. |