Bob Iger is barely out the door at the Walt Disney Company and already a film from a scion of the founding family has come along to give the well compensated ex-ceo a kick in the ass.
However, the Abigail Disney co-directed The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales documentary doesn’t have much to add to the discussions of income inequity, ice cold hearted corporations and the legacy of the Reagan Revolution, except a high profile and well-heeled surname.
Debuting with its world premiere at the virtual Sundance Film Festival tonight as the House of Mouse’s stock took a whack from Wall Street, the Abigail E. Disney and Kathleen Hughes directed The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales proves to be less an exercise for social and economic justice and more a vanity exercise with talking heads.
Which is more than a real shame, it is a tragically missed opportunity.
However, the Abigail Disney co-directed The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales documentary doesn’t have much to add to the discussions of income inequity, ice cold hearted corporations and the legacy of the Reagan Revolution, except a high profile and well-heeled surname.
Debuting with its world premiere at the virtual Sundance Film Festival tonight as the House of Mouse’s stock took a whack from Wall Street, the Abigail E. Disney and Kathleen Hughes directed The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales proves to be less an exercise for social and economic justice and more a vanity exercise with talking heads.
Which is more than a real shame, it is a tragically missed opportunity.
- 1/25/2022
- by Dominic Patten
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Sony Pictures Television’s TriStar is adapting Laurie Fabiano’s bestselling 2010 historical novel Elizabeth Street for television, with Edoardo Ponti (The Life Ahead) attached to direct and executive produce. Tyler Hisel has written a pilot for the project, based on Fabiano’s own great-grandmother’s epic struggles.
Elizabeth Street is set in New York’s Little Italy at the dawn of the 20th century. It follows Giovanna Pontillo, an Italian immigrant reeling in the wake of personal tragedy. Arriving in America, her survival and success on the streets of Old New York soon draws the unwanted attention of the notorious Black Hand, the earliest form of the Italian-American Mafia. As the stakes grow higher, Giovanna desperately fights to save what is important above all else – family.
“Elizabeth Street brings together everything that inspires me: the journey of a strong female protagonist who faces insurmountable odds to bring justice to her family,...
Elizabeth Street is set in New York’s Little Italy at the dawn of the 20th century. It follows Giovanna Pontillo, an Italian immigrant reeling in the wake of personal tragedy. Arriving in America, her survival and success on the streets of Old New York soon draws the unwanted attention of the notorious Black Hand, the earliest form of the Italian-American Mafia. As the stakes grow higher, Giovanna desperately fights to save what is important above all else – family.
“Elizabeth Street brings together everything that inspires me: the journey of a strong female protagonist who faces insurmountable odds to bring justice to her family,...
- 5/20/2021
- by Nellie Andreeva
- Deadline Film + TV
In 2003, the Canadian documentary “The Corporation” offered what it took to be a bold new thesis about the way corporations work. The film seized on an enormous legal-cultural quirk: that corporations, in terms of how the government and financial sector deal with them, are in many technical ways treated as “individuals” — that is, they’re treated like people. And so the filmmakers posed the question, If a corporation is like a human being, how would a psychiatrist choose to characterize that person? Well, let’s see: Since corporations are ruled by the profit motive, they’re almost by definition greedy, selfish, ruthless, and ultimately indifferent to the well-being of others. The conclusion the film came to is that the corporation, if you really look at it, has the profile of a psychopath.
A lot of viewers seemed inordinately impressed with this thesis. I found it provocative and useful, and not...
A lot of viewers seemed inordinately impressed with this thesis. I found it provocative and useful, and not...
- 10/31/2020
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Does corporate influence have an effect on the spread of diseases like Covid-19? Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott, the filmmakers behind 2003’s “The Corporation,” are back with a sequel, “The New Corporation,” in which they draw the connection between how corporations have reacted to the environment and how they have contributed to the spread of disease.
“If we link corporate capitalism to the destruction of nature, which we can and do, then without question we can also link corporate capitalism to emerging diseases and there is ample evidence that this is the case,” Abbott told TheWrap’s Brian Welk during an interview for the remote Toronto Film Festival along with writer and co-director Joel Bakan.
Abbott provides an example about deforestation and how that puts human civilization in danger. “For example, if a forest is cut down and bats populated this forest, the bats have to go somewhere,” she said.
“If we link corporate capitalism to the destruction of nature, which we can and do, then without question we can also link corporate capitalism to emerging diseases and there is ample evidence that this is the case,” Abbott told TheWrap’s Brian Welk during an interview for the remote Toronto Film Festival along with writer and co-director Joel Bakan.
Abbott provides an example about deforestation and how that puts human civilization in danger. “For example, if a forest is cut down and bats populated this forest, the bats have to go somewhere,” she said.
- 10/4/2020
- by Umberto Gonzalez
- The Wrap
Back in 2003 — a magical time when Amazon was basically still just a glorified book store, and Enron was the height of American malfeasance — filmmakers Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar made a sprawling but cogent documentary that addressed the insatiable chimeras that have come to dominate modern capitalism. Over the course of 145 minutes, “The Corporation” unpacked how business entities have come to assume a perverse degree of legal personhood (one that doesn’t square with the idea of public ownership), and ended by extrapolating that idea into a satirically damning thought exercise. If corporations were actually people, what kind of people would they be?
The conclusion that Abbott and Achbar reverse-engineered was convincing enough: Corporations are psychopaths. They don’t care about others, they’re incapable of feeling guilt, they often disregard the law out of their own insatiable self-interest, and they’re only getting worse. While the psychiatrist who Abbott...
The conclusion that Abbott and Achbar reverse-engineered was convincing enough: Corporations are psychopaths. They don’t care about others, they’re incapable of feeling guilt, they often disregard the law out of their own insatiable self-interest, and they’re only getting worse. While the psychiatrist who Abbott...
- 9/16/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
I can still recall my red pill moment while watching Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar’s 2003 documentary The Corporation with my best friend, at the (pre-financial crisis) time an analyst at a big bank. “Corporations are people? What the hell?” I practically shouted. “Yup,” he simply responded with a weary shrug. For many clueless progressives like myself, unaware that corporate power had been spreading like the coronavirus, silently hijacking all branches of our government for decades, The Corporation was both horror film and wakeup call. The real deep-state conspiracy. Since then we’ve endured the Great Recession and our current economic calamity/health catastrophe/racial injustice awakening. […]...
- 9/14/2020
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
I can still recall my red pill moment while watching Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar’s 2003 documentary The Corporation with my best friend, at the (pre-financial crisis) time an analyst at a big bank. “Corporations are people? What the hell?” I practically shouted. “Yup,” he simply responded with a weary shrug. For many clueless progressives like myself, unaware that corporate power had been spreading like the coronavirus, silently hijacking all branches of our government for decades, The Corporation was both horror film and wakeup call. The real deep-state conspiracy. Since then we’ve endured the Great Recession and our current economic calamity/health catastrophe/racial injustice awakening. […]...
- 9/14/2020
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Take one look at the state of the world in 2020 and you can understand why The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel exists, overexplanatory title and all. If you’re unaware of the original film, The Corporation came out in 2003 and provided a simple but effective message about the dangers of capitalism. It used the fact that the US legal system defines corporations as people, went over countless examples of the horrible things companies have done in pursuit of profit, and concluded that corporations are psychopaths. The film was a success but, as the “unfortunately necessary” part of the title implies, not successful enough.
The Corporation co-director Jennifer Abbott is back at the helm this time, pairing up with Joel Bakan (who wrote the book the first film is based on) to give viewers a quick summary of what’s happened over the last 17 years. And no amount of talking...
The Corporation co-director Jennifer Abbott is back at the helm this time, pairing up with Joel Bakan (who wrote the book the first film is based on) to give viewers a quick summary of what’s happened over the last 17 years. And no amount of talking...
- 9/12/2020
- by C.J. Prince
- The Film Stage
The 2003 documentary The Corporation was that rare political doc with the power to claw scales off eyes. Rather than simply asserting that big companies were destroying the world, it looked at the legal frameworks that created them and saw that, wittingly or not, the system all but guaranteed they would behave badly. It was required by law that they place profit-seeking above any social or ethical concerns.
According to Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, that doc (along with some other world events) had a big impact — albeit a mostly performative one, in which ...
According to Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, that doc (along with some other world events) had a big impact — albeit a mostly performative one, in which ...
- 9/12/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The 2003 documentary The Corporation was that rare political doc with the power to claw scales off eyes. Rather than simply asserting that big companies were destroying the world, it looked at the legal frameworks that created them and saw that, wittingly or not, the system all but guaranteed they would behave badly. It was required by law that they place profit-seeking above any social or ethical concerns.
According to Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, that doc (along with some other world events) had a big impact — albeit a mostly performative one, in which ...
According to Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, that doc (along with some other world events) had a big impact — albeit a mostly performative one, in which ...
- 9/12/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
In this “is the cinema half-empty or half-full?” world, Canadian producers are focusing on the perks of a leaner, hybrid Toronto fest, rather than empty seats.
“There is so much happening in the world on social and political levels, I am curious how that influences the consciousness of the marketplace,” says Toronto vet Charles Officer, director and co-producer of gang drama “Akilla’s Escape,” starring poet-actor Saul Williams.
“Screening in a smaller pool of titles allows for more visibility,” says Officer. “It’s important the cast of talented Black actors receive exposure at a festival like Toronto, and it’s rare that Black filmmakers in Canada make features — we can’t afford to be passive about opportunities to participate.” XYZ Films is selling the film.
WaZabi Films’ “Beans,” Tracey Deer’s coming-of-ager set during the 1990 standoff between Mohawk communities and government forces in Oka, Quebec, is “relevant to the times we are living in,...
“There is so much happening in the world on social and political levels, I am curious how that influences the consciousness of the marketplace,” says Toronto vet Charles Officer, director and co-producer of gang drama “Akilla’s Escape,” starring poet-actor Saul Williams.
“Screening in a smaller pool of titles allows for more visibility,” says Officer. “It’s important the cast of talented Black actors receive exposure at a festival like Toronto, and it’s rare that Black filmmakers in Canada make features — we can’t afford to be passive about opportunities to participate.” XYZ Films is selling the film.
WaZabi Films’ “Beans,” Tracey Deer’s coming-of-ager set during the 1990 standoff between Mohawk communities and government forces in Oka, Quebec, is “relevant to the times we are living in,...
- 9/9/2020
- by Jennie Punter
- Variety Film + TV
Mary Harron’s divisive adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel is a shrewd articulation of the source, with a star-making turn from Christian Bale
Three years after the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho finally got made into a movie, after a production odyssey nearly as tortured and calamitous as its publication as a book, a documentary called The Corporation caused a mild stir among arthouse viewers and political thinkers. Inspired by a 14th amendment detail that allowed companies to be seen as individuals, the film asked a simple question: if a corporation were a person, what type would he be? In a little under three hours, the film concludes that he would be a psychopath.
Related: Erin Brockovich at 20: how a grim true story became a glossy star vehicle...
Three years after the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho finally got made into a movie, after a production odyssey nearly as tortured and calamitous as its publication as a book, a documentary called The Corporation caused a mild stir among arthouse viewers and political thinkers. Inspired by a 14th amendment detail that allowed companies to be seen as individuals, the film asked a simple question: if a corporation were a person, what type would he be? In a little under three hours, the film concludes that he would be a psychopath.
Related: Erin Brockovich at 20: how a grim true story became a glossy star vehicle...
- 4/14/2020
- by Scott Tobias
- The Guardian - Film News
In today's horror highlights: Fantaspoa announces an online filmmaking contest and new streaming titles, filmmaker Ted Geoghegan launches the second episode of his new online radio program that dives into the history of cinema, and we have the international trailer for German horror film Hager, that just was released to Amazon Prime:
Fantaspoa at Home Online Filmmaking Contest + New Streaming Titles Available:
Porto Alegre, Brazil - 10 April 2019 - Weeks after launching its free worldwide movie streaming platform at www.fantaspoaathome.com, which will be available until the end of May, Brazil's Fantaspoa Film Festival is proud to announce the Fantaspoa at Home Online Filmmaking Contest. Being aware of the importance of quarantine to contain the spread of Covid-19, this film competition aims to encourage film production at home during these difficult times.
Submissions should be short films in the fantastic genre, and touch upon topics or themes related to the current pandemic.
Fantaspoa at Home Online Filmmaking Contest + New Streaming Titles Available:
Porto Alegre, Brazil - 10 April 2019 - Weeks after launching its free worldwide movie streaming platform at www.fantaspoaathome.com, which will be available until the end of May, Brazil's Fantaspoa Film Festival is proud to announce the Fantaspoa at Home Online Filmmaking Contest. Being aware of the importance of quarantine to contain the spread of Covid-19, this film competition aims to encourage film production at home during these difficult times.
Submissions should be short films in the fantastic genre, and touch upon topics or themes related to the current pandemic.
- 4/13/2020
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
by Peter Belsito
When filmmakers begin to work on a project they will usually have a vision of “who it is for”: their work, what section of society they want to enlighten, help and move forward on their thinking.
Then comes the overwhelmingly difficult job of making their dream vision into a completed film. This is always tough, hard work. Film is not easy.
One of the biggest problems filmmakers face is, that after spending blood, sweat, tears and years making a film, at the end of this difficult process they often have little or no idea of how to move forward and connect their film with the audience they made it for. They often fall back on the hopes of making it into this or that film festival which, in fact, is not a solution to the larger problem of distribution with specific marketing tactics. Festivals are only...
When filmmakers begin to work on a project they will usually have a vision of “who it is for”: their work, what section of society they want to enlighten, help and move forward on their thinking.
Then comes the overwhelmingly difficult job of making their dream vision into a completed film. This is always tough, hard work. Film is not easy.
One of the biggest problems filmmakers face is, that after spending blood, sweat, tears and years making a film, at the end of this difficult process they often have little or no idea of how to move forward and connect their film with the audience they made it for. They often fall back on the hopes of making it into this or that film festival which, in fact, is not a solution to the larger problem of distribution with specific marketing tactics. Festivals are only...
- 12/7/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
It's not often that something as dry as tax theory can result in an engrossing night at the movies, but credit Harold Crooks and his team for providing an exceptional articulation about the vagaries of "off shoring" in an accessible, engaging way with The Price We Pay. Crooks co-wrote the narration for Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott's 2003 Sundance winning doc The Corporation, and with his own film he manages to better that, maintaining a level of even-handedness when required, while allowing a streak of advocacy to run through but never overwhelm the storytelling. In many ways, The Price We Pay is even more balanced in its presentation, giving many voices from the world of finance a chance to dispassionately (but eloquently and engagingly)...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 3/15/2015
- Screen Anarchy
While Festival du Nouveau Cinema is not known for showcasing a large number of world premieres, the Focus section is always the exception. Taking a look at Quebec and Canadian features, films large and small are allowed space to find an audience. The section consistently features a large number of adventurous first time filmmakers, making their debut in the feature length format. Let’s have a look at five films in particular that are not to be missed.
Antoine et Marie
Directed by Jimmy Larouche
Larouche has already made his mark on the Fnc, with his feature length debut La Cicatrice in 2012. In a year particularly rich with great Quebec cinema, La Cicatrice was still able to stand out from the crowd, and Larouche’s follow-up film has been eagerly awaited every since. Making its world premiere, Antoine et Marie takes focus on the relationship between the titular characters. Together for three years,...
Antoine et Marie
Directed by Jimmy Larouche
Larouche has already made his mark on the Fnc, with his feature length debut La Cicatrice in 2012. In a year particularly rich with great Quebec cinema, La Cicatrice was still able to stand out from the crowd, and Larouche’s follow-up film has been eagerly awaited every since. Making its world premiere, Antoine et Marie takes focus on the relationship between the titular characters. Together for three years,...
- 10/7/2014
- by Justine Smith
- SoundOnSight
The 43rd edition of the Festival du nouveau cinéma showcases the best new films and filmmakers from around the world. The festival which has often been described as ‘ baby-tiff’ – picks up the best from Berlinale, Cannes, Venice, Telluride, Toronto and more – and demonstrates the vibrancy of filmmaking in all its forms and for all audiences. The fest has announced the first wave of films from Quebec and Canada in their lineup. Once again this year, the Festival will be putting local cinema in the limelight by screening some much-awaited works spread out over several programs, including the International Competition – Louve d’or, Focus, Fnc Lab, Panorama and Special Presentation for the features as well as a variety of short film programs.
The Fnc will present the much-awaited Félix and Meira (Félix et Meira), the new film by Maxime Giroux (whose Jo pour Jonathan was shown in 2010), the tale of an...
The Fnc will present the much-awaited Félix and Meira (Félix et Meira), the new film by Maxime Giroux (whose Jo pour Jonathan was shown in 2010), the tale of an...
- 9/12/2014
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
It's not often that something as dry as tax theory can result in an engrossing night at the movies, but credit Harold Crooks and his team for providing an exceptional articulation about the vagaries of "off shoring" in an accessible, engaging way with The Price We Pay. Crooks co-wrote the narration for Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott's 2003 Sundance winning doc The Corporation, and with his own film he manages to better that doc, maintain a level of even handedness when required while allowing a streak of advocacy to run through but never overwhelm the storytelling. In many ways, The Price We Pay is even more balanced in its presentation, giving many voices from the world of finance a chance to dispassionately (but eloquently...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 9/6/2014
- Screen Anarchy
2016 movie still trailing Michael Moore, Al Gore 2016 Obama's America, Dinesh D'Souza and John Sullivan's anti-Obama documentary, has surpassed the concert movie Katy Perry: Part of Me to become the second highest-grossing non-fiction film released in North America in 2012. By Sunday evening, D'Souza and Sullivan's right-wing doc -- current cume according to the web site Box Office Mojo stands at an estimated $27.66 million (as of Wed., September 13) -- should have also surpassed the nature doc Chimpanzee ($28.97 million) to become the year's top documentary in the United States and Canada. Worldwide, 2016 -- a 100% domestic sleeper hit like, say, the Tyler Perry movies (which have no audience overseas) -- remains behind both Chimpanzee (another domestic-only release) and Katy Perry: Part of Me. (Please scroll down for more details about the box-office performances of non-fiction films worldwide both in 2012 and "all-time.") As per numerous box-office reports, as the sixth biggest non-fiction film ever (or rather,...
- 9/13/2012
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
Title: #ReGENERATION Director: Phillip Montgomery The social activism documentary subgenre is a rich one, but the best of these sorts of willfully disquieting films — like “The Corporation,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” – aren’t merely reflexive sermons to the choir, but instead movies that try to root down into systemic injustice, abuse, fraud and scientific rejection, in a fervent effort to expose the cost of continued social apathy and silence. Narrated by Ryan Gosling, the slim but still thought-provoking “#ReGENERATION” slots in nicely as a minor-chord entry of this sort. Director Phillip Montgomery’s film has an agitator’s soul, and that’s perhaps a good [ Read More ]...
- 5/8/2012
- by bsimon
- ShockYa
With the clear target of egging on fresh film-makers, artists and their work and also, to promote the arts and media culture among the general public through independent film, video and new media,The UFO 0110 International Digital Film Festival is now open for entries from across the world. UFO 0110 Idff is India.s only film festival to recognise and promote .different cinema.. It will take place from the 23rd of February to the 1st of March 2012 at Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi. Entries will be open until 20th December 2011This is a historic year in the journey of the film festival because companies Mediaguru and Qed join Ekaa Films as Partners and UFO Moviez India Limited is now the title sponsor. And because of these associations, this year The UFO 0110 International Digital Film Festival is set to be bigger and, if we may presumptuously add, much better. The UFO 0110 International...
- 11/13/2011
- Filmicafe
"Sure to be drowned out by the drum circles at Occupy Wall Street, writer-director Jc Chandor's lifeless Margin Call depicts roughly 36 hours at an unnamed Manhattan investment firm at the dawn of the 2008 financial freak-out," begins Melissa Anderson in the Voice. "Chandor's debut feature audaciously asks us to empathize with obscenely overpaid risk analysts and their bosses, a gambit that fails not only because of what's happening at Zuccotti Park, but largely because his characters are little more than mouthpieces for blunt speechifying and Mamet-like outbursts."
Salon's Andrew O'Hehir isn't so quick to dispatch Margin Call to the disc-pile of history. For one thing, he notes that it "features one of Kevin Spacey's best screen performances as the firm's middle-aged ace salesman, trapped between his longtime loyalty and his waning sense of ethics. But explaining how these guys justified their rapacious and immoral behavior to themselves is not...
Salon's Andrew O'Hehir isn't so quick to dispatch Margin Call to the disc-pile of history. For one thing, he notes that it "features one of Kevin Spacey's best screen performances as the firm's middle-aged ace salesman, trapped between his longtime loyalty and his waning sense of ethics. But explaining how these guys justified their rapacious and immoral behavior to themselves is not...
- 10/24/2011
- MUBI
Films such as Inside Job and Super Size Me are compelling but preach to the converted. What happens when the lights go up?
As the credits roll on The Flaw, a new documentary on the financial crisis, and we learn the fates of the various interviewees, it's Andrew Luan, a former mortgage bond trader for Deutsche Bank, who has emerged from the meltdown best. Now a guide who provides walking tours (and handy narrative threads for documentary filmmakers) through post-credit crunch Wall Street, his business has been on the up since 2008. The Flaw – from In the Shadow of the Moon director David Sington – joins Inside Job and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story in cinema's growing oeuvre of rueful postmortems on the global financial system. But watching them, I sometimes wonder if their function is just like Luan's Wall Street walkabout: vicariously entertaining us with the spectacle of our own decline.
As the credits roll on The Flaw, a new documentary on the financial crisis, and we learn the fates of the various interviewees, it's Andrew Luan, a former mortgage bond trader for Deutsche Bank, who has emerged from the meltdown best. Now a guide who provides walking tours (and handy narrative threads for documentary filmmakers) through post-credit crunch Wall Street, his business has been on the up since 2008. The Flaw – from In the Shadow of the Moon director David Sington – joins Inside Job and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story in cinema's growing oeuvre of rueful postmortems on the global financial system. But watching them, I sometimes wonder if their function is just like Luan's Wall Street walkabout: vicariously entertaining us with the spectacle of our own decline.
- 6/3/2011
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
Sometimes superlatives need to be slung, such as when speaking of the richest, most ambitious and exciting decade yet for nonfiction film -- and, really, what other variety could back up that boast? To nail down a single doc as the preeminent work that typifies these years is no easy task, especially since the best of the bunch attacked specific subjects with laser-like precision and idiosyncratic techniques. (Sit tight, the lede is about to be buried.)
The '00s legitimized the allure of the "pop doc," a trend that shoehorns potentially lackluster material into glossy narratives. Spelling bees were transformed into suspense thrillers ("Spellbound"), quadriplegic rugby players did their own stunts ("Murderball"), tangoing kids got their dance-off ("Mad Hot Ballroom"), a reckless but beautiful feat of derring-do was reenacted like a heist procedural ("Man on Wire"), and a PBS-style nature film became a blockbuster saga of familial survival ("March of the Penguins"). Who'd have thought,...
The '00s legitimized the allure of the "pop doc," a trend that shoehorns potentially lackluster material into glossy narratives. Spelling bees were transformed into suspense thrillers ("Spellbound"), quadriplegic rugby players did their own stunts ("Murderball"), tangoing kids got their dance-off ("Mad Hot Ballroom"), a reckless but beautiful feat of derring-do was reenacted like a heist procedural ("Man on Wire"), and a PBS-style nature film became a blockbuster saga of familial survival ("March of the Penguins"). Who'd have thought,...
- 12/7/2009
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
Sundance Channel said Tuesday that it has acquired pay TV rights to six documentary films from the international docu sales company Films Transit International Inc. The films are Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott's The Corporation, Dane Elon's Another Road Home, Oren Seidler's Bruce and Me, Andrew Douglas' Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, John Appel's The Last Victory and Carey Schonegevel's Original Child Bomb. The films will make their U.S. television premieres on Sundance Channel late this year and early next.
- 6/29/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
TORONTO -- Canadian documentary makers got some good news as the Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival is set to start today. Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott's homegrown documentary The Corporation became the first Canadian documentary to pass the CAN$1 million mark at the domestic boxoffice. Canadian distributor Mongrel Media said the Vancouver-made documentary, which dissects the modern corporation's "psychotic tendencies" using commentary from, among others, Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky, had pulled in CAN$1.03 million ($750,000) so far in boxoffice sales since its Jan. 16 debut in Toronto and Vancouver. Zeitgeist Films has planned a platform release for The Corporation, which is based on Canadian law professor Joel Bakan's book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, to begin June 4 in San Francisco and move to New York on June 30.
- 4/23/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
TORONTO -- The Corporation, the Canadian film that grabbed the documentary audience award at Sundance, on Monday inked a U.S. distribution deal with Zeitgeist Films. The controversial documentary -- which argues that the modern corporation acts like a psychopath, holding only selfish concern for profit and no concern for human values -- is due for a spring release in the United States. The deal between New York-based Zeitgeist and U.S. producer representative Cinetic Media had been in the works for some time. Cinetic shopped the film to large U.S. distributors beginning at the Toronto International Film Festival.
LONDON -- London-based independent distributor Metrodome has acquired U.K. theatrical and retail DVD rights to Patty Jenkins' Monster, the company said Tuesday. The movie stars Charlize Theron as serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a performance that earned her a Golden Globe nomination. No financial details of the deal were revealed. Metrodome acquired the rights from DEJ Prods. and will release the film April 2 in U.K. theaters. Jenkins penned the screenplay for Monster, which also marks her feature film directorial debut. The movie is produced by Theron, Mark Damon, Clark Peterson, Donald Kushner and Brad Wyman. Other recent Metrodome acquisitions include Mark and Michael Polish's Northfork and The Corporation, directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot.
- 1/21/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
TORONTO -- Robert Lepage's La Face Chachee de la Lune, Denys Arcand's Cannes hit The Barbarian Invasions and Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World are among the top 10 Canadian movies of the year as chosen by the Toronto International Film Festival Group. The top-10 list for the festival group's Canadian Film Week, set to be unveiled Tuesday night in Toronto, also included Scott Smith's Falling Angels, the Sarah Polley starrer My Life Without Me from Isabel Coixet, David Sutherland's Love and Sex and Eating the Bones, Nathaniel Geary's On the Corner and another Quebec French-language film, Bernard Emond's 20h17, Rue Darling. Also named in the unranked top-10 list were two documentaries, Alan King's Dying at Grace and Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot's The Corporation.
- 12/18/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
TORONTO -- Producers of a feature documentary highly critical of modern corporations found themselves wooing Hollywood's biggest corporations at the Toronto International Film Festival in a bid to snag U.S. distribution for their project. Cinetic Media's Micah Green arranged a private screening of The Corporation on Monday in Toronto for such major film buyers as Fox Searchlight, Fine Line, Miramax, Paramount and Sony Pictures Classics ahead of an official press screening Tuesday and public screenings later this week. "This is a better turnout than for most fiction movies in Toronto," Green said after the documentary, which features such talking heads as Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and Milton Friedman, began rolling to the audience of select buyers. Among others at the private screening were two publicists for Fox, who said they were keen to see the contribution in The Corporation from whistle-blowing former Fox reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson.
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