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With support from the Nancy P. & Richard K. Robbins Family Foundation and Resonance Philanthropies, DocPitch 2024 has awarded five independent documentary filmmakers cash awards totaling $100,000 to help them complete their feature documentary film projects currently in development or post-production.

“With DocPitch 2024, we’re incredibly honored to again be in the position of supporting independent filmmakers in such a tangible way,” said DocLands Director of Programming Joni Cooper. “Thanks to our generous donors, we’re able to help move these passionate storytellers closer to the goal of seeing their projects reach the finish line — and into the public realm. Each project underscores the importance of DocPitch to bring a wide range of timely and significant topics to the public including the industry professional eye, and in turn enriches essential discussions through the process itself.”

DocPitch Award Recipients and their projects:

The Co-Op: The Kids of Dorie Miller – Audience Award $45,000

Director/Producer Paulina...

The Austin Film Festival (Aff) has announced the 2022 Film Competition Jury and Audience Award winners alongside the Screenplay Competition winners. In the festival, writers are recognized for their contribution to film, television, theatre and new media. The competitions received over 5,000 film submissions and over 10,000 script submissions.

Film Jury Awards

Narrative Feature: Welcome, Violeta!, written by Fernando Fraiha & Inés Bortagaray, directed by Fernando Fraiha

Documentary Feature: With this Light, directed by Nicole Bernardi-Reis & Laura Bermúdez

Comedy Vanguard Feature: The Library Boys, written/directed by Zane Borg

Dark Matters Feature: The Domestic, written/directed by Brad Katzen

Narrative Short: One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, written/directed by Ana Yang

Student Short: Sammy, Without Strings, written by Will Henderson, III & Ralph Parker, III, directed by Ralph Parker, III

Documentary Short: Gina, directed by Kathryn Prescott

Animated Short: Rosemary A.D. (After Dad), directed by Ethan Barrett

Produced Digital Series: Serjan Bratan, written by Alisher Utev & Sergei Litovchenko,...

Optimist, filmmakers behind the GameStop project now working-titled The Meme Economy, is illuminating another trending corner of the financial ecosystem with Ethereum: The Infinite Garden, a doc it just fully and speedily financed by donations of said cryptocurrency.

Optimist raised just under $2 million worth of Ethereum in just over 48 hours last week by crowdfunding on the platform Mirror. Some donors received producer credits and NFTs created by digital artist pplpleaser. All donors of at least one Eth got a non-fungible token titled “Bloom.” The top 20 were sent an animated version of the film’s poster.

Cryptocurrencies are notoriously volatile and Optimist’s principals told Deadline they pretty quickly converted the ETHs to dollars to lock in the funding.

NFTs are unique digital assets. They can help raise revenue and the nascent industry is starting to take hold in the arts, entertainment and sport

The film is in early preproduction.

While Biden has sought to restrict the power of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka Ice), reversing a number of Trump’s inhumane policies, it’s hard to get a complete grasp on the situation just from headlines. However, an acclaimed new documentary goes deep into dual perspectives of both Ice and the undocumented people they are going after. After premiering on last year’s festival circuit, including the Full Frame Documentary Film and Doc NYC (where it picked up the Grand Jury Prize), the documentary Five Years North will now arrive at Film Forum starting May 28. We’re pleased to premiere the trailer for Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci’s film, which follows both Luis, an undocumented Guatemalan teenager in New York City, and Judy, an Ice officer, a single mother, and the daughter of Cuban immigrants.

Jared Mobarak said in his Doc NYC review, “The American immigration system is broken.

Hollywood is no stranger to competing projects that are each racing to be first or to be the definitive story, be it two Fyre Fest documentaries, two biopics about Steve Jobs or two different “Jungle Books.” But the number of projects surrounding GameStop and the investors on Reddit’s WallStreetBets is unheard of.

TheWrap counts a whopping eight different projects all announced within the last few weeks that aim to focus on how GameStop, labeled a “meme stock” by independent online traders, surged by 1500% in market share before the price came crashing down again. Those come in the form of narrative feature films as well as documentary features and series that all want to cash in on the story of the traders who really did manage to cash in.

It’s no wonder there’s so much interest; the story is a good one. Individual, amateur investors found an opportunity...

Exclusive: Netflix is doubling down on its investment in the GameStop story with a new documentary series from Emmy and Oscar-winning filmmakers Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus.

The streamer has ordered and is in production on a series that tells the viral story of rebel retail traders taking on Wall Street – a David vs. Goliath tale for the ages.

The series will be produced by Story Syndicate, the company set up by Icarus producer Cogan and What Happened, Miss Simone? filmmaker Garbus. The pair will exec produce along with Jon Bardin, who is working on Nat Geo’s upcoming Fauci documentary and Julie Gaither, who worked on Netflix’s The Innocence Files.

The untitled doc series will look at the layers on intrigue within the story, from the supercharged power of digital communities to the gamification of trading and explore the latest seismic shift in how the world’s money behaves.

Propagate, the company behind Hulu’s Hillary, and the Wall Street Journal are the latest companies to explore the recent GameStop financial saga.

Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owens’ company is working with The Wall Street Journal Studios on feature doc This Is Not Financial Advice, directed by Hannah Olson, director of HBO’s Baby God.

It is the latest project in the works on the saga with feature docs from Xtr and directors Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci and Console Wars director Jonah Tulsi and Submarine as well as feature films from Netflix, Mark Boal and Noah Centineo, MGM and Ben Mezrich, RatPac and HBO, Jason Blum, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Len Amato.

The project will explore the recent stock market chaos that started with GameStop and has revealed a major power shift on Wall Street. It will examine the origins and inner workings of the digital and social...

An army of Hollywood production companies are already getting to work on an array of projects centered around the recent GameStop stock chaos.

At least three feature films could come out of the story, in which retail traders mostly operating on the WallStreetBets subreddit bought and held massive amounts of GameStop stock in an attempted “short squeeze” — a play that would’ve forced financial institutions that had bet against GameStop to buy back shares at outrageously inflated prices. While the stock price of the video games retailer rose over $400 last week,...

There is another project from Hollywood based on the GameStop saga in the works, this one set at HBO. The pay-cable network is in development on a scripted project based on the “short squeeze” movement regarding GameStop’s stock that took place over the last two weeks.

This one is from Jason Blum and “Billions” co-creator and CNBC co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin. Former HBO Films president Len Amato is also attached as an executive producer. The project is being envisioned as a film, an individual with knowledge told TheWrap.

Here is the logline for the project: How a populist uprising of social media day traders beat Wall Street at their own game turning the stock market upside down and shaking the financial world to its core.

Led by a cadre of Reddit stock traders, who were attempting to stick to Hedge Funds who were shorting the stock price for the gaming retail company,...

Hollywood is continuing to go crazy for GameStop with HBO the latest to get involved in a project based on the stock saga.

The WarnerMedia network is developing a scripted feature film with Jason Blum, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Len Amato.

Their logline: How a populist uprising of social media day traders beat Wall Street at their own game turning the stock market upside down and shaking the financial world to its core.

It follows two feature films in development – Netflix making a film with Mark Boal and Noah Centineo and MGM adapting Ben Mezrich’s The Antisocial Network. Jamie Rogozinski, the founder of Reddit’s WallStreetBets, has sold his life story to RatPac Entertainment, while Xtr, the company behind You Cannot Kill David Arquette , has teamed up with directors Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci on a doc project and Console Wars director Jonah Tulis has started production on another feature documentary with Submarine.

Exclusive: Even with the GameStop-Wall Street saga still unfolding, Console Wars director Jonah Tulis has started production on a feature documentary chronicling the Reddit-fueled frenzy that saw retail traders team send select stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment soaring. It’s the latest project to emerge about the fast-moving, stock-market-shaking phenomenon.

The feature-length film, which is fully financed and already in production, will feature many of the key players who believed in the value of GameStop and leveraged the power of social media platforms and online trading to spark the short-squeeze surge that continues to disrupt the markets and roil institutional investors. They include a Midwestern father of two whose contrarian research helped propel the big bet against Wall Street, and an amateur investor who put her life savings on the line riding GameStop stock to the moon.

Dan Braun, Ben Braun, Matt Burke, and Josh Braun of Submarine...

While we’ve seen a race in Hollywood to option a fictionalized version of the Reddit traders who rocked Wall Street with their investing in the “meme stock” GameStop, a new documentary is also in the works about the online traders on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets.

The documentary studios Xtr and The Optimist are developing a feature documentary film about the ongoing “short squeeze movement,” which over the last few days has caused GameStop stock prices to surge and send more traditional hedge funds that were shorting the stock into a panic.

The untitled documentary film was in part funded by a Kickstarter campaign and is already undergoing interviews with key players of the movement, even as the story continues to unfold.

The Optimist’s Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, who are known for last year’s immigration documentary “Five Years North,” will direct the film about how the GameStop...

Non-fiction film and television studio Xtr and documentary production company Optimist are partnering up for a feature documentary about the GameStop, WallStreetBets and short squeeze movement.

“This story is still evolving daily,” director Chris Temple said. “It’s so important to have a strong, nuanced documentary that can capture this landmark moment as it unfolds, through the perspective of the key people and forces that are shaping it.”

Temple and Zach Ingrasci will direct the untitled GameStop documentary, with Jenna Kelly producing and Bryn Mooser and Justin Lacob executive producing. The film was launched with a Kickstarter fundraiser and is already conducting interviews.

“The Robinhood GameStop saga is shaping up to be one of the most exciting stories of the year, with far reaching consequences about the future of the financial markets and America’s distaste for the standard institutional investors,” Lacob said. “Similar to Fyre Festival, America is infatuated...

Exclusive: GameStop is the gift that keeps giving to the entertainment business, with a feature documentary the latest project in the works about the financial saga.

Xtr, the company behind You Cannot Kill David Arquette and Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, has teamed up with directors Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci on a project.

Temple and Ingrasci, who run doc production company Optimist, are the filmmakers behind Five Years North and HBO’s The Undocumented Lawyer.

They already have started production and started interview with key players behind the scenes and are beginning to raise money via Kickstarter.

It follows a number of scripted projects in the works – Deadline revealed that Netflix is in talks to make a film that Mark Boal is in negotiations to write and Noah Centineo will be attached to play a major role, and MGM has acquired the rights to Ben Mezrich’s book proposal The Antisocial Network.

The documentaries “Landfall” and “Five Years North” have won the top jury prizes at the 2020 Doc NYC film festival, the largest festival in the United States devoted to nonfiction filmmaking.

“Landfall,” director Cecilia Aldarondo’s portrait of a Puerto Rican community in the wake of Hurricane Maria, won the Grand Jury Prize in the Viewfinders Competition, with a special jury prize going to “Through the Night.” In the Metropolis Competition, made up of films about New York City, the top winner was “Five Years North,” Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple’s film about a Cuban-American Ice agent and a teenage Guatemalan immigrant. “Wojnarowicz” received a special award for its use of archival material.

Jury prizes in the Short List: Features section, which was made up of 15 films deemed by Doc NYC programmers to be likely awards contenders, were awarded to “Time” for directing, “Welcome to Chechnya” for producing, “Boys State...

The American immigration system is broken. We can argue about how and what all we want, but that simple fact should be something for which both sides of the political aisle can agree. Have things gotten worse since Republicans took over the Senate in 2015? You bet. That should also be a universal truth when you look into policy changes that have spiraled towards crimes against humanity status ever since Donald Trump entered the White House. Suddenly, a nation that opened its arms to refugees and immigrants—something everyone in this country besides indigenous populations are—decided to slam the door shut. Anyone who tried to enter for illegal or legal reasons became lumped together and incarcerated or treated like prey to either send back or hunt later.

And while this film might not have been the reason why Five Years North directors Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple befriended Luis — the...

Doc NYC, America’s largest documentary festival and staple of the New York film community, announced the lineup for its 11th edition, running online November 11-19 and available to viewers across the US. The program includes new films about John Belushi, Pope Francis, Bill T. Jones, Jamal Khashoggi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Frank Zappa, and many more. The 2020 festival lineup includes 107 feature-length documentaries among over 200 films and dozens of events. Included are 23 World Premieres, 12 international or North American premieres, and 7 US premieres. Fifty-seven features (53% of the lineup) are directed or co-directed by women and 36 by Bipoc directors (34% of the feature program).

World Premieres at the festival include Nelson G. Navarrete and Maxx Caicedo’s “A La Calle,” Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s “The Meaning of Hitler,” Gong Cheng and Yung Chang’s “Wuhan Wuhan,” Sian-Pierre Regis’s “Duty Free,” Noah Hutton’s “In Silico,” Nancy Buirski’s “A Crime on the Bayou,...

HBO has acquired award-winning documentary short “The Undocumented Lawyer,” which showcases the fight for immigrant rights through the perspective of an American lawyer on the front lines. (Check out a trailer for the film above.)

Directed by Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, the film world premiered in the short competition at the Tribeca Film Festival and won best documentary at the 2020 Boston Short Film Festival. It will air on HBO Latino and will be available on HBO Max in March.

Produced by social impact studio Optimist, “The Undocumented Lawyer” follows attorney Lizbeth Mateo as she starts a law practice, hires four employees and takes an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. However, Mateo also has no legal options to stay in the country as she is undocumented, having crossed the border illegally at 14. The doc centers on Mateo’s work with client Edith Espinal, who is avoiding deportation by taking sanctuary in a church.

The Tribeca Film Festival announced its 2020 Shorts Program lineup Thursday including the world premiere of DreamWorks Animation’s To Gerard and projects with Benedict Cumberbatch, Dennis Quaid and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

As cancellations and postponements rock the entertainment landscape, Tribeca said it’s still a go. “We are tracking the COVID19 (coronavirus) situation closely. If we receive pertinent information that requires us to make any changes to the Tribeca Film Festival taking place from April 15-26, we will provide an updated statement. As of right now, there are no direct impacts to our festival.” a spokesperson said Thursday.

The shorts roster for the 19th annual fest has 64 shorts from 20 countries, including 46 world premieres, selected from a record 6,100 submissions, organizers said.

Whoopi Goldberg again curated the animated portion. And back for a second year are two portrayals of diverse women from the Queen Collective by Procter & Gamble in partnership with Queen Latifah.

Read: Read Michael Moore's Letter Opposing Michigan's Syrian Refugee Ban The Syrian Civil War has been a violent and remorseless affair that has left both sides bloodied, exhausted, and desperate. But the true victims of this perpetual conflict are the people who are not invested in either side and have been swept up in the debacle, and written off as collateral damage. These people have lost homes, families, jobs, safety, hygiene, comfort -- the list goes on. So, as Jordan and other surrounding nations deal with the ever-growing Syrian refugee crisis, socially conscious filmmakers have taken it upon themselves to try to raise as much public awareness as they can, to help those who have lost everything. In Participant Media's "Salam Neighbor," documentarians Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci ("Living on One Dollar") have a unique opportunity to recount the harrowing experiences that these refugees face on a daily basis.

Four documentary projects that screened at AFI Docs 2015 film festival in Washington DC have been chosen to receive funding from the new AFI Docs/NBCUniversal Impact Grants.

The grants were created to support social action and outreach for the four documentaries that took place at the first-ever AFI Docs Impact Lab.

The programme not only plans to garner financial support, but also partner with the Center for Media & Social Impact (Cmsi) at American University and Cmsi Co-Director Caty Borum Chattoo to measure the social impact each film generates.

“NBCUniversal is excited to have joined with AFI on this initiative to help filmmakers find innovative ways to create a positive impact through their films,” said Beth Colleton, svp of corporate social responsibility at NBCUniversal.

“We believe these grants will drive awareness and education around important social issues by engaging consumers, communities and government, and help these filmmakers also be change makers.”

The first Impact...

Well folks, after a rather long and brutal winter (at least for me here in Buffalo), we are finally heading into the wonderful warmth of summer, but with that blast of sunshine and steamy humidity comes the mid-year drought of major film fests. After the Sheffield Doc/Fest concludes on June 10th and AFI Docs wraps on June 21st, we likely won’t see any major influx in our charts until Locarno, Venice, Telluride and Tiff announce their line-ups in rapid succession. In the meantime, we can look forward to the intriguing onslaught of films making their debut in Sheffield, including Brian Hill’s intriguing examination of Sweden’s most notorious serial killer, The Confessions of Thomas Quick, and Sean McAllister’s film for which he himself was jailed in the process of making, A Syrian Love Story, the only two films world premiering in the festival’s main competition.

Top brass at AFI Docs 2015 have announced the slate at the 13th festival, set to run from June 17–21 in Washington DC and Silver Spring, Maryland.

Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s Best Of Enemies will open the event and chronicles a series of debates during the summer of 1968 between Gore Vidal and William F Buckley Jr.

Stanley Nelson will be the 2015 Charles Guggenheim honouree at the National Archives’ William G McGowan Theater on June 19.

Spotlight Screenings include Abigail Disney’s The Armor Of Light, David Holbrooke’s The Diplomat, the world premiere of Brad Horn’s First And 17 and Greg Whiteley’s Most Likely To Succeed.

Panel discussions or extended Q&As with special guests will follow each Spotlight Screening.

There are Special Screenings of Dawn Porter’s Rise: The Promise Of My Brother’s Keeper on June 18 and Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci’s Salam Neighbor, which coincides with World Refugee Day with a world premiere...

The American Film Institute has released the full slate of screenings for its AFI Docs 2015 Film Festival. Of the 81 films from 25 different countries, four are world premieres: Dawn Porter's "Rise: The Promise of My Brother's Keeper," Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci's "Salam Neighbor," Natalie Avital's "The Three Hikers" and Brad Horn's "First and 17." Other notable filmmakers with projects screening in the festival include the late Albert Maysles ("In Transit"), Alex Gibney ("Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"), Abigail Disney ("The Armor of Light"), David Holbrooke ("The Diplomat") and Joshua Oppenheimer ("The Look of Silence"). Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville's "Best of Enemies" will open the festival on June 17, while "Mavis!" from Jessica Edwards will screen closing night on June 21.  Read More: AFI Docs Names Ida's Michael Lumpkin as New...