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Tubi opens June with an intense WWII drama “Inglourious Basterds.” Allied officer Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) assembles a team of five tough Jewish soldiers to spread fear throughout the Third Reich. They have one assignment: assassinate Nazi leaders. Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed the unconventional war drama. Eli Roth, Melanie Laurent, and Christopher Walz co-star.

Watch the trailer of “Inglourious Basterds”:

The network is also streaming the original documentary “Mystery Unsolved: The Adnan Syed Story” on June 7. The murder of teenager Hae Min Lee was the focal point of a “Serial” podcast, which questioned if boyfriend Syed was her killer. After serving 22 years in prison, Syed was released, still proclaiming his innocence. Now, he may return.

Another streamer original, “Magic Carpet Rides,” arrives June 14. It centers on a social influencer torn between sharing her budding romance or honoring her boyfriend’s request to keep their life private.

Check...

February is the shortest month of the year but Prime Video is paying that no mind with its jam-packed list of new releases for February 2023.

This really is an uncommonly stuffed month on the Amazon streamer and it all starts with a handful of Amazon Originals. Amazon’s original offerings kick off with the release of Dave Franco-directed romcom Somebody I Used to Know on Feb. 10. That is followed by Carnival Row season 2 – a gritty fantasy crime drama is set in a world of steampunky fairies. The show stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevigne and this batch of episodes will be its swan song. Meanwhile The Consultant on Feb. 24 is a dark comedy workplace thriller starring Christoph Waltz.

The biggest hits this month, however, might just be some recent cinema faves. If February is for lovers, Amazon didn’t get the memo as there are quite a few horror movies of note here.

Documentary subjects don’t come much more peppy than Rita Moreno, who despite declaring in the opening minutes that “you can tell I’m not a real star because someone else would be doing this” as she busily unwraps cutlery, has the sort of charisma that money can’t buy.

In addition to being funny and sharp as a tack, at 87, when the film was shot, she’s not only incredibly open about her life and experiences, good and bad, but also has a talent for relating these stories with witty and engaging charm.

Directed by Mariem Pérez Riera, as part of the ever-reliable American Masters series for PBS, that also includes the likes of Oliver Sacks: His Own Life and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, the filmmaker knows a good subject when she sees it and wisely allows Moreno to stay in the spotlight. It’s a place...

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and O Cinema will work with Magnolia Pictures to make “I Am Not Your Negro,” “Whose Streets?” and “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” available to watch for free.

The effort comes in the wake of protests that are sweeping across the U.S., as tens of thousands of people have assembled in the streets to call attention to police brutality and systemic racism. They have been motivated to speak out because of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. The three films, which focus on influential Civil Rights leaders and Black thinkers such as James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, as well as issues of social injustice, could not be more topical.

Starting on June 7, the film will be available in eight cities through community partners. The cities include Akron, Ohio; Charlotte, North Carolina; Detroit, Michigan; Macon, Georgia; Miami,...

‘Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island’, ‘The Photograph’ also open.

Disney-Pixar’s latest animated offering Onward opens wide at the UK box office this weekend, as the coronavirus epidemic threatens to affect UK box office takings.

Directed by Dan Scanlon, Onward is the story of two teenage elf brothers in a suburban fantasy world who embark on a quest to see if magic still exists.

Screen Star of Tomorrow 2012 Tom Holland and Chris Pratt lead the voice cast, which also includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer and Lena Waithe. The film debuted as a Special title at last month’s Berlin Film Festival.

Cutting Edge Group, a leading music financier and services provider for film, TV and advertising, has acquired Lakeshore Records, a top independent soundtrack label.

Their partnership will provide Cutting Edge with an in-house label, while Lakeshore will continue to operate as an independent, doing albums for such high-profile projects as “Marriage Story,” “Moonlight,” “Stranger Things” and “Narcos.”

Cutting Edge COO Tara Finegan cites Lakeshore’s “intensity and passion and desire to get things absolutely right for the fans of soundtrack music, and for the composers and filmmakers who are on the other side, creating this art.”

Says Lakeshore Records President Brian McNelis: “The combining of Cutting Edge and Lakeshore is an extension of the business that we had already been in. We had a working relationship and they were looking to complement their other services.” Lakeshore had been licensing albums from Cutting Edge as far back as 2005, and in...

For its 50th anniversary, PBS is painting a portrait of America through diverse stories and several features on inspirational women.

PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger discussed the network’s upcoming year during Friday morning’s executive session at the Television Critics Association 2020 Winter Press tour in Pasadena. Chief among PBS projects is “PBS American Portrait,” which will gather first-person narratives from Americans throughout the country. Kerger said that PBS would leverage the broadcaster’s numerous local stations to connect with everyday Americans and share their stories.

“American Portrait is a digital-first national storytelling project that invites people to participate in a conversation about what it really means to be an American today,” Kerger said during her executive session. “PBS will gather the stories through photo, video, and written submissions. We will then share and amplify those stories through digital platforms, events, and educational resources for classrooms, as well as...

Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir continued her winning streak, claiming top honors for both her “Joker” and “Chernobyl” scores at Tuesday night’s inaugural awards of the Society of Composers & Lyricists at Los Angeles’ Skirball Cultural Center.

Her music for “Joker” was named outstanding original score for a studio film and her score for HBO’s “Chernobyl” was cited as outstanding original score for a television or streaming production. They followed her Golden Globe win Sunday night for “Joker” and BAFTA nomination earlier Tuesday. She won the Emmy in September for her score to the HBO miniseries “Chernobyl.”

Guðnadóttir is among the most talked-about newcomers in film music, first for her “Chernobyl” score (built largely on sounds she recorded while visiting the nuclear power plant where it was shot) and more recently her “Joker” music (her electro-acoustic cello providing the accompaniment for star Joaquin Phoenix’s on-screen dancing). She...

Two years ago, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 159 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others, on December 16.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume, with more to come. Each voter is assigned a list of about 22-23 films to screen, so they all get covered. But it’s a burden to see them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list.

Give the advantage to box-office hits that were made available earlier in the year such as Neon’s “The Biggest Little Farm” and “Apollo 11,” as well as high-profile titles from HBO (“Diego Maradona” and “The Apollo”), Netflix,...

Two years ago, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 159 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others, on December 16.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume, with more to come. Each voter is assigned a list of about 22-23 films to screen, so they all get covered. But it’s a burden to see them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list.

Give the advantage to box-office hits that were made available earlier in the year such as Neon’s “The Biggest Little Farm” and “Apollo 11,” as well as high-profile titles from HBO (“Diego Maradona” and “The Apollo”), Netflix,...

The Broadcast Film Critics Association has named the winners of the group’s 2019 documentary film prizes. “Apollo 11,” director Todd Douglas Miller’s majestic ode to Nasa’s flagship mission to the moon, continues to crush it, picking up multiple awards throughout Sunday evening’s announcement. It took home the night’s top prize, with a total of five awards, leading a pack of winners that included “They Shall Not Grow Old,” “Maiden,” “American Factory,” and more. The awards were handed out at a gala event in Brooklyn. See the full list of winners below.

There’s no denying the wind “Apollo 11” has in its sails this awards season, and tellingly, the picture took home the honor for Best Archival Documentary. After working on a short film about the later Apollo 17 journey, and directing 2014’s archeological deep-dive “Dinosaur 13,” Todd Douglas Miller was approached to create a 50th-anniversary tribute to Apollo 11.

“Apollo 11” has been named the best nonfiction film of 2019 at the fourth annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, which took place on Sunday evening at Bric in Brooklyn, New York.

The chronicle of Nasa’s 1969 moon mission won five awards in total, topping all other films at the ceremony voted on by film and television critics and journalists in the Critics’ Choice Association.

“Apollo 11” won in the Best Documentary Feature category that also included “American Factory,” “The Biggest Little Farm,” “The Cave,” “Honeyland,” “The Kingmaker,” “Knock Down the House,” “Maiden,” “One Child Nation,” “They Shall Not Grow Old” and the two-part HBO documentary series “Leaving Neverland.” (The Critics’ Choice rules do not differentiate between film and television docs.)

The Best Director category ended in a tie between Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert for “American Factory” and Peter Jackson for “They Shall Not Grow Old.”

Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s film “Honeyland,...

The Hollywood Music in Media Awards, known for recognizing music in film, TV, video games commercials and trailers, announced its 2019 nominees. Among the nominated films are “Joker” (composer Hildur Guðnadóttir is pictured), “Little Women,” “Us,” “Rocketman” and more.

Past honorees include Ludwig Goransson (“Black Panther”), Alexandre Desplat (“Shape of Water”), songs from “La La Land” and “A Star is Born.”

For the 10th anniversary concert & gala, the organization will host past winners. In addition to Jakob Dylan (“The Wallflowers”) and Kris Bowers (“Green Book”), composers and songwriters from The Society of Composers & Lyricists, The Alliance of Female Composers and the Guild of Music Supervisors will present and/or perform.

With over 500 submissions globally, Hmma nominations are selected by an advisory board and selection committee that includes journalists, music executives and music-media industry professionals comprised of select members of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, Television Academy, the AMPAS Music Branch and Naras.

“The Biggest Little Farm” leads nominees for the fourth annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, with seven bids, followed by “Apollo 11” and “They Shall Not Grow Old.” “One Child Nation” received five nominations.

The winners will be presented their awards at a gala, hosted by Property Brothers’ Jonathan Scott, on Nov. 10 at Bric in Brooklyn.

The awards honor documentaries released in theaters, on TV and on major digital platforms, as determined by the voting of qualified Cca members.

A new honor, the D.A. Pennebaker Award, will be presented to Frederick Wiseman. Michael Apted will receive the landmark award for his work on the “Up” series of films, with “63 Up” opening this year.

“As the film and television industry constantly evolves, documentaries remain a vibrant creative art form that entertains as well as informs,” said Cca CEO Joey Berlin. “We are proud that our awards event has become a...

The International Documentary Association (Ida) has revealed the 35th Annual Ida Documentary Awards shortlists for the Best Feature and Best Short categories, culled from 785 submissions: 375 documentary features, 153 documentary shorts, 124 documentary series, 89 student films, 44 podcasts, and 48 music documentaries. After winnowing down each list to up to ten nominees to be announced on Wednesday, October 23, online screeners will be accessible for viewing as of November 4, followed by the Ida membership voting.

The 2019 Awards will be presented at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on Saturday, December 7. The Ida will bestow awards in 16 categories. This year, the Ida has changed how craft awards are selected: cinematographers, editors, writers and composers will do the honors. And for the first time, the Ida will present an award for Best Director.

The awards categories include Best Feature, Best Short, Best Curated Series, Best Episodic Series, Best Multi-Part Documentary, Best Short Form Series, Best Audio Documentary, David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award,...

The International Documentary Association (Ida) has revealed the 35th Annual Ida Documentary Awards shortlists for the Best Feature and Best Short categories, culled from 785 submissions: 375 documentary features, 153 documentary shorts, 124 documentary series, 89 student films, 44 podcasts, and 48 music documentaries. After winnowing down each list to up to ten nominees to be announced on Wednesday, October 23, online screeners will be accessible for viewing as of November 4, followed by the Ida membership voting.

The 2019 Awards will be presented at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on Saturday, December 7. The Ida will bestow awards in 16 categories. This year, the Ida has changed how craft awards are selected: cinematographers, editors, writers and composers will do the honors. And for the first time, the Ida will present an award for Best Director.

The awards categories include Best Feature, Best Short, Best Curated Series, Best Episodic Series, Best Multi-Part Documentary, Best Short Form Series, Best Audio Documentary, David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award,...

Ten-year-old Doc NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, has announced its influential 15-film Short List. The festival will announce its main lineup of 100 films as well as its opening night selection in two weeks, before kicking off on November 6.

Historically, most of the Doc NYC short-list titles overlap with the Academy’s official 15-film Oscar Short List. For the last eight years, Doc NYC has screened the documentary that went on to win the Academy Award, including “Free Solo,” “Icarus,” “O.J.: Made in America,” “Amy,” “Citizenfour,” “20 Feet From Stardom,” “Searching for Sugar Man,” and “Undefeated.” The festival has screened 27 of the last 30 Oscar-nominated documentary features.

Thom Powers, Doc NYC’s artistic director as well as documentary programmer for Tiff, oversees curation of the Short List of films that may be in the running for the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature. This year’s list of 15 features...

Ten-year-old Doc NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, has announced its influential 15-film Short List. The festival will announce its main lineup of 100 films as well as its opening night selection in two weeks, before kicking off on November 6.

Historically, most of the Doc NYC short-list titles overlap with the Academy’s official 15-film Oscar Short List. For the last eight years, Doc NYC has screened the documentary that went on to win the Academy Award, including “Free Solo,” “Icarus,” “O.J.: Made in America,” “Amy,” “Citizenfour,” “20 Feet From Stardom,” “Searching for Sugar Man,” and “Undefeated.” The festival has screened 27 of the last 30 Oscar-nominated documentary features.

Thom Powers, Doc NYC’s artistic director as well as documentary programmer for Tiff, oversees curation of the Short List of films that may be in the running for the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature. This year’s list of 15 features...

The conversation about gender disparity in film—which tends to crescendo around big festivals and awards season—got some fresh intel last year when a University of Southern California study, looking at the 100 top films of each year from 2007 to 2017, revealed that only 16 women worked as composers in those films (43 women worked as directors).

Scan the credits of the 245 features screening in Toronto this year and you will find slightly over a dozen women composers. It may be a small ensemble for now, but these artists are making the kind of ear-catching music and smart career moves that are changing the mix.

The most talked about Toronto title, “The Joker,” is scored by Icelandic composer Hildur Guonadottir. Senegal-born, Kuwait-raised composer Fatima Al Qadiri scored Mati Diop’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning “Atlantics.” Heather Young’s “Murmur”— winner of the Fipresci Prize in Toronto’s Discovery strand—is scored by Brit composer Sarah DeCourcy.

Exclusive: Fledgling UK distribution company Republic Film Distribution has acquired all UK rights to the feature documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, directed and produced by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

The Sundance debut is currently on release in the U.S. through Magnolia Pictures generating near $900K at the box office.

The doc charts the late writer’s journey from her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio, to ʼ70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, the front lines with Angela Davis, her own riverfront writing room and a Nobel Prize. The esteemed writer passed away in August after a short illness, aged 88.

Talking heads include Hilton Als, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez and Oprah Winfrey, who starred in the feature version of Morrison’s novel Beloved.

Republic, run by former Icon exec Zak Brilliant, plans to release the film in the UK in early 2020, working with...

Covering specialized box office has largely come to mean covering documentaries. They’re no longer a subset; these films are the top performers for art-house theaters. But as distributors begin the fall-festival prowl for new titles, the nonfiction market isn’t as strong as it might appear.

Documentaries — the ones that play festivals, not the concert films, special events, Disney nature films, and right-wing polemics — dominate art houses. Using the most recent week as an example, there were 23 specialized titles. Of these, 12 were documentaries. A year ago, there were 24 titles and six were docs. The year prior, 18 titles and three documentaries.

While there may be many, more-complex reasons for the increased public interest in documentaries, their box-office presence is easily explained: Narrative films have died off, and nature abhors a vacuum.

Art houses once relied on a diverse range of distributors to supply films outside awards season that would gross between $25 million-$60 million,...

Studios seemingly threw caution to the wind at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, shelling out top dollar in hopes of finding the next indie sensation. A few Hollywood companies saw those shopping sprees pay off, while most will likely be feeling buyer’s remorse.

Amazon Studios was among the big spenders, unloading nearly $41 million at the 2019 festival, a large part of which was on the comedy “Brittany Runs a Marathon.” The feel-good film, which debuted in five theaters last weekend with a solid $175,696, is the latest Sundance favorite hoping to turn rave reviews into cold hard cash.

Amazon is pacing itself with “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” allotting more than a month before taking the film nationwide in an effort to avoid the same fate as fellow festival purchase “Late Night.” Despite critical praise, the Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson-led comedy fizzled at the box office with $15 million, only...

In today’s film news roundup, Djimon Hounsou fills in for Brian Tyree Henry in the “Quiet Place” sequel, “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” gets a wide release and a Louis Armstrong documentary has been set.

Casting

Paramount Pictures has cast Djimon Hounsou as a replacement for Brian Tyree Henry in its sequel to “A Quiet Place.”

Henry left the project due to scheduling conflicts. The sequel has been set for release on March 20, 2020.

John Krasinski is returning to direct the still-untitled movie with Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe reprising their roles.

“A Quiet Place” grossed $340 million at the global box office last year, and Blunt won the Screen Actors Guild Award in the supporting actress category for her role. Krasinski wrote the screenplay with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, and the trio received a Writers Guild nomination in the original category. Krasinski also directed and starred in the story,...

Beloved author Toni Morrison died Monday night. The cause of death was not disclosed. She was 88.

Her death has been confirmed by her publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Named Nobel laureate in Literature in 1993, Morrison died at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center.

Winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Beloved was perhaps the most celebrated and famous of her great canon of work, but novels such as 1992’s Jazz, 1997’s Paradise and 2015’s God Help the Child secured her status as one of her generations leading lights of both literature and civil rights.

Just last February, director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am was acquired by Magnolia Pictures for release by end of year. The documentary chronicles the life and works of the legendary storyteller who in 1993 became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize.

In the documentary, Morrison describes emerging from the steel town of Lorain,...

Festival favorite “Maiden” is the latest in documentary to buttress a weak summer at the specialty box office. “Maiden” opened in New York and Los Angeles at a level below some of the year’s top entries, but should build word of mouth with Sony Pictures Classics’ careful rollout, as initial audiences were enthusiastic. It’s slim pickings at the moment.

Multiple other films with solid reviews –“The Chambermaid” (Kino Lorber), “Ophelia” (IFC), “The Other Story” (Strand), and “The Plagiarists” (Kimstim) — also made limited debuts but didn’t report lesser grosses. This happens occasionally, but not reporting this many estimates is a sign of an overall problematic market.

A bigger problem is top titles that skip the normal specialized slow expansion route like “Booksmart” (United Artists) and “Late Night” (Amazon). Both have yielded disappointing wider performances, particularly the latter. Both continue at some key arthouse situations.

But the big success...

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on filming Toni Morrison: "The camerawork that was done in Toni's home by the river, all of that was done by Mead Hunt." Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

In the second instalment of my conversation with director/photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders he recalls memories of Tennessee Williams, Bette Davis, Orson Welles, and Ingmar Bergman, and relates an early Ernest Hemingway insight. We discuss Fran Lebowitz, Oprah Winfrey, Walter Mosley, and Russell Banks in Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am and his longtime cinematographer Graham Willoughby who became Morgan Neville's trusted Dp on.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: "When she says 'I highly recommend that you have a friend that wins a Nobel Prize!' Classic Fran Lebowitz." Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Timothy credits his editor Johanna Giebelhaus for the clip from John M. Stahl's Imitation of...

Welcome back everyone to the weekly box office report! Each and every Sunday, you can expect a look at what made the most money in theaters, as well as just how all of the new releases fared. This week, a remake and a hotly anticipated sequel entered the marketplace, alongside the latest effort from action filmmaker Luc Besson. The sequel in question was Toy Story 4, the remake was Child’s Play, and Besson’s flick was Anna. How did they all do? Let us take a look right now at just that… Taking the top spot, unsurprisingly, was Toy Story 4, though perhaps shockingly Pixar’s latest also fell victim to the summer drought and potential non superhero franchise exhaustion that’s been plaguing the box office. To be fair, an estimated $118 million is still great, but the studio had been projecting quite a bit more. This won’t...

Neon’s “Wild Rose,” a music drama starring Jessie Buckley that opened in New York and Los Angeles on four screens, lead the way in this weekend’s relatively quiet indie box office.

The film opened decently at $56,183 for a per screen average of $14,046, but Neon had paid a hefty sum for the film at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, with reports putting the price at around $4 million. That’s roughly what the distributor paid for their first Oscar-winning release, “I, Tonya,” which had a $66,039 average in its limited release en route to a $53.9 million global run.

Directed by Tom Harper, “Wild Rose” follows an ex-convict and single mother played by Buckley who pursues her dreams of being a country singer despite still being under curfew house arrest. Sophie Okonedo and Julie Walters also star in the film, which has been a hit with critics with a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Documentaries continue to dominate the specialized world. Among new openers, three of the four are non-fiction titles. They include “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” (Magnolia) and a reissue of David Hockney biodoc “A Bigger Splash” (Metrograph).

“Wild Rose,” the top narrative release of the week from Neon, had a middling start despite strong support and good reviews for breakout Jessie Buckley. The familiar story of an aspiring singer might have limited its appeal.

Among holdovers, documentaries are holding better than the two prime Sundance titles that opened soft in recent weeks. Not showing signs of sustained growth are “Late Night” (Amazon), which dropped more than half on its second wide weekend, while “Booksmart” (United Artists) is nearing $21 million, a total the Amazon film is unlikely to reach.

Opening

Wild Rose (Neon) – Metacritic: 78; Festivals include: Toronto 2018, South by Southwest 2019

$56,183 in 4 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $14,046

Rising actress Buckley, on view in HBO’s “Chernobyl,...

With both Child's Play and Toy Story 4 hitting theaters Friday, it's playtime at this weekend's box office. 

Chucky returns to terrorize all those who cross his path with new and improved artificial intelligence technology, while Buzz Lightyear and Woody set out to save the newest member of the gang, Forky. 

But animated dolls aside, this weekend offers a variety of titles, including Luc Besson's latest lady assassin flick, Anna, and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. 

Also hitting big screens this weekend are comedies Swinging Safari and Burn Your Maps and comedy-drama ...

With both Child's Play and Toy Story 4 hitting theaters Friday, it's playtime at this weekend's box office. 

Chucky returns to terrorize all those who cross his path with new and improved artificial intelligence technology, while Buzz Lightyear and Woody set out to save the newest member of the gang, Forky. 

But animated dolls aside, this weekend offers a variety of titles, including Luc Besson's latest lady assassin flick, Anna, and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. 

Also hitting big screens this weekend are comedies Swinging Safari and Burn Your Maps and comedy-drama ...

The Scandinavian distributor has picked up 29 titles.

Takashi Miike’s Directors’ Fortnight selection First Love; Claire Denis’ sci-fi High Life, Sydney Pollack’s Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace; and John Chester’s hit Sundance doc Biggest Little Farm are among the films acquired by Scandinavian distributor NonStop Entertainment. The deals were done with HanWay Films, Wild Bunch, Endeavor Content and The Exchange respectively.

The Stockholm-based company has confirmed it has bought 29 titles in Cannes and beyond for distribution in the Nordics and Baltics.

“We continue to see a very strong output of commercial documentaries that prove themselves in the theatrical...

The 17th annual AFI Docs Film Festival will launch this year’s eclectic program from June 19-23 in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Md., showcasing 72 films from 17 countries, with a strong emphasis on female filmmakers. Of the current slate set to unspool, 48% of the directors and 68% of the producers are women, marking a considerable uptick from past festivals. This year, AFI Docs is organizing its entries into different categories, and will include six world premieres, one North American premiere, and two U.S. premieres.

The festival kicks off with the world premiere of “True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality” and closes with “Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins.” Other special screenings include the world premiere of “Chasing the Moon,” “Ruth – Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words,” “Sea of Shadows,” and “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.”

This year’s centerpiece film screening, occurring...

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on direct-to-camera for Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am: "It really conveys how much Toni is controlling the narrative." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the first instalment of my conversation with photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, director of Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, which took place on the day we heard that Sylvia Miles died, Timothy goes into the direct-to-camera of Shirley Clarke, Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, Warren Beatty's "slightly off camera" Reds, and Errol Morris. Raoul Peck's brilliant I Am Not Your Negro on James Baldwin, Kirk Simon's The Pulitzer At 100, Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, being seated where Toni Morrison sat for The Black List, and what's in a gaze came up.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on Toni Morrison: "I felt it was my portraiture coming to life." Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am...

January’s Sundance Film Festival is the most effective launchpad for any documentary Oscar hopeful. With a field overloaded by competitive non-fiction, it’s essential to get a head start, a distributor, an early release date and build a profile before narrative features grab the media attention in an overcrowded fall.

Some high-profile non-fiction features, like Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s box-office star and eventual Oscar-winner “Free Solo,” break out of fall festivals like Telluride, Toronto, and New York. However, titles like those are the outliers.

Sundance 2018 yielded four out of the five 2019 Oscar nominees: $14 million-grossing Ruth Bader Ginsburg doc “Rbg,” Sundance breakthrough filmmaker prize-winner Bing Liu’s “Minding the Gap,” which follows three young skateboarders in the Rust Belt, photographer RaMell Ross’ languorous poetic portrait of a time and place, “Hale County: This Morning, This Evening,” and Talal Derki’s Sundance World Documentary Grand Jury Prize-winner “Of Fathers and Sons.

Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison has written her share of acclaimed novels, and now her life is front and center with the upcoming documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.

The film is directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart), who has been a friend of Morrison for [...]

The post ‘Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am’ Sets Sights For A June Release appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

There’s no doubt, author Toni Morrison is a literary living legend. The author of titles including, “Tar Baby,” “Beloved,” and “Song Of Solomon,” among others, Morrison conveyed the Black experience in with poetic nuance. Her texts are a window by which we can bear witness to lived experiences told in lyrical fashion. It’s no surprise, then, that such a woman of prolific writing and astounding career is given the documentary treatment compiling all the pieces that make them tick.

Continue reading ‘Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am’ Trailer: The Greatness Of A Literary Legend Is Captured In New Doc at The Playlist.

"Ultimately, I knew that words have power." Magnolia Pictures has unveiled an official trailer for an indie documentary titled Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, an invigorating, inspiring biographic profile of the legendary African-American novelist, essayist, editor, and professor. This premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and played at other festivals including at the Miami, Cleveland, Wisconsin, and Montclair Film Festivals this year. This documentary is described as an "artful and intimate meditation on the legendary storyteller" Toni Morrison that "examines her life, her works and the powerful themes she has confronted throughout her literary career." From this trailer the doc looks fantastic, with some powerful and fierce moments from Toni and from others who knew her and have been influenced by her. As Oprah says in here: "Morrison's work shows us through pain all the myriad ways we can come to love." See below. Here's the...

Former IFC executive Marie Zeniter will work with Lorna Lee Torres at Magnolia.

Magnolia Pictures has recruited former IFC Films executive Marie Zeniter as international sales manager.

In her new role with the New York-based Us distributor, Zeniter will oversee foreign film festivals and select sales territories alongside Magnolia’s head of international sales Lorna Lee Torres.

At IFC, Zeniter handled IFC Midnight and repertory titles. She started her career working for Canal+ before moving to New York and becoming senior programmer for the Us in Progress biannual event.

At Cannes, Magnolia International will be continuing sales on upcoming Us releases including documentary Hail Satan?...

Doc about first African-American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature premiered at Sundance.

Magnolia Pictures has swooped on North American rights to Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ documentary and recent Sundance world premiere Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.

The film explores the life and works of the first African-American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature, from her childhood growing up in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio, to 1970s-era book tours with Muhammed Ali, to the front lines with activist Angela Davis, to her own riverfront writing room.

Greenfield-Sanders interviews Hilton Als, Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez,...

Magnolia Pictures announced on Tuesday that it has landed North American rights to Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ uplifting documentary “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.”

The documentary, about the legendary storyteller, who was the first African-American woman to receive the Nobel Prize, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

“Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am,” offers an artful and intimate meditation on the life and works of the acclaimed novelist. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio to ’70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history and the human condition as seen through the prism of her own literature. Inspired to write because no one took a “little black girl” seriously, Morrison reflects on her lifelong deconstruction of the master narrative.

Exclusive: Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, an uplifting documentary chronicling the vibrant life and compelling works of the legendary storyteller who in 1993 became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize.

In addition to Nobel Laureate Morrison, the film features conversations with Hilton Als, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley and Sonia Sanchez, as well as Oprah Winfrey, who adapted Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved into a 1998 feature film directed by the late Jonathan Demme.

Magnolia is aiming for a theatrical release before year’s end. The Pieces I Am, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, will stream on Hulu. The film will make its exclusive U.S. broadcast premiere in late 2020 on PBS as part of the American Masters series.

The documentary acquisition...

Toni Morrison’s artistic, cultural and historical legacies are by now firmly established, which doesn’t prevent “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” from revealing them anew and setting them out in an appreciative, and appropriate, package. An eloquent nonfiction biopic that travels creatively through the past, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ film is enlivened both by its own storytelling dexterity and by the participation of its subject, who at 87 years old remains as warm, vibrant and insightful as ever. With recent big-name docs about Fred Rogers and Ruth Bader Ginsberg proving the enormous appetite for such offerings, its fortunes seem considerable after its Sundance premiere.

The doc begins with Morrison recalling how she learned “words have power” from her grandfather, whose constant re-reading of the Bible during an era when it was illegal for African-Americans to be literate was a “revolutionary act” that opened her eyes to prose’s capacity to move,...

Exclusive: You may know her as Toni Morrison, but in this exclusive clip from the Sundance documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, the prolific novelist, professor, and Nobel prize-winning writer unpacks the history and meaning of her birth name: Chloe Wofford.

Directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders,, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am serves up an intimate meditation on the life and works of the titular storyteller. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio to ‘70s-era book tours with Mohammed Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history and the human condition as seen through the prism of her own literature.

Morrison was inspired to write because no one...