Friday, November 25, 2016 – Blue Jay and Asperger’s Are Us, Director Alex Lehmann

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BLUE JAY is the story of former high school sweethearts Jim (Mark Duplass) and Amanda (Sarah Paulson) who have been out of touch for more than 20 years — but by sheer coincidence, they run into each other at a grocery store back in their alpine hometown of Crestline, California. Jim’s mother has died and he’s here to put her house on the market. Amanda is visiting her pregnant sister. They get to talking, first over coffee, then over beer and jellybeans. Before they know it they’re at Jim’s mother’s house, where everything sends them spiraling back into the past. Jim and Amanda’s lives have taken different directions, yet here they are, reconnecting like nothing has changed. This is one of 2016’s best films.

For news on Blue Jay go to: blue-jay

“Though the film largely trains on the simple, dialogue-fueled interaction of two people, it feels more spectacular than theatrical, showcasing the acting prowess of two master performers feeding on mutual chemistry and performative bravado.” – Joey Nolfi, Entertainment Weekly

“Even after twenty years apart, Amanda and Jim can ask each other the questions no one else would dare to, and understand the answers that go beyond words.” – Serena Donadoni, Village Voice

aspergers-are-us-film-posterASPERGER’S ARE US is the story of the members of the comedy troupe “Asperger’s Are Us,” whose “condition” make it easier to associate with a faceless audience than with their own families. No matter who the crowd, best friends Noah, New Michael, Jack and Ethan have one simple mantra: “We would much rather the audience appreciate us as comedians than people who have overcome adversity.”   In this coming-of-age heartfelt documentary, this band of brothers finds themselves at a crossroad. With real life pulling them apart, they decide to plan one ambitious farewell show before they all go their separate ways. People with Asperger’s don’t deal well with uncertainty, and this is the most uncertain time in their lives.

“Asperger’s Are Us” rarely stretches to be funny or poignant or touching, and that makes this documentary all the more of each.” Ken Jaworowski, New York Times

“The four young men at the heart of this documentary will easily find a home in all but the hardest of hearts.” – Kimber Myers, LA Times

“Warm, funny and enormously entertaining.” – Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru

For news on Asperger’s Are Us go to: facebook.com/aspergersareus/

alex-lehmannDirector / cinematographer Alex Lehmann was born in France and studied film at Emerson College in Boston.  ASPERGER’S ARE US is his first documentary feature, it premiered this year at SXSW and was the first Netflix acquisition of the festival. Alex most recently released BLUE JAY starring Mark Duplass and Sarah Paulson which marked his second collaboration (ASPERGER’S ARE US) with the Duplass Brothers. Alex has mostly worked in the industry as a cinematographer, most recently having shot the upcoming Katherine Keener political drama Little Pink House. He and Mark Duplass met on the set of “The League”, where Alex served as a camera operator. Alex stops by for a lively conversation on is collaboration with Mark and Jay Duplass and the on-set challenges / rewards of shooting and directing and bonding with a troupe of four very funny performers.

For more on Alex Lehmann go to: facebook.com/mralexlehmann

Friday, November 25, 2016 – Notes on Blindness, Co-directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney

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Based on the Emmy Award-winning short film of the same name, Notes on Blindness is the debut feature from writer / directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney. In 1983, after decades of steady deterioration, writer and theologian John Hull became totally blind. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began documenting his experiences on audio cassette. Drawing on John’s original audio recordings, Notes on Blindness is a poetic and intimate story of loss, rebirth and transformation, charting his extraordinary journey into ‘a world beyond sight’. To compliment this archive material, the filmmakers recorded over twenty hours of audio interviews with John and his wife Marilyn. These audio interviews are interwoven throughout the film’s soundtrack, forming a lyrical narration, with the couple reflecting on events from a distance of thirty years. This wealth of documentary audio material is embedded within cinematic interpretations, in which actors play John and his family, lip-synching to this documentary audio. This innovative creative approach liberates the scope of the film to explore the interior aspects of John’s journey into blindness – John’s dream life, his memories and flights of imagination. Writer / directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney join us for a conversation on the their innovative approach to conveying the experience of blindness and the challenges of telling this deeply personal story of love and triumph.

Story of film subject John Hull: John M. Hull taught for 30 years at the University of Birmingham until his retirement in 2002. He was the first professor of Religious Education in the UK and recipient of the prestigious William Rainey Harper award from the Religious Education Association of the US and Canada. This award is only held by 12 international scholars, and is presented to ‘outstanding leaders whose work in other fields has had a profound impact upon religious education’, including luminaries such as Marshall McLuhan, Margaret Mead and Paolo Freire.

For news and updates go to: notesonblindness.arte.tv/en/

★★★★★  “The genius of the film is in allowing us to understand and visualise the world of blindness… A beautiful, accessible and thoughtful work of art.”   THE GUARDIAN, Charlie Phillips

★★★★★ “A visionary, lyrical film” THE TIMES, Kate Muir

★★★★★ “Articulate, eloquent and soul-searching” OBSERVER, Mark Kermode

★★★★★ “Remarkable… a haunting, throat-catching documentary that shares some of the lyrical power of Clio Barnard’s The Arbor or Carol Morley’s Dreams of a Life.”  THE LIST, Allan Hunter

★★★★★ “Beautiful and reassuring, Notes On Blindness is a moving and inspiring film” DAILY MAIL, Libby Purves

‘I, Daniel Blake,’ ‘American Honey,’ ‘Notes On Blindness,’ ‘Under The Shadow’ Lead British Indie Film Award Nominations DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD

Friday, November 25, 2016 – PO, Director / Producer John Asher

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When David Wilson’s young wife falls victim to cancer, he is left a single working dad with the sole responsibility of caring for his autistic son. Patrick (Julian Feder), who prefers to be called Po, is a gifted but challenged child who was very close to his mother and unable to communicate his own sense of loss. As father and son struggle to deal with life after mom, they each begin to withdraw. David (Christopher Gorham) is consumed by the high-pressure job he’s close to losing, and Po copes with the bullying in his sixth-grade classroom by escaping into his magical fantasy world, the Land of Color, where he’s just a typical carefree boy with a rich cast of companions. The challenge of serving as the single parent of a special-needs child creates a growing divide between father and son, threatening to separate David and Po permanently. Based on a true story, the bonds of love between a grieving father and son are tested in the most real way in PO. Director / Producer John Asher joins us to talk about this deeply personal story of struggle and renewal.

Po opens in in the Los Angeles area on November 25, 2016 at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills. There will be Q&As opening weekend with director John Asher and star Julian Feder on Friday, November 25 and Saturday, November 26 following the 7:30pm shows and on Sunday, November 27 following the 2:30pm show.

For news and updates go to: facebook.com/ThemoviePo

Awards/festivals: 

**WINNER** Best Actor – Albuquerque Film & Media Experience 2016

**WINNER** Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking – Music – Newport Beach Film Festival 2016

**WINNER** Best Feature Film – Palm Beach International Film Festival 2016 

**WINNER** Breakthrough Feature – San Diego Film Festival 2016

**WINNER** Breakthrough Feature – San Diego International Film Festival 2016

**WINNER** Rising Star, Best Film – WorldFest Houston 2016 

**NOMINATED** Best Original Song – Feature Film

 Hollywood Music in Media Awards 2016

Friday November 25, 2016 – Finding Kukan, Director Robin Lung

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In the late 1930s China is in dire straits. The country will collapse under Japan’s military juggernaut if it doesn’t get outside help. Chinese American firebrand Li Ling-Ai jolts Americans into action with a new medium — 16mm Kodachrome color film. She hires photo-journalist Rey Scott to travel to China and capture a citizen’s perspective of the war-torn country, including the massive bombing of the wartime capital Chungking (now Chongqing). Their landmark film KUKAN screens for President Franklin Roosevelt at the White House, is called “awesome” by the New York Times, and receives one of the first
kukan-film-posterAcademy Awards for a feature documentary in 1942. Why have we never heard of Li Ling-Ai?
And why have all copies of KUKAN disappeared? FINDING KUKAN uses rare and unseen archival footage to create an unforgettable portrait of a female filmmaking pioneer, and sheds light on the long history of racial and gender discrimination behind the camera, which continues to reverberate in Hollywood today. Director / Producer Robin Lung stops by to talk about the 7-year quest to find the answers to a multitude of questions.

For news and updates go to: nestedeggproductions.com/

“Totally absorbing.” Louis Proyect (Rec Arts)

“Amazing.” “If you love movies or history see this film.” Steve Kopian (Unseen Films)

“4 stars” John Soltes (Hollywood Soapbox)

Friday, November 18, 2016 – National Bird, Director / Producer Sonia Kennebeck

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National Bird is an investigative political documentary that explores the complex issue of drone warfare from a human perspective. National Bird follows the dramatic journey of three whistleblowers who are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial current affairs issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. At the center of the film are three U.S. military veterans. Plagued by guilt over participating in the killing of faceless people in foreign countries, they decide to speak out publicly, despite the possible consequences. Their stories take dramatic turns, leading one of the protagonists to Afghanistan where she learns about a horrendous incident. But her journey also gives hope for peace and redemption. National Bird gives rare insight into the U.S. drone program through the eyes of veterans and survivors, connecting their stories as never seen before in a documentary. Like previous advancements in military technology, combat drones have transformed warfare, outpacing the ability of legal and moral frameworks to adapt and address these developments. Director / producer and journalist Sonia Kennebeck joins us for a conversation on the immediate consequences, long term ramifications and potential for abuse of a technology that has not received an appropriate level of public discourse.

For news and updates go to: nationalbirdfilm.com

“National Bird” is powerful cinematic journalism.” – Kimber Myers, LA Times

“Chilling testimony from those three veterans, each of whom helped to wage war from behind consoles half a world away, serves as the backbone of a film that adds its voice to mounting criticism of the U.S. drone program.” – Peter DeBarge, Variety

“[An] elegantly unsettling documentary about the United States’ reliance on aerial combat drones.” – Jeanette Catsoulis, New York Times

“This is a truly amazing and eye-opening film about the drone program of the U.S. Air Force and some courageous people who realized what sort of threat these unmanned warplanes represent and who decided to speak out about their experiences.  You will see and hear things you’ve never seen or heard, and you will leave the theater with insight, in the true sense of the word, you did not have before.” – Wim Wenders        

“NATIONAL BIRD is a one-of-a-kind film. It’s nothing short of miraculous that Sonia Kennebeck was able to secure the cooperation of multiple analysts recently active in the U.S. drone program. The film offers an unparalleled glimpse into the surreal landscape of automated murder. – Errol Morris

“NATIONAL BIRD is an extraordinary first person perspective that is starkly riveting, deeply compelling, and a signature eyewitness portrayal of three drone whistleblowers confronted by the remote killing fields of American foreign policy as well as the tragedy experienced by the people of Afghanistan at the everyday level. – Thomas Drake, Whistleblower/ Former Senior Executive of the National Security Agency

Friday, November 18, 2016 – Peter and the Farm, Director Tony Stone

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In Tony Stone’s latest film, Peter and the Farm, Peter Dunning is the proud proprietor of Mile Hill Farm, which sits on 187 acres in Vermont. The land’s 38 harvests have seen the arrivals and departures of three wives and four children, leaving Peter with only animals and memories. The arrival of a film crew causes him to confront his history and his legacy, passing along hard-won agricultural wisdom even as he doubts the meaning of the work he is fated to perform until death. Haunted by alcoholism and regret, Peter veers between elation and despair, often suggesting to the filmmakers his own suicide as a narrative device. He is a tragedian on a stage it has taken him most of his life to build, and which now threatens to collapse from under him. Peter and The Farm sifts through the potential energy of a human life, that which is used and that which is squandered. Imbued with an aching tenderness, Tony Stone’s Peter and The Farm is both a mosaic of its singular subject’s transitory memories and reflections—however funny, tragic, or angry they may be. Director Tony Stone (Severed Ways, Out of Our Minds) joins us to talk about his beautiful, haunting and heartbreaking, film.

For news and updates go to: magpictures.com/peterandthefarm

Watch on demand magpictures.com/peterandthefarm/watch-at-home

Twitter  – #PeterAndTheFarm

“FOUR STARS. Dunning recounts spellbinding tales-he’s a hell of a character.” – Nigel Smith, The Guardian

“A BEAUTIFUL DOCUMENTARY with a rueful, cantankerous yet hugely charismatic figure at its center, rendered with a texture as rich as the soil through his fingers.” – Scott Tobias, Variety

“A NEAR-MASTERPIECE. A consistently lively and surprising film. Powerfully sad but very funny, too.” – Noel Murray, A.V. Club

“BEAUTIFULLY OBSERVED. A penetrating portrait of a complicated personality, inseparable from his environment.” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“Entertaining and heartbreaking.” – Noel Murray, Indiewire

Friday, November 18, 2016 – Magnus, Director Benjamin Ree

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How would you react if you discovered that your child –  who is often lost in their own thoughts and disconnected from other children – is actually one of the greatest minds of their time? As a young boy, Magnus Carlsen was very different from his peers. Bullied by the other children, he usually sat by himself, lost in thought. But when a strong interest in numbers led him to the game of chess at the age of 5, he quickly started to climb the ranks of the chess world. At 13, he decided that he would become the World Chess Champion. Magnus is now known as the “Mozart of Chess” – combing the skill and intellect of chess with unrivaled originality and instinct.  Through an extensive amount of archival footage and home movies, filmmaker Benjamin Ree follows Magnus’s meteoric rise to the top in this unique coming-of-age story.  The film invites audiences to not only experience the fascinating world of competitive chess, but also peek into the mind of a modern genius. Director Benjamin Ree joins us to talk about the international culture of chess and the fascinating story of a prodigy with a talent for understanding numbers, patterns and following his remarkable instincts.

For news and updates go to: trustnordisk.com/film/2015-magnus

Opening in Los Angeles on November 25 

Exclusively at Laemmle Music Hall9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Available on VOD NOVEMBER 25 on all platforms

Opening New York on November 18 at Village East Cinema181-189 2nd Ave.  NY, NY 10003

OFFICIAL SELECTION AT THE 2016 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

“Taut and paced with drama…captivating to watch.” – Screen Daily

“Chess has never been quite so riveting.” – We Got This Covered

“Hits all the right beats.” – Film Pulse

“Superb documentary filmmaking.” – The Hollywood News

Friday, November 18, 2016 – The Anthropologist, Co-director Jeremy Newberger (Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller)

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The Anthropologist tells the story of Katie Yegorov-Crate, a thirteen-year-old girl from Fairfax, Virginia. She is carted around the globe by her mother, noted environmental anthropologist Susie Crate. Susie studies the effects of climate change on centuries-old indigenous communities. Famed anthropologist Margaret Mead also analyzed how communities confront change, but that which results from war and modernity. Mead’s daughter Mary Catherine Bateson, now 76 and a cultural anthropologist in her own right, provides extraordinary insight into what Susie and Katie discover. Filmed over the course of five years, The Anthropologist is a meditation on change, both individual and societal. Susie and Katie work with people in Siberia, the South Pacific, the Andes, and the nearby Chesapeake Bay, who struggle to reconfigure how and where they live. In Siberia, where Susie met Katie’s father while doing research, Katie’s relatives can no longer farm on land they’ve occupied for generations. Katie’s roots are also threatened by the inhospitable soil. Uniquely revealed from their daughters’ perspectives, Mead and Crate demonstrate a fascination with how societies are forced to negotiate the disruption of their traditional ways of life, whether through encounters with the outside world or the unprecedented change wrought by melting permafrost, receding glaciers and rising tides. Co-director Jeremy Newberger stops by to talk about the rapid climate changes occurring around the world and the increasing human cost.

For news and updates go to: ironboundfilms.com/the anthropologist

facebook.com/TheAnthropologistDocumentary/

THE ANTHROPOLOGIST will have a one-week engagement beginning November 18 at Laemmle’s Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90021, 310-478-3836. Go to: laemmle.com/films/41178

“A highly human look at a single mother field scientist and her teenage daughter as they globetrot to study the effects of climate change.” – Film Journal International

“At this point no documentarian can possibly have a fresh take on climate change, right? Wrong.” – Neil Gezlinger, New York Times

“It may not be handled with the rigor that climate change activists would like to see, but it’s an entertaining way of putting a human face on a problem while still providing enough important facts to promote thought.” – Valeriy Kolyadych, PopMatters

Friday, November 11, 2016 – The Love Witch, Director, writer, producer, editor Anna Biller

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Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However, her spells work too well, leaving her with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved will drive her to the brink of insanity and murder. With a visual style that pays tribute to Technicolor thrillers of the ‘60s, THE LOVE WITCH explores female fantasy and the repercussions of pathological narcissism. Director, writer, producer, editor,, production and sound designer Anna Biller’s 35mm cult feature VIVA and her 16mm art-film shorts have screened at major film festivals and art spaces around the world, and her work has been discussed in academic cinema journals. She is known for her use of classic and outdated film genres to talk about female roles within culture, coding feminist ideas within cinematic aesthetics and visual pleasure. She joins us to talk about her latest film THE LOVE WITCH, and discuss why she made it using only traditional film processes and her interest in emulating the look and feel of classic cinema.

For news and updates go to: thelovewitch.oscilloscope.net

Director Anna Biller Productions

““Biller shot it, ravishingly, on 35mm and furnished every frame with uncanny precision; the result really could pass as a relic of the era. That it’s quite funny and charming seems almost beside the point.”- Calum Marsh, THE VILLAGE VOICE

“Sex, death, Satanic rituals, God-level costume design, and cinema’s greatest tampon joke ensue, as Biller spins an arch but hyper-sincere story about the true price of patriarchy. A spellbinding homage to old pulp paperbacks and the Technicolor melodramas of the 1960s, Anna Biller’s THE LOVE WITCH is a throwback that’s told with the kind of perverse conviction and studied expertise that would make Quentin Tarantino blush.” – David Ehrlich, INDIEWIRE

“At once hilarious and grotesque, with awe-inspiring costume and set designs that hark back to such low-budget curiosities as Hammer horror movies and the erotic cinema of Radley Metzger, Biller’s vision is less nostalgic throwback than genre-recalibration, putting a woman in a position of power as a perpetrator of violence against men.” – Craig Hubert, ART INFO

“A metaphysical astonishment. The costumes and furnishings, Biller’s own handmade versions of the era’s candy-coated extravagances, are as exquisitely arch and theatrical as the performances and the action, which—for all their comic exaggeration—echo with an uncanny symbolic power.” – Richard Brody, THE NEW YORKER

Friday, November 11, 2016 – Behind Bayonets and Bared Wire, Co-Director Richard L. Anderson (w/ Shen Haofang)

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From Oscar and Emmy winning Sound Designer Richard L. Anderson (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Amazing Stories) and Shen Haofang comes the documentary BEHIND BAYONETS AND BARBED WIRE, Anderson’s directorial debut on the story of American POWs in World War II, who were surrendered after their heroic and hard fought defense of the Philippines.  They were sent to the city of Mukden (today called Shenyang) in Chinese Manchuria by the Japanese Army, where they were condemned to spend the rest of their lives working as slave laborers in factories to produce war materials for their enemy.  This is the story of these men’s fight to survive the brutal winters, disease, and even more brutal guards, while secretly resisting in any way possible. As General Jonathan Wainwright put it, they were “men locked away behind the bayonets and barbed wire of cruel jailers.” Co-director Richard L. Anderson joins us to talk about the bravery and ingenuity of American soldiers under the most dire circumstances.

For news and updates go to: behind-bayonets-and-barbed-wire.com

“There’s nothing quite like hearing such memories from the very people who endured these atrocities, and, in the end, after a slow start, the actors who bring those memories to life do them vivid justice.” – Daphne Howland, Village Voice

“It is a chance to see and hear these men, old and infirm though they are, that provides “Behind Bayonets” with its strongest moments.” – Kenneth Turan, LA Times

Friday, November 11, 2016 – Dog Eat Dog, Director Paul Schrader

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Starring Nicolas Cage and Willian DaFoe, Dog Eat Dog is the story of when three desperate ex cons are offered a job by a Mexican mob boss, they know they should refuse, but the payoff’s too rich to turn down. It’s enough to buy their way out of the Life and start over. All they have to do is kidnap the kid of a colleague who’s ripping the mob boss off.  But the abduction goes awry when the kidnappers are forced to kill an unexpected intruder who turns out to be the child’s father — the very man the mob boss intended to extort. Now unwelcome in the underworld and on the run for murder, the ex cons find themselves as the most wanted fugitives in the City of Angels. And each vows that none of them will ever go back to prison. No matter what the cost. Director, screenwriter Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Cat People, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Auto Focus, Light Sleeper) joins us totally about his latest film as well as his remarkable career in filmmaking.

For news and updates go to: facebook.com/dogeatdogfilm

“Dog Eat Dog occasionally positions itself as social commentary, but it’s mainly a bloody, trippy, bare-fanged pulp thriller featuring terrifically entertaining performances from old dogs Cage and Dafoe.” Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun Times

“Schrader thrusts the amoral ugliness onto the screen in puckishly cold compositions suffused with screechingly acidulous colors.” – Richard Brody, New Yorker

“A giant middle finger to anyone who’s ever forced Paul Schrader to compromise.” – David Ehrlich, Indiewire

Friday, November 4, 2016 – All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone, Director Fred Peabody

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ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone is a timely documentary for audiences who are increasingly seeking alternatives to news media owned by large corporations. News events and journalistic trailblazers stretching over many decades are linked together to tell this important story. This  film will resonate with audiences in the US and worldwide, as news media ownership increasingly falls into the hands of a few giant corporations.  During this year’s election coverage, US viewers continue to get daily doses of the ever increasing corporate owned journalism passing as “breaking news.ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE explores the legacy of I.F. Stone, widely held as the conscience of investigative journalism, whose       groundbreaking reporting filled his tiny 4-page newsletter, I.F. Stone’s Weekly, from 1953 to 1971.  Stone inspired many of our current reporters who are changing the face of journalism today.  These brilliant journalists are featured in the film, including groundbreaking producer, host and author Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!), Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept), Jeremy Scahill (Dirty Wars/The Intercept), Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone), David Corn (Mother Jones), filmmaker Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11), The Young Turks founder and host Cenk Uygur, along with notable opinion leaders Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Chris Hedges, and Carl Bernstein. Director Fred Peabody joins us for a lively conversation on the state of today’s journalism, both the good and the vapid.

https://www.allgovernmentslie.com/film

“Even if you belong to the choir it’s preaching to, it has the rare distinction of being a movie you can agree and argue with at the same time.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“In an era of disaster- and celebrity-obsessed cable news, during an election testing the virtues of objectivity, the documentary All Governments Lie is worthy testimony that many journalists are in it for the truth.” – Daphne Howland, Village Voice

 “Featuring footage from the last six decades, “All Governments Lie” is a timely, convincing documentary that will cause audiences to question what they see and read.” – Kimber Myers, LA Times

“What every aspiring journalist needs to know to battle the news media’s laziness, celebrity obsessions and for-profit strategies” – NOW Magazine

Friday, November 4, 2016 – By Sidney Lumet, Director / Producer Nancy Buirski

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Film legend Sidney Lumet tells his own story in a never-before-seen interview shot in 2008. With candor, humor and grace, Lumet reveals what matters to him as an artist and as a human being. The documentary features clips from Lumet’s films – 44 films made in 50 years – including Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, 12 Angry Men, Network and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. Peabody and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Nancy Buirski (Afternoon of a Faun, The Loving Story) combines these elements to create a network-film-posterportrait of one of the most accomplished, influential and socially conscious directors in the history of cinema. By Sidney Lumet reveals the spiritual and ethical lessons at the core of his work. First and foremost a storyteller, Lumet’s strongly moral tales capture the dilemmas and concerns of a society struggling with essentials: how does one behave to others and to oneself? By Sidney Lumet director and producer Nancy Buirski joins us for a lively conversation on Lumet’s complex and fascinating life, the relentless honesty of his work and the horrifying incident that impacted his perception of our collective humanity.

For news and updates go to: facebook.com/BySidneyLumet

News and updates for Director Nancy Buirski go to: facebook.com/nancy.buirski

“It allows Lumet to remind us, in his own voice, of the passion in his ostensible dispassion – the way he deftly subsumed self-expression within the brisk rhythms of his material and the superb performances of his actors.” – Justin Chang, LA Times

“Makes the case for Lumet not only as one of the Hollywood greats, but also one of its rare filmmakers of conscience-a passionate storyteller whose films wrestle with dilemmas of decency, justice, and fairness.” – Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly

“Mr. Lumet comes across as a mensch, but he was also a complex artist whose often literally dark films were filled with shadows, rage and spit, not just nobility.” – Manohla Dargis, New York Times

“The movie is simply Lumet and his films, which turns out to be an astonishingly satisfying experience, because he’s an incredible talker, with the same earthy electric push that powers his work.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety