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Sheila Nevins has produced documentaries for most of her professional life. But at 84, she’s still notching career firsts.

Last month, Nevins added “Oscar-nominated director” to her résumé, having landed her first nod for co-directing the short “The ABCs of Book Banning” with Trish Adlesic and Nazenet Habtezghi.

Nevins’ first Oscars as a nominee take place at the same time she is wrapping up her run as the head of MTV Documentary Films. Nevins joined the company in 2019 after 38 years at HBO.

“I went there to raise the bar for the intellectual quotient of what MTV could produce in the documentary arena,” Nevins says. “I did highbrow and lowbrow at HBO, but when I got to MTV, I just did highbrow.”

On Nevins’ watch, MTV produced 40 docs and landed five Oscar nominations, including a feature doc bid this year for “The Eternal Memory.”

“Sheila Nevins is an extraordinary storyteller,...

When it comes to predicting the Oscars, there are no categories that can be more difficult than the three short film categories. That goes double for trying to predict the nominees in those categories. But don’t worry Derbyites. With the recent release of the Academy’s shortlists, we’ve got descriptions of each of the pieces that made the runoff for Best Documentary Short, we got you covered on this! Below we have descriptions of each of the 15 short films that made this year’s list. We even included information and links on where you can currently view them.

Among the topics that are tackled in this year’s crop are book bans in Florida, a barber who runs a community bank, how abortion was legalized in New York in the 1970s, a group of people who fix musical instruments, and the healthcare crisis that’s affecting rural America.

Filmmaker Sam Pollard, one of the most prolific and important forces in contemporary documentary, will be honored by Black Public Media at its upcoming PitchBlack Awards in New York.

Pollard — who directed or co-directed four films and docuseries this year alone, including The League and Bill Russell: Legend — will receive the Bpm Trailblazer Award in a ceremony on April 25. The event is set to take place at the Stanley H. Kantor Penthouse of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, capping the latest edition of Bpm’s PitchBLACK Forum, described as “the largest pitch competition of its kind in the United States for independent filmmakers and creative technologists who create Black content.”

“A multiple Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning producer-director-editor, Pollard is known for his work on a plethora of important works including: Eyes On The Prize, Maynard, MLK/FBI, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, and Mr. Soul!,” a release noted.

Spike Lee is to receive a BFI Fellowship, the highest honor bestowed by the UK’s lead organization for film.

The award will be presented to filmmaker Lee at an event at BFI Southbank, hosted by BFI Chair Tim Richards and BFI Chief Exec Ben Roberts, with an on stage Q&a with Spike Lee accompanied by a screening of Summer of Sam, on 13 February 2023.

While in the UK, Lee will visit teams at the BFI National Archive, who have liaised with the director on a new 35mm print of Malcolm X (1992), to premiere at the BFI’s inaugural Film on Film Festival taking place at BFI Southbank in June. He will also take a masterclass with young filmmakers.

Born in Atlanta in 1957 but raised in Brooklyn, New York City, Lee received his Mfa in Film Production at NYU/Tisch. After graduation, he founded 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, based in Brooklyn.

Exclusive: Award-winning filmmakers Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard are partnering on a documentary about the late Archbishop Carl Bean, the pioneering gay African American singer turned pastor and AIDS activist.

Production is underway on the feature I Was Born This Way, which takes its title from Bean’s 1977 Motown Records gay disco anthem that celebrated LGBTQ identity and later became the inspiration for Lady Gaga’s hit “Born This Way.” Junge, who won an Oscar for the 2012 documentary short Saving Face, and multiple Emmy-winner Pollard (When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts), are working with Bean’s estate to make their film.

The documentary will include “exclusive, in-depth interviews” with Bean filmed before his death in September 2021 at age 77, and will also incorporate “never before seen archival footage and rotoscope animated recreations,” according to a release from the filmmakers.

“Bean overcame brutal homophobia as a young man,” the release noted,...

It’s a very musical episode! Director and Tfh Guru, Allan Arkush, returns to talk about his favorite rock and roll movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

No Nukes (1980)

Amazing Grace (2018) – Dennis Cozzalio’s Oscar nominee reactions

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Get Crazy (1983) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) – Eli Roth’s trailer commentary

Blackboard Jungle (1955) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Rock, Rock, Rock! (1956) – ​​Jesus Treviño’s trailer commentary

Mister Rock And Roll (1957)

Go, Johnny, Go! (1959) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Hail Hail Rock And Roll! (1987) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary

Hellzapoppin’ (1941)

Innerspace (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Almost Famous (2000) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Wayne’s World (1992)

The Graduate (1967) – Neil Labute’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Scorpio Rising...

Although much has changed for NCIS as the CBS mainstay enters its 19th season, the plan is to give faithful fans the familiar show they have long known and loved.

Among the on- and off-screen shifts: Two characters were written out last spring, a pair of series regulars have been added for fall, Gibbs’ suspension took a deadly turn when he and his new boat went boom…. And on top of all of that, TV’s most watched drama has been handed its first time slot change ever, moving from Tuesday’s leadoff spot to Mondays at 9/8c (beginning Sept.

“Boys State,” “Dick Johnson Is Dead,” The Social Dilemma,” and “76 Days” all won Emmys last weekend during the Creative Arts ceremonies, but they share another distinction: They are the last documentaries able to win a statuette from the Television Academy for the same nonfiction film that successfully qualified for Academy Award consideration.

The Television Academy shut down the controversial practice of awards double-dipping earlier this year, decreeing that, beginning in 2022, any documentary placed on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences viewing platform for Oscar shortlist consideration, “will be deemed a theatrical motion picture and thus ineligible for the Emmy competition.”

The straightforward rule is expected to have major awards-season ramifications for documentaries, and filmmakers surveyed by Variety about the subject have mixed feelings about it. For decades, documentary filmmakers and the companies that back their work have campaigned for Emmy statuettes after a fight for a little gold man,...

Exclusive: HBO Documentary Films is in production on Katrina Babies, a feature documentary offering an intimate look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its impact on the youth of New Orleans.

Sixteen years after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, long after the news cameras have left, an entire generation grapples with the lifelong impact of having their childhood redefined by tragedy. New Orleans filmmaker Edward Buckles, Jr., who was 12 when Katrina hit the city, documents the stories of his peers who survived the storm as children, while simultaneously opening a door for his own healing, capturing the spirit and resilience of New Orleans.

“After my family and I experienced Hurricane Katrina in 2005, we were left to pick up the pieces of a situation that seemed totally out of our control. I was 12 years old, and like with many catastrophes, children were an afterthought,” Buckles, Jr. said. “It baffled me...

Director Spike Lee is coming under fire after TV critics revealed that part of his upcoming documentary on 9/11, titled “NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½” and airing on HBO, would include lengthy segments on 9/11 conspiracy theories — so much airtime that it seemed an endorsement of the theories. He has now announced that he’s reediting the final episode of the show, airing on September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the attacks, though he gave no specifics about what exactly he will edit or whether it’s even in response to the controversy. Requests to Lee for comment went unanswered at press time. Here’s the timeline of events as we understand it. We will continue to update this article as events develop.

Lee has had a proclivity for presenting conspiracy theories in the past. In his 2006 documentary on Hurricane Katrina, “When the Levees Broke,” Lee alleged that the levees were dynamited in order to flood Black neighborhoods.

If anything could be said to be underrated about heftily praised filmmaker Spike Lee, it’s his skill as a documentarian (a classification I’d expand to include Lee’s status as perhaps our preeminent capturer of live stage performances). Take Do the Right Thing out of the conversation and I would argue that Lee’s defining credit perhaps should be the HBO pairing of When the Levees Broke and If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise.

The responsibilities of nonfiction haven’t exactly put a remove between Spike Lee and his subject matter — with the exception of one or ...

If anything could be said to be underrated about heftily praised filmmaker Spike Lee, it’s his skill as a documentarian (a classification I’d expand to include Lee’s status as perhaps our preeminent capturer of live stage performances). Take Do the Right Thing out of the conversation and I would argue that Lee’s defining credit perhaps should be the HBO pairing of When the Levees Broke and If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise.

The responsibilities of nonfiction haven’t exactly put a remove between Spike Lee and his subject matter — with the exception of one or ...

Spike Lee’s best film this century is not 25th Hour; it’s not Inside Man; I’ll defend Oldboy but, come on; it’s definitely not American Utopia; and whatever a legacy Oscar tells you, it’s not BlacKkKlansman. The true masterwork is When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, his 255-minute exploration of a city in times of unfathomable crisis, neglect, and strength—sometimes a difficult watch, more than once marked by horrific images of disaster, but as life-affirming as anything to which he’ll ever put his name. It’s on the same format you used to watch seven hour of The White Lotus and nicely broken into two parts. Go.

All this is a wind-up to say we cannot wait for NYC Epicenters: 9/11-> 2021½, a 20-year chronicle of the city Lee’s captured like few artists in any medium. More than 200 people were interviewed—”first responders,...

The prodigious Spike Lee doesn’t sleep. Following the one-two punch of back-to-back hit films in 2020—”Da 5 Bloods” and the live-concert doc, “David Byrne’s American Utopia“—Lee is back yet again and with a pretty monstrous project. The four-episode, 8-hour doc series for HBO and HBO Max, “NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½,” is epic and vast in the same manner as some of Lee’s previous docs series like the Oscar-nominated “4 Little Girls,” and the Emmy and Peabody-award winning “When The Levees Broke,” and “If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise.” A sprawling cultural doc about the various horrors New York and New Yorkers have had to endure, 9/11, the Covid-19 epicenter pandemic outbreak of 2020, the Black Lives Matter protest of last summer and more, ‘NYC Epicenters’ is a major look at the way, New York often receives the brunt of calamities in America and how New Yorkers...

Spike Lee is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the world. Still, some of his best work, his profound and solemn humanist documentaries, are relatively unsung next to his more flashy narrative works, comparatively at least. Docs like “4 Little Girls,” and HBO’s Katrina docs “When the Levees Broke,” and “If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise,” have been lauded the world over (“4 Little Girls” was nominated for an Oscar and the HBO docs are Emmy and Peabody award winners) but never quite get their due in the same manner and they really should.

Continue reading Spike Lee’s New 4-Part Doc ‘NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½’ Debuts August 22 On HBO at The Playlist.

Exclusive: Fresh off presiding over the Cannes Film Festival jury, Spike Lee will receive the 46th annual Chaplin Award from Film at Lincoln Center during an in-person gala next month.

The event on September 9 will be held at Alice Tully Hall, the main venue for Flc’s New York Film Festival, which will be back there next month for its 59th edition. It will adhere to “a comprehensive series of health and safety policies in coordination with state and city medical experts,” according to a press release. New York City this week became the first U.S. city to implement a Covid-19 vaccine mandate, though it won’t take full effect until September 13.

Much like Lee’s appointment as head of the Cannes jury in 2020, which was postponed until 2021 due to the pandemic, his Chaplin honor was also previously announced. The evening is the most important fundraiser of the year for Film at Lincoln Center,...

Earlier this year, the Oscars failed to embrace Spike Lee and “Da 5 Bloods,” robbing the acclaimed filmmaker of a history-making second Best Director nomination. No Black filmmaker has ever won Best Director at the Academy Awards or been selected as a repeat nominee; Lee was nominated for “BlacKkKlansman” at the 2019 ceremony.

“Whatever happens, whatever shakes out, this film is going to be looked at for many years to come,” Lee told Gold Derby about his own awards prospects before the nominations were announced. Of his star Delroy Lindo, who was also snubbed, Lee added, “Sometimes, these organizations, these voting bodies, for whatever reason, they overlook monumental work. But the work, awards or no awards, will stand the test of time.”

But while the Oscars overlooked one of Lee’s acclaimed 2020 features, the Emmy Awards apparently knew better. On Tuesday, “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” the rousing filmed adaptation of...

CAA has signed three-time Emmy Award-winning writer, director, editor and producer, Randy Wilkins, best known for his work on ESPN Films’ “30 for 30.”

Up next, Wilkins will direct “The Captain,” a multi-episode docuseries for ESPN Films focused on New York Yankees icon Derek Jeter. The series is set to debut in 2022 and will tell the story of Jeter’s professional and personal triumphs and challenges, using the athlete’s journey to tell a larger cultural story that explores race, family, community, rivalries and more.

Wilkins notably directed the ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” documentary “86-32,” which chronicles the controversial decision between boxers Roy Jones Jr. and Park Si-Hun in the light middle-weight gold medal match at the 1988 Summer Olympics. The filmmaker also directed and executive produced two seasons of the web series “Docket 32357.”

He helmed the premiere episode of Apple TV Plus’ documentary series “Dear…” for which he interviewed his mentor Spike Lee.

Exclusive: Peabody on Thursday said that documentary producer-director and film and TV editor Sam Pollard has been awarded the Peabody Career Achievement Award, while longtime PBS and CNN anchor Judy Woodruff has won the Peabody Award for Journalistic Integrity.

The honors come after the organization earlier this week gave Ava DuVernay’s Array its Institutional Award. The 30 winners of the 81st annual Peabody Awards will be unveiled later this month during a multi-day virtual presentation.

Pollard’s honor, given to individuals “whose work and commitment to broadcasting and digital media have left an indelible mark on the field and in American culture,” rewards a career of chronicling the Black experience via credits that include the landmark docus Eyes on the Prize II, Slavery By Another Name, August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand and Two Trains Runnin’. His director credits include Sammy Davis Jr., I’ve Gotta Be Me,...

Vera Farmiga is set to star in the new Apple TV+ Original, Five Days At Memorial, a limited series from Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Emmy winner Carlton Cuse (Lost) that chronicles the first five days at a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. Apple announced that Vera Farmiga (When […]

The post ‘Five Days At Memorial’: Vera Farmiga to Star in Apple TV+ Hurricane Katrina Series appeared first on /Film.

Katrina Kaif's has posted a stunning picture of herself and doled out words of wisdom on how to attain happiness. Katrina looks beautiful in the white sweater teaming this up with blue jeans, minimal make-up and open hair.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Katrina Kaif (@katrinakaif)

"If u want to be happy, ... be . Leo Tolstoy," she captions the post.

Meanwhile, Katrina was recently spotted shooting alongside actor Salman Khan in Mumbai. This led to fans speculating whether the two were filming for Tiger 3.

Besides this, Katrina has two film releases lined up for the year. She will be seen in Sooryavanshi and Phone Bhoot. She shares the screen with Akshay Kumar in Sooryavanshi. The film has been directed by Rohit Shetty.

Phone Booth has been directed by Gurmmeet Singh and also stars Ishaan Khatter and Siddhant Chaturvedi.

Spike Lee is taking a long look at New York City for an upcoming HBO documentary that will chronicle life in the city over the two decades since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

HBO announced on Monday that Lee will direct and produce the “NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½” documentary series. Per HBO, the series is an “epic chronicle of life, loss, and survival in the city of New York over the 20 years since the September 11 attacks. The multi-part documentary event will offer an unprecedented, sweeping portrait of New Yorkers as they rebuild and rebound, from a devastating terrorist attack through the ongoing global pandemic. Capturing the history through a staggering amount of visual imagery, and featuring first-hand accounts from a panoply of citizens from all walks of life, the documentary will debut later in the year.”

“As a New Yawker who bleeds orange and blue (the colors of New York City), I’m...

HBO Documentary Films and Academy Award and Emmy-winning director and screenwriter Spike Lee are currently in production on “NYC Epicenters 9/11→ 2021½,” a film that will chronicle the life, loss and survival of New York City residents over the twenty years since the terrorist attacks on the original World Trade Center complex.

“As a New Yawker who bleeds orange and blue (the colors of New York City), I’m proud to have a ‘Spike Lee Joint’ about how our/my city dealt with being the epicenters of 9/11 and Covid-19. With over 200 interviews, we dig deep into what makes NYC the greatest city on this God’s earth and also the diverse citizens who make it so. Over centuries pundits and straight haters have proclaimed NYC was dead and stinkin’, only to be proved wrong. You will lose ya money betting against New York, New York. And dat’s da truth, Ruth. Be Safe.

At 70-years-old, filmmaker Sam Pollard has had a massive career spanning five decades as a dedicated chronicler of the Black experienced in America. But it’s arguably just getting its due in a major way and unlike never before. Pollard— a director, editor, and producer— is an Oscar nominee, has been nominated for seven Emmys and has won three different times and has also been honored with a Peabody Award.

Continue reading Director Sam Pollard on HBO’s ‘Black Art,’ ‘MLK/FBI’ His Work With Spike Lee & More [Deep Focus] at The Playlist.

After nearly 30 years collaborating with Spike Lee to compose the music on his films, Terence Blanchard’s soaring compositions are finally getting noticed. He got his first Oscar nomination for BlacKkKlansman, a Best Picture nominee which brought Lee his first Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. And the morning they sat down to discuss the method of their collaboration with Mike Fleming Jr., Lee’s first words to Blanchard were congratulatory, since Da 5 Bloods had just joined the Academy’s Best Score shortlist. The pair have worked together on more than 15 films, including Malcolm X, When the Levees Broke, Jungle Fever, Inside Man and Miracle at St. Anna. Blanchard, who moonlights as a jazz musician in between scoring jobs, has also worked on the Kasi Lemmons-directed Eve’s Bayou, Anthony Hemingway’s Red Tails, executive produced by George Lucas, and the Matthew Rhys-starrer HBO series Perry Mason. Here, Blanchard and...

The Society of Composers & Lyricists (Scl) is set to give its Spirit of Collaboration Award to six-time Grammy winning and Oscar-nominated composer Terence Blanchard and Academy Award-winning writer, director and producer Spike Lee.

Blanchard and Lee have jointly worked on 15 films and three TV projects, including Jungle Fever, Malcom X, 25th Hour, Inside Man, When the Levees Broke and last year’s BlacKkKlansman, which earned Lee the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

Oscar-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross lead the field for the Scl Awards with three nominations for Mank and Soul, along with co-composer Jon Batiste.

That’s followed by Blanchard ...

The Society of Composers & Lyricists (Scl) is set to give its Spirit of Collaboration Award to six-time Grammy winning and Oscar-nominated composer Terence Blanchard and Academy Award-winning writer, director and producer Spike Lee.

Blanchard and Lee have jointly worked on 15 films and three TV projects, including Jungle Fever, Malcom X, 25th Hour, Inside Man, When the Levees Broke and last year’s BlacKkKlansman, which earned Lee the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

Oscar-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross lead the field for the Scl Awards with three nominations for Mank and Soul, along with co-composer Jon Batiste.

That’s followed by Blanchard ...

Spike Lee is being honored with the American Cinematheque Award, and it undoubtedly encapsulates the director’s nearly five decades of artistic achievement. The award will be presented Jan. 14 in a virtual ceremony. “It’s a recognition of the body of work, and I’ve been putting in the work since the fall of 1979,” says Lee.

Previous American Cinematheque Award honorees include Amy Adams (2017), Bradley Cooper (2018) and Charlize Theron (2019).

After graduating from Morehouse College, Lee attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the graduate film program. He has been a tenured professor and the artistic director since 2002. Lee also eyes the next generation of filmmakers and considers himself a “proud parent” when looking at all of his students, including directors Shaka King (“Judas and the Black Messiah”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”).

“I’ve always felt that teachers that teach well are also learning from their students,...

Other winners with the documentary group include Time director Garrett Bradley.

The International Documentary Association (Ida) has named the winners of its annual honourary awards, with veteran documentarian Sam Pollard getting the career achievement nod.

Documentary producer/director and feature and TV editor Pollard most recently made MLK/FBI, which premiered at the this year’s Toronto festival. Over his career, Pollard has edited a number of Spike Lee’s films including Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever and Bamboozled. His other documentaries include the Oscar-nominated Four Little Girls and Emmy-winner When The Levees Broke.

The Ida’s Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award goes to Garrett Bradley,...

Three-time Emmy winner Sam Pollard has been selected for the career achievement award by the International Documentary Association.

He will be honored at the 36th annual Ida Documentary Awards’ digital ceremony in January. The nominees for all categories will be revealed on Nov. 24.

Pollard won two Emmys for “When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” and another for “By the People: The Election of Barack Obama.” He received an Oscar nomination in the documentary category for “4 Little Girls.” His most recent film “MLK/FBI” premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. Pollard has also edited Spike Lee’s “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Jungle Fever” and “Bamboozled.”

His credits include “Slavery by Another Name,” “August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand,” “Two Trains Runnin,’” and “Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me.” Pollard co-directed the six-part series “Why We Hate” and 2020 HBO series “Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children.

The International Documentary Association (Ida) has today announced the recipients of its 36th Annual Ida Documentary Awards honorary awards. The shortlists for Best Feature and Best Short categories were released in late October, and the nominees for all categories will be revealed on Tuesday, November 24. The 2020 Awards will be presented in a digital ceremony in January 2021.

There is some crossover in today’s listing of honorees, including “Time” filmmaker Garrett Bradley (features shortlist) and “Welcome to Chechnya” filmmaker David France (features shortlist), though the newly minted honorees also include films and filmmakers that didn’t make the initial cut, including lauded documentarian and newly minted Career Achievement Award winner Sam Pollard (who made 2020’s “MLK/FBI”) and films like Ramona S. Diaz’s “A Thousand Cuts,” which didn’t land on the shortlist but did notch a win for its subject Maria Ressa.

This year’s Ida Documentary Awards honorees are:...

David France’s “Welcome to Chechnya,” a documentary about LGBTQ+ activists who risk their lives to smuggle gay men and women out of a country that is known to torture and kill homosexuals, will receive the Courage Under Fire Award at the International Documentary Associations’s 2020 Ida Documentary Awards, the Ida announced on Tuesday.

The award will go to France, the film team responsible for his movie, and activists David Isteev from the Russian LGBT Network and Olga Baranova from the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives, along with all those who work in those organizations.

Other honorees will include “MLK/FBI” director Sam Pollard, who will receive the Career Achievement Award for directing such films as “Slavery by Another Name,” “Sammy Davis Jr., I’ve Gotta Be Me,” “Two Trains Runnin'” and “August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand,” and for editing several of Spike Lee’s films...

The International Documentary Association on Tuesday unveiled the recipients of its 2020 honorary awards.

Sam Pollard, the Oscar-nominated director-producer whose credits include Four Little Girls and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, has been tapped for the career achievement award. His most recent film, MLK/FBI, premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.

Pollard also is a film and TV editor who worked with Spike Lee on several movies, including Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever and Bamboozled. The duo also co-produced a number of documentary productions, including the Oscar-nominated Four Little Girls and the Emmy-winning When the Levees Broke.

His ...

The International Documentary Association on Tuesday unveiled the recipients of its 2020 honorary awards.

Sam Pollard, the Oscar-nominated director-producer whose credits include Four Little Girls and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, has been tapped for the career achievement award. His most recent film, MLK/FBI, premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.

Pollard also is a film and TV editor who worked with Spike Lee on several movies, including Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever and Bamboozled. The duo also co-produced a number of documentary productions, including the Oscar-nominated Four Little Girls and the Emmy-winning When the Levees Broke.

His ...

Spike Lee will receive the American Cinematheque Award and will be honored during a virtual tribute on Jan. 14, 2021.

American Cinematheque chair Rick Nicita said the legendary director always keeps his finger on the pulse of society.

“As a cultural arts organization that celebrates the importance of film in our society, Spike Lee is the perfect choice for the Cinematheque’s annual award,” Nicita said. “Spike’s ability to perceive and depict the tone of contemporary society is shown in his movies, ranging from ‘Do the Right Thing,’ ‘She’s Gotta Have It,’ ‘Malcolm X’ and ‘BlacKkKlansman’ to name only a few. He continues his outstanding output with this year’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ and ‘American Utopia.’ We look forward with great anticipation to where he will next shine his light.”

“BlacKkKlansman,” which Lee co-wrote and directed, won the Academy Award for adapted screenplay. He was also nominated for an Oscar for directing and producing “BlacKkKlansman.

Terence Blanchard

Variety Artisans Award

The Grammy-winning composer has been working with director Spike Lee for more than three decades, starting as a trumpet player on “Do the Right Thing,” graduating to composer on “Jungle Fever” and scoring all of Lee’s films since — earning an Oscar nomination for 2018’s “BlacKkKlansman” and acclaim for “Da 5 Bloods” now playing on Netflix.

But he’s not only “Spike Lee’s composer,” as the rest of his 70-plus film and TV credits attest. He’s just finished eight episodes of HBO’s “Perry Mason” and has two scores debuting at Toronto, both for films by African American actors making their directorial debuts: Regina King’s “One Night in Miami” and Halle Berry’s “Bruised.” Blanchard is in greater demand than ever, yet he continues to be selective about his film work. He looks for projects that have meaning, both culturally and historically...

Is there anything Demi Lovato can't do?  During Thursday's at-home episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the "I Love Me" singer joined host Jimmy Fallon for a virtual round of "Google Translate Songs," where both parties were tasked with performing the translated versions of popular songs, including her own hit "Sorry Not Sorry."  Kicking things off, Lovato sang "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves, which was hilariously translated to "Now Mom's in the Sun Now." Starting at the beginning, she followed along to the incorrectly translated lyrics, singing, "There was a time that bees loved me and thought I could grind / And I...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

The power of Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary “4 Little Girls” (now streaming on HBO Max) is all in the title. The film recounts the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a pivotal moment of the Civil Rights Movement, but Lee’s mission isn’t to play professor and provide a history lesson. With “4 Little Girls,” Lee does away with relegating the four Black girls who died in the bombing to footnotes in history books. Instead, he amplifies the beauty of their short lives with such piercing intimacy that to watch the documentary is to say their names and never forget them: Addie May Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Rosamond Robertson.

Like all of Lee’s non-fiction features,...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

The power of Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary “4 Little Girls” (now streaming on HBO Max) is all in the title. The film recounts the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a pivotal moment of the Civil Rights Movement, but Lee’s mission isn’t to play professor and provide a history lesson. With “4 Little Girls,” Lee does away with relegating the four Black girls who died in the bombing to footnotes in history books. Instead, he amplifies the beauty of their short lives with such piercing intimacy that to watch the documentary is to say their names and never forget them: Addie May Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Rosamond Robertson.

Like all of Lee’s non-fiction features,...

A new channel arrived on Now TV last month called Sky Documentaries boasting a whole range of series and features. It’s a treasure trove of deep dives into a massive range of subjects, from sports to music, crime to scandal to important moments in history. There’re a load of great shows on the channel, and what you pick will surely depend on what you’re interested in but we’ve rounded up a least of really great docs to get you started.

We’ll keep this list updated and add more recommendations as they arrive.

McMillions (2020)

This six part series documents the massive fraud case surrounding the McDonalds Monopoly game from 1989 – 2001 whereby an employee of the agency that ran the promotion was stealing and selling on the top prize tickets. The doc is highly entertaining, introducing you to often larger than life characters as the FBI and an organized crime family get involved.

Spike Lee will be honored with a career achievement award from the Palm Springs International Film Festival, organizers announced on Wednesday.

Lee, who has been making films for more than three decades, has directed classics such as “Do The Right Thing,” “She’s Gotta Have It” and “Malcolm X.” His most recent film, “BlacKkKlansman,” has been praised by critics.

“Spike Lee has been an outstanding warrior for equal rights while creating an iconic body of film and television work over his 30-year career,” festival chairman Harold Matzner said in a statement. “In ‘BlacKkKlansman,’ Lee directs one of his best and most provocative films about an African-American detective and a white detective who are determined to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs. It is our great honor to present the Career Achievement Award to Spike Lee.”

Also Read: 'BlacKkKlansman' Film Review: Spike Lee Looks Back...

The Palm Springs International Film Festival has selected Spike Lee as the recipient of its career achievement award.

Lee will be presented with the honor at the festival’s awards gala on Jan. 3 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The festival runs from Jan. 3 to Jan 14.

“Spike Lee has been an outstanding warrior for equal rights while creating an iconic body of film and television work over his 30-year career,” said festival chairman Harold Matzner. “In BlacKkKlansman,’ Lee directs one of his best and most provocative films about an African-American detective and a white detective who are determined to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs. It is our great honor to present the Career Achievement Award to Spike Lee.”

Past recipients of the festival’s career achievement award include Annette Bening, Kevin Costner, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Sally Field, Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Regina King to collect Psiff Chairman’s Award.

BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee will receive the Career Achievement Award at the 30th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival’s (Psiff) film awards gala on January 3.

Lee’s honour follows the announcement earlier this week that If Beale Street Could Talk star Regina King will receive the Chairman’s Award at the show.

Lee joins previously announced honourees Glenn Close, Bradley Cooper, Alfonso Cuarón, King, Rami Malek, Melissa McCarthy and the film Green Book.

Past recipients of the Career Achievement Award include Annette Bening, Kevin Costner, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood,...

by Nathaniel R

Currently in love with this image of Spike Lee and Topher Grace on the set of BlacKkKlansman. But let's get to the point. After a long hiatus, we're back with a new season of our Friday series "Posterized"... I know it's Sunday. Shush. What better way to kick off than with the films of Honorary Oscar Winner Spike Lee? His latest joint, BlacKkKlansman, which we've reviewed, is new in theaters. We hope you'll go as it will surely prove to be one of 2018's defining films. But for now on to his filmography as a whole.

People often disagree on what his best work is aside from Do The Right Thing (1989), his consensus masterpiece. That's probably because he's a natural risk taker so naturally his output is uneven.  For the purposes of this exercize we had to limit it to traditional features because Spike Lee has always done everything: short films,...

“BlacKkKlansman,” which premiered in May at the Cannes Film Festival, is quintessential Spike Lee, impassioned and messy and vital as anything he’s done in decades.

It’s also far more accomplished a piece of filmmaking than many of Lee’s recent narrative films. Let’s face it, the director of “She’s Gotta Have It,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X” has long been an iconic director, educator and activist, but films like “Red Hook Summer,” “Miracle at St. Anna,” “Oldboy” and even the spirited but uneven “Chi-Raq” just didn’t have the impact or the quality of his earlier films.

His television documentaries, including “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” and “If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise,” have fared better.

Also Read: 'Dog Days' Film Review: Intertwined Lives of Owners and Pets Makes for Obediently Heartwarming Comedy

But...

Steven Spielberg and Alex Gibney are teaming to executive produce Why We Hate (working title), a six-part television event series the probes the human capacity for hatred and how we can overcome it. It’s slated for a 2019 premiere on Discovery Channel.

Drawing on research in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and history, the series traces the evolutionary basis of hate and uses stories from both past and present to reveal the nature of the primal and universal emotion.

Why We Hate is directed by Emmy winners Geeta Gandbhir and Sam Pollard (When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts).

“This is not a series that simply documents something that’s happening, it’s an inquiry – an attempt to understand why we hate, through the science, and through a sense of common humanity,” said Gibney. “Hate is in our DNA. If we begin to understand this, that’s how we begin...

Filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Alex Gibney have teamed to produce a docu-series for Discovery Channel examining the origins and dangers of hate.

The two Oscar winners will executive produce the six-part series tentatively titled “Why We Hate.”

Spielberg’s Amblin Television partnered with Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions on the project, which began production earlier this year and will air on Discovery in 2019. Geeta Gandbhir (“Love the Sinner”) and Sam Pollard (“Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me”) are co-directing the project.

The series will investigate the human capacity for hatred and how we can overcome it. The subject is a topic Spielberg has been longing to explore.

“Getting to the root of the human condition is something I find not only fascinating, but absolutely necessary in understanding who we are,” Spielberg told Variety. “With the team in place, we delve into historical and modern-day stories of hate, traveling...

Premiering at Tiff 2017, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me is the first major film documentary to examine Davis’ vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America.

Today Sammy Davis is seen primarily as part of The Rat Pack. That quartet of bad boys who sing and joke around is very much a part of time when Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were the kings of the Las Vegas scene.

But Sammy Davis Jr. was much more than that and merely by lending his black face to that group makes The Rat Pack seem like a liberal if slightly dissolute, but a filled-with-fun group. In truth, his position with Sinatra, Martin, Peter Lawford was not all that comfortable and the path Davis had already trod before landing there was not a simple or easy one.

He...

Conventional limitations on cinematic runtimes, often driven by basic practical and commercial concerns, are at once arbitrary and enduring. Under 90 minutes is short; over 150 minutes is long. Short films lie on one end of the spectrum and Andy Warhol on the other. But even limiting discussion to non-experimental feature films reveals a wide variation in the use of massive duration, discussions of which tend to be obscured by the hyperbole (in both directions) that such films often elicit. (This hyperbolic tendency also extends to trilogies, multi-part films, or even novels and literature in general. Just ask anyone who’s seen Sátántangó or read Infinite Jest.) Nonetheless, such films tend to be fascinating opportunities for exploration, both in their justification for and use of such length. And on the occasion of Mubi’s retrospective of Lav Diaz’s filmography (the body of work that most consistently makes use of duration), three vastly different 2016 films,...

by Kieran Scarlett

It was recently announced that Netflix has ordered ten episodes of a TV series adaptation of Spike Lee’s 1986 debut feature film She’s Gotta Have It. Lee will direct all ten episodes. The age of prestige television truly allows for more fluid movement (at least behind the camera) from film to TV and back again. Spike Lee’s last few features (despite good notices for Chi-raq) have had trouble catching fire outside of the arthouse the way his earlier work has, for this reason or that. He’s certainly a polarizing figure and resistance to his work is built in to certain audiences.

Tracy Camilla Johns and Spike Lee in She's Gotta Have It (1986)

Have you seen She’s Gotta Have It? It’s a very fascinating piece, both on its own and in the larger context of Lee’s filmography. There’s a beautifully bare-bones...