Narrative

Nonfiction

“He’s not dangerous — he’s a challenge.”

That’s stand-up comic Max Bernal (Bobby Cannavale) talking about his autistic son (William A. Fitzgerald) in the new trailer for Ezra, director Tony Goldwyn’s family dramedy that also stars Robert De Niro and Rose Byrne. Have a look above.

The film, which premiered at TIFF last year, follows Max, who is living with his father (De Niro) while struggling to co-parent Ezra with his ex-wife (Byrne). When forced to confront difficult decisions about their son’s future — and because Max is booked on Jimmy Kimmel Live! but without plane fare comped — Max and Ezra embark on a cross-country road trip that has a transcendent impact on both their lives.

Vera Farmiga, Rainn Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg and Goldwyn co-star in the pic written by Tony Spiridakis.

“All I ever wanted was just to protect our boy,” Byrne’s Jenna tells Max over the phone. “Well, I’m protecting him now,” her ex replies. Later in the trailer, Max’s brother (Rainn Wilson) tells him, “You know, the word ‘autism’ comes from the Greek ‘in your own world.” Says Max, “I don’t want him in his own world — I want him in this world.”

Produced by William Horberg, Jon Kilik, Goldwyn, Spiridakis, Ezra opens May 31 in theaters via Bleecker Street, which acquired the pic in November.

Bobby Cannavale Takes Life-Changing Road Trip With His Autistic Son In ‘Ezra’ Trailer

Steve James, the Oscar-nominated director behind Hoop Dreams and Life Itself, will tackle AI in the docuseries Mind vs. Machine, which has Alex Gibney on board as a producer.

Closer Media and Anonymous Content, which are working with Gibney on his upcoming Elon Musk doc Musk, are financing the project and also producing alongside James and Gibney, Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink of Collective Hunch.

New York Times technology correspondent Cade Metz will executive produce with Closer Media’s Zhang Xin, William Horberg, and Joey Marra, and Anonymous Content’s Nick Shumaker, Jessica Grimshaw, and David Levine.

According to the announcement, the project is described as “a five-part, landmark docuseries artfully crafted from a blend of interviews, archival footage, dramatic recreations, AI visualizations, and cutting-edge special effects, is definitive in its unparalleled access to key inventors, scientists, futurists, and thinkers including Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, Ray Kurzweil, Deborah Raji, and Meghan O’Gieblyn.” For the project, producers have optioned two books: Metz’s Genius Makers and Meghan O’Gieblyn’s God, Human, Animal, Machine.

The synopsis continues: “In addition, the team has unprecedented access to the never-beforeseen provocative writings of notorious anti-technologist Ted Kaczynski, courtesy of the University
of Michigan Library. The series will grapple with AI’s implications for the future by exploring the personal journeys of those who brought us to this critical inflection point and by following key players in the field who are pushing forward the technology that will transform life as we know it.”

Closer Media, Anonymous Content, and UTA are selling the rights to the series, which does not yet have distribution. 

Steve James, Alex Gibney Team for AI Docuseries ‘Mind vs. Machine’

The shortlist of 15 films set to vie for a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination only has a few surprises in the mix. 

Firstly, there are a couple of crossovers with films also included on the documentary shortlist: Ukraine’s 20 Days in Mariupol and Tunisia’s Four Daughters. At the same time, Morocco’s The Mother of All Lies, also eligible in documentary, landed a shortlist slot only in International Feature. 

For Ukraine, this is the first inclusion on an International Feature shortlist. For a narrative feature, same goes for Armenia with Michael A. Goorjian’s Amerikatsi.

Bhutan, here with The Monk and the Gun, is a comer. After landing the country’s first advancement in 2021 with Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, director Pawo Choyning Dorji is again in the mix.

A surprise here is Iceland’s Godland, which debuted in Cannes in 2022 and is handled by Janus domestically. Hlynur Palmason’s movie “strikes that elusive balance of pace and pitch,” said Deadline’s review at the time.

Here is the full Oscar shortlist for International Feature Film:

Armenia, Amerikatsi
Bhutan, The Monk and the Gun
Denmark, The Promised Land
Finland, Fallen Leaves
France, The Taste of Things
Germany, The Teachers’ Lounge
Iceland, Godland
Italy, Io Capitano
Japan, Perfect Days
Mexico, Totem
Morocco, The Mother of All Lies
Spain, Society of the Snow
Tunisia, Four Daughters
Ukraine, 20 Days in Mariupol
United Kingdom, The Zone of Interest



International Feature Oscar Shortlist: Armenia Marks A First, Bhutan Is Back, ‘Godland’ Surprises

MGM+ has acquired Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s two-part documentary In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, an immersive journey into the work of one of greatest singer-songwriters in the history of the recording industry.

The streaming platform plans to debut part 1 on March 17 and part 2 on March 24. In Restless Dreams captures Simon at work on his latest album, Seven Psalms, recorded in Texas where he lives with wife and fellow musician Edie Brickell. And it explores his earlier era-defining collaboration with Art Garfunkel and Simon’s solo work, which combined have earned him 16 Grammys and induction twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a duo with Garfunkel and as a solo artist.

“This is the definitive musical biography of Paul Simon,” notes a release about the project, which MGM+ describes as a docuseries. “Granted unprecedented access to the making of a new album, the filmmakers also show never-before-seen footage of Simon’s extraordinary career, from Simon & Garfunkel to the phenomenal global success of Simon’s solo album Graceland.”

The release continues, “The docuseries juxtaposes Simon’s process of making a new album during the COVID-19 pandemic against archival material tracing Simon’s career and creative journey, including revelatory, previously unseen footage from such historic moments as the recording of Bridge Over Troubled Water and Graceland, Simon & Garfunkel’s unforgettable reunion concert in Central Park, and, 10 years later, Simon’s solo concert there, where he performed before 750,000 people.”

In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, playing not in two parts but as a single film. At the Camden International Film Festival in Maine, where the documentary was to hold its U.S. premiere in September (Hurricane Lee knocked out power to the venue, forcing cancellation of the screening), Gibney sat down for an interview with Deadline. He described Simon’s music this way: “It soars and it really gets inside you. It’s like it gets in your lungs and suddenly you’re breathing it.”

Gibney is well known for hard-hitting films like his Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, but he has directed several music-themed documentaries, including one on Frank Sinatra.

“[Paul] had reached out to me, he had seen the Sinatra film and wondered if I might be interested in doing a film about his overall career. And of course, I was interested in that,” Gibney told Deadline. “But the gift was when he called me up and said, ‘I’m making this new album. Would you like to come watch me make it?’ And that was a gift because it was him in the present working on something… And also because it’s a meditation on belief and life and death, it seemed appropriate to move back and forth in time to earlier moments in his career.”

Michael Wright, head of MGM+, said in a statement, “Alex Gibney is one of the most gifted documentary filmmakers of our time, and he has brought his incredible storytelling eye to the fascinating and worthy subject of Paul Simon’s iconic career. Simon’s generational talent and incomparable body of work is expertly presented by Alex and his team. We’re thrilled that this stunning deep dive into Simon’s career and creative process has landed at MGM+.”

Gibney commented, “Through my company, Jigsaw Productions, I have had the great pleasure of working with Michael Wright, Jill Burkhart, and the team at MGM+ on a number of music documentaries, including Alison Ellwood’s sumptuous Laurel Canyon. So I am delighted to partner with MGM+ on In Restless Dreams—a film that has been a labor of love of mine for three years.” 

In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon is produced by Jigsaw, Closer Media, and Anonymous Content. The docuseries is produced by Alex Gibney, David Rahtz, Erin Edeiken and Svetlana Zill, and edited by Andy Grieve. Executive Producers are Jeff Kramer, Jigsaw Productions’ Richard Perello; alongside Stacey Offman; Closer Media’s Zhang Xin, William Horberg, and Joey Marra; Bob Xu, Anonymous Content’s Nick Shumaker and Jessica Grimshaw, David Levine, and Kristen Vaurio. 

The acquisition deal was negotiated by UTA Independent Film Group and AC Independent. 

MGM+ Acquires ‘In Restless Dreams: The Music Of Paul Simon,’ Alex Gibney’s Two-Part Documentary On Legendary Singer-Songwriter

Bhutan’s official Oscar entry “The Monk and the Gun,” Pawo Choyning Dorji‘s follow-up to “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,” has been acquired by more distributors in key territories.

Rolling off premieres at Telluride, Toronto, Rome and Busan, the crowdpleaser has been acquired by MFA+ Distribution (Germany, Austria), Edko Films (Hong Kong, Macau), Officine Ubu (Italy) and Maxam Inc. (Japan). The film is represented by Films Boutique in international markets. The movie was also acquired by Roadside Attraction for the U.S. in a deal negotiated with UTA, which is repping the film in North America.

Previous deals were scored with Pyramide Distribution (France), September Films (Benelux), Rialto Distribution (Australia), Future Films (Scandinavia), A Contracorriente (Spain), Lev Films (Israel), Aurora Films (Poland), Trigon (Switzerland), Alambique Films (Portugal) and Impact Films (India and Indian Subcontinent).

“The Monk and the Gun” is set in the Kingdom of Bhutan in 2006. Modernization has finally arrived and Bhutan becomes the last country in the world to connect to the internet and television, as well as adopt a democracy. To teach the people how to vote, the authorities organize a mock election, but the locals seem unconvinced. Traveling to rural Bhutan where religion is more popular than politics, the election supervisor discovers that a monk is planning a mysterious ceremony for the election day. The cast is led by Tandin Wangchuk, Deki Lhamo, Pema Zangmo Sherpa and Tandin Sonam, among others.

The film has won several accolades, including the Audience Award at Vancouver, the Special Jury Prize at Roma, where it held its European premiere, the IMdB Audience Choice Award at Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and the Director’s Choice Award at the Illuminate Film Festival in Santa Barbara.

“The Monk and the Gun” is produced by Jean-Christophe Simon (“Birds of Passage,” “Subtraction”), Hsu Feng (“Farewell My Concubine”), Stephanie Lai (“Lunana: A Yak in The Classroom”) and Choyning Dorji. Executive producers are Zhang Xin (“Ezra”), BAFTA nominee and PGA Award winner William Horberg (“Kite Runner,” “Queens Gambit”), Lisa Henson (“Pinocchio”), Kris Eiamsakulrat, Chayamporn Taeratanachai and Janee Pennington.

“The Monk and the Gun” is produced by Dangphu Dingphu: A 3 Pigs Production and Journey to the East Films. It’s a co-production with Films Boutique and Tomson Films in association with Closer Media, Animandala, N8 Studios and Wooden Trailer Prods. 

Bhutan’s Oscar Entry ‘The Monk and the Gun’ Sells Nearly Worldwide

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