Welcome to the premiere episode of Doc Talk, our new podcast hosted by Oscar-winning writer-director John Ridley and Deadline’s documentary editor Matt Carey. We’re kicking off with a deep dive into a signature power of documentary: The capacity to right a grave wrong in the criminal justice system by freeing a wrongfully convicted prisoner. Only a handful of major nonfiction filmmakers has achieved this extraordinary feat, springing men and women who faced Death Row or life sentences.
We talk with Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line), Joe Berlinger (the Paradise Lost trilogy), Amy Berg (The Case Against Adnan Syed and West of Memphis), and Deborah Esquenazi (Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four).
Morris shares his theory of why Randall Dale Adams — the man who almost certainly would have been put to death by the state of Texas if not for The Thin Blue Line — turned around and sued him.
We talk with Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line), Joe Berlinger (the Paradise Lost trilogy), Amy Berg (The Case Against Adnan Syed and West of Memphis), and Deborah Esquenazi (Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four).
Morris shares his theory of why Randall Dale Adams — the man who almost certainly would have been put to death by the state of Texas if not for The Thin Blue Line — turned around and sued him.
- 9/12/2023
- by The Deadline Team
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Texas Monthly, the magazine that has been chronicling life in the Lone Star State since 1973, has continued its expansion into film and TV by setting its first-ever feature documentary, to be made in partnership with Peabody and Critics’ Choice Award-winning filmmaker Deborah Esquenazi (Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four).
The currently untitled film centers on James Reyos, a gay Apache man who for 40 years has sought to clear his name of the brutal murder of a Catholic priest in oil-rich West Texas. Embedding with the Innocence Project of Texas that has taken up Reyos’ case, Esquenazi with her doc sheds new light on a story that has eluded detectives, crime researchers and amateur sleuths for four decades, exposing a web of media lore and homophobia, as well as whispers of a possible serial killing team targeting clergy in the 1980s. The project extends coverage of...
The currently untitled film centers on James Reyos, a gay Apache man who for 40 years has sought to clear his name of the brutal murder of a Catholic priest in oil-rich West Texas. Embedding with the Innocence Project of Texas that has taken up Reyos’ case, Esquenazi with her doc sheds new light on a story that has eluded detectives, crime researchers and amateur sleuths for four decades, exposing a web of media lore and homophobia, as well as whispers of a possible serial killing team targeting clergy in the 1980s. The project extends coverage of...
- 7/6/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Wscripted has unveiled its inaugural Cannes Screenplay List of scripts in the English language to option at Cannes.
Wscripted is the first online marketplace for sourcing and curating excellent work written by women and women-identifying writers in film TV, and publishing. Among the screenplays on the list are works by Lucy Powers (“The Road to Hebron”), Nathalie Marchak (“A Beautiful Journey”), Caitlin Gallo and Brittany Harris (“People Like Us”) and Sundance Institute fellow Deborah S. Esquenazi (“A Killing on Park”).
The Inaugural List is designed to offer a resource for producers and executives to discover new female talent by highlighting excellent projects by international women writers during the Cannes Film Market. Its mission is to help speed up opportunities for female writers on the list and drive the development of female content.
Ellie Jamen, founder and CEO of Wscripted, was invited as a Guest of Honor to the 2021 Cannes Film...
Wscripted is the first online marketplace for sourcing and curating excellent work written by women and women-identifying writers in film TV, and publishing. Among the screenplays on the list are works by Lucy Powers (“The Road to Hebron”), Nathalie Marchak (“A Beautiful Journey”), Caitlin Gallo and Brittany Harris (“People Like Us”) and Sundance Institute fellow Deborah S. Esquenazi (“A Killing on Park”).
The Inaugural List is designed to offer a resource for producers and executives to discover new female talent by highlighting excellent projects by international women writers during the Cannes Film Market. Its mission is to help speed up opportunities for female writers on the list and drive the development of female content.
Ellie Jamen, founder and CEO of Wscripted, was invited as a Guest of Honor to the 2021 Cannes Film...
- 7/13/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
Emmy-nominated and Peabody-winning director and screenwriter Deborah S. Esquenazi is set to demystify stories and myths about women of color and Lgbtq individuals with her newly launched production company Myth of Monsters.
Under the new production banner, Esquenazi will team with former Mad Men writer Jason Grote to adapt her Peabody-winning, Emmy-nominated true crime documentary, Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four. Daniel Chalfen and Jim Butterworth of Naked Edge Films are co-producing. The 2016 documentary helped exonerate its four subjects from their wrongful convictions of the ritual rape of two little girls during the “Satanic Panic” era.
Also in development is Queen of Wands, a bilingual coming-of-age Lgbtq drama with Academy Award-nominated producer Cathleen Sutherland (Boyhood) and Susan Kirr. Set in 1989 during a fictionalized hurricane at the height of the AIDS crisis in Texas, Queen of Wands is a semi-autobiographical...
Under the new production banner, Esquenazi will team with former Mad Men writer Jason Grote to adapt her Peabody-winning, Emmy-nominated true crime documentary, Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four. Daniel Chalfen and Jim Butterworth of Naked Edge Films are co-producing. The 2016 documentary helped exonerate its four subjects from their wrongful convictions of the ritual rape of two little girls during the “Satanic Panic” era.
Also in development is Queen of Wands, a bilingual coming-of-age Lgbtq drama with Academy Award-nominated producer Cathleen Sutherland (Boyhood) and Susan Kirr. Set in 1989 during a fictionalized hurricane at the height of the AIDS crisis in Texas, Queen of Wands is a semi-autobiographical...
- 6/13/2018
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Ezra Edelman’s “Oj: Made in America” was the big winner at the inaugural Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, taking home both Best Documentary and Best Director in the Theatrical Feature category. Ava DuVernay’s Netflix doc “13th” followed closely behind, picking up the same prizes in the TV/Streaming field. Penn Jillette hosted the ceremony, which honored films chosen by the Broadcast Film Critics’ Association (Bfca) and Broadcast Television Journalists Association (Btja). Full list of winners below.
Read More: Why the Entertainment Weekly Partnership Made Me Quit the Critics’ Choice Awards
Best Documentary (Theatrical Feature): “O.J.: Made in America”
Best Director (Theatrical Feature): Ezra Edelman, “O.J.: Made in America”
Best Documentary (TV/Streaming): “13th”
Best Director (TV/Streaming): Ava DuVernay, “13th”
Best First Documentary (Theatrical Feature): Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, “Weiner”
Best First Documentary (TV/Streaming): (Tie) Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker, “Everything Is Copy...
Read More: Why the Entertainment Weekly Partnership Made Me Quit the Critics’ Choice Awards
Best Documentary (Theatrical Feature): “O.J.: Made in America”
Best Director (Theatrical Feature): Ezra Edelman, “O.J.: Made in America”
Best Documentary (TV/Streaming): “13th”
Best Director (TV/Streaming): Ava DuVernay, “13th”
Best First Documentary (Theatrical Feature): Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, “Weiner”
Best First Documentary (TV/Streaming): (Tie) Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker, “Everything Is Copy...
- 11/4/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
(Brooklyn, NY . November 3, 2016) . The Broadcast Film Critics. Association (Bfca) and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (Btja) announced the winners of the inaugural Critics. Choice Documentary Awards tonight at a gala event, hosted by Penn Jillette at Bric in Brooklyn.
Oj: Made in America took home the most awards for the evening with Best Documentary (Theatrical Feature), Best Director (Theatrical Feature) for Ezra Edelman, Best Limited Documentary Series and Best Sports Documentary.
13th won three awards for Best Documentary (TV/Streaming), Best Political Documentary and Best Director (TV/Streaming) for Ava DuVernay.
The Best First Documentary (TV/Streaming) was a tie, with awards going to both Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker for Everything is Copy: Nora Ephron: Scripted and Unscripted. and Deborah Esquenazi for Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four. Jack Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg won Best First Documentary (Theatrical Feature) for Weiner.
The Beatles:...
Oj: Made in America took home the most awards for the evening with Best Documentary (Theatrical Feature), Best Director (Theatrical Feature) for Ezra Edelman, Best Limited Documentary Series and Best Sports Documentary.
13th won three awards for Best Documentary (TV/Streaming), Best Political Documentary and Best Director (TV/Streaming) for Ava DuVernay.
The Best First Documentary (TV/Streaming) was a tie, with awards going to both Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker for Everything is Copy: Nora Ephron: Scripted and Unscripted. and Deborah Esquenazi for Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four. Jack Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg won Best First Documentary (Theatrical Feature) for Weiner.
The Beatles:...
- 11/4/2016
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
The 27th edition of the Stockholm International Film Festival (Nov 9 - 20) will present 200 films from 70 countries.
The Stockholm International Film Festival will kick-off with Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake, followed by a mid-festival ‘middle film’ screening in the shape of Nate Parker’s Birth of A Nation, and will close with Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea.
Directors attending the festival include Francis Ford Coppola (who will receive the lifetime achievement award, present a public talk, and screen Apocalypse Now), Ken Loach, Francois Ozon (who receives the festival’s Visionary Award), Ira Sachs, Alice Lowe, Mark Cousins, Anne Fontaine, Gabe Klinger, and many more.
The festival’s main competition line-up is:
A Decent Woman by Lukas Valenta Rinner (Arg, S Kor, Aus)A Taste Of Ink by Morgan Simon (Fr)Albüm by Mehmet Can Mertoğlu (Tur, Fr, Rom)Are We Not Cats by Xander Robin (Us)Birth Of A Nation by [link...
The Stockholm International Film Festival will kick-off with Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake, followed by a mid-festival ‘middle film’ screening in the shape of Nate Parker’s Birth of A Nation, and will close with Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea.
Directors attending the festival include Francis Ford Coppola (who will receive the lifetime achievement award, present a public talk, and screen Apocalypse Now), Ken Loach, Francois Ozon (who receives the festival’s Visionary Award), Ira Sachs, Alice Lowe, Mark Cousins, Anne Fontaine, Gabe Klinger, and many more.
The festival’s main competition line-up is:
A Decent Woman by Lukas Valenta Rinner (Arg, S Kor, Aus)A Taste Of Ink by Morgan Simon (Fr)Albüm by Mehmet Can Mertoğlu (Tur, Fr, Rom)Are We Not Cats by Xander Robin (Us)Birth Of A Nation by [link...
- 10/18/2016
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
//players.brightcove.net/416418724/default_default/index.min.js
The allegations that arose in 1994 stunned Elizabeth Ramirez.
Police were on the phone, saying her two nieces — then ages 7 and 9 — had accused Ramirez and three of her friends of sexually assaulting them months earlier over a two-day period while Ramirez cared for the young girls at her apartment in San Antonio, Texas.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Ramirez tells People. “I was like, where did they even come up with that? I was like in shock.”
Ramirez, then 19, was a fast-food restaurant worker who’d recently learned she was pregnant. Her friends,...
The allegations that arose in 1994 stunned Elizabeth Ramirez.
Police were on the phone, saying her two nieces — then ages 7 and 9 — had accused Ramirez and three of her friends of sexually assaulting them months earlier over a two-day period while Ramirez cared for the young girls at her apartment in San Antonio, Texas.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Ramirez tells People. “I was like, where did they even come up with that? I was like in shock.”
Ramirez, then 19, was a fast-food restaurant worker who’d recently learned she was pregnant. Her friends,...
- 10/13/2016
- by jefftruesdelltimeinc
- PEOPLE.com
Los Angeles, CA (October 10, 2016) . The Broadcast Film Critics Association (Bfca) and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (Btja) have announced the nominees for the inaugural Critics. Choice Documentary Awards. The winners will be presented their awards at a gala event on Thursday, November 3, 2016 at Bric, in Brooklyn, New York.
.It is an amazing time for documentaries, with the ever-increasing number of platforms enabling producers to reach enthusiastic and growing audiences for non-fiction storytelling,. said Bfca and Btja President Joey Berlin.
.This is clearly demonstrated in the depth and quality of our inaugural nominees. We have a wealth of brilliant creators who are bringing to light some of the most entertaining and illuminating stories being told today. Indeed, documentary filmmaking is modern investigative journalism. We look forward to celebrating all these fine and important achievements at the first Critics. Choice Documentary Awards gala on November 3rd..
13th, 30 For 30: O.J.: Made in America...
.It is an amazing time for documentaries, with the ever-increasing number of platforms enabling producers to reach enthusiastic and growing audiences for non-fiction storytelling,. said Bfca and Btja President Joey Berlin.
.This is clearly demonstrated in the depth and quality of our inaugural nominees. We have a wealth of brilliant creators who are bringing to light some of the most entertaining and illuminating stories being told today. Indeed, documentary filmmaking is modern investigative journalism. We look forward to celebrating all these fine and important achievements at the first Critics. Choice Documentary Awards gala on November 3rd..
13th, 30 For 30: O.J.: Made in America...
- 10/11/2016
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
The Broadcast Film Critics Association (Bfca) and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (Btja) have announced the nominees for their inaugural Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, taking place next month at a first-time gala event in Brooklyn, New York. Ava DuVernay’s “13th,” Ezra Edelman’s “O.J.: Made in America” and Clay Tweel’s “Gleason” lead the pack of nominees, with five nominations each. Other nominees include Kirsten Johnson’s “Cameraperson,” the gob-smacking “Weiner” and recent Netflix features “Amanda Knox” and “Audrie & Daisy.”
“It is an amazing time for documentaries, with the ever-increasing number of platforms enabling producers to reach enthusiastic and growing audiences for non-fiction storytelling,” said Bfca and Btja President Joey Berlin. “This is clearly demonstrated in the depth and quality of our inaugural nominees. We have a wealth of brilliant creators who are bringing to light some of the most entertaining and illuminating stories being told today. Indeed, documentary filmmaking is modern investigative journalism.
“It is an amazing time for documentaries, with the ever-increasing number of platforms enabling producers to reach enthusiastic and growing audiences for non-fiction storytelling,” said Bfca and Btja President Joey Berlin. “This is clearly demonstrated in the depth and quality of our inaugural nominees. We have a wealth of brilliant creators who are bringing to light some of the most entertaining and illuminating stories being told today. Indeed, documentary filmmaking is modern investigative journalism.
- 10/10/2016
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Glenn here. Each Tuesday bringing you reviews of documentaries from theatres, festivals and on demand.
The title of Deborah Esquenazi’s film Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four is not an accident. It has been done to deliberately reference both West of Memphis and The Central Park Five. Those two films were also true crime documentaries that focused on cases in which the wrong people – bundled together under one umbrella with a numerical media savvy nickname – were convicted of a heinous crime. The mistrials of justice in both of those cases were so monumental that multiple films, non-fiction and dramatic, exist about each.
It’s doubtful the same will become true of the San Antonio Four given the crimes for which the four women at the centre of its terribly heartbreaking story were charged and found guilty of were not as sensationally savage as those other stories.
The title of Deborah Esquenazi’s film Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four is not an accident. It has been done to deliberately reference both West of Memphis and The Central Park Five. Those two films were also true crime documentaries that focused on cases in which the wrong people – bundled together under one umbrella with a numerical media savvy nickname – were convicted of a heinous crime. The mistrials of justice in both of those cases were so monumental that multiple films, non-fiction and dramatic, exist about each.
It’s doubtful the same will become true of the San Antonio Four given the crimes for which the four women at the centre of its terribly heartbreaking story were charged and found guilty of were not as sensationally savage as those other stories.
- 9/13/2016
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
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