Tag Archives: DOC NYC

Cecilia Aldarondo Signs with United Talent Agency (UTA)

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Cecilia Aldarondo has new representation… 

The Puerto Rican director-producer has signed with United Talent Agency (UTA).

Cecilia AldarondoAldarondo’s third feature, You Were My First Boyfriend, premiered in Documentary Feature Competition at the SXSW Film Festival on Friday.

The hybrid documentary written and directed by Aldarondo and Sarah Enid Hagey is billed in SXSW’s official program as an examination of “the power of adolescent fantasy, the subtle violence of cultural assimilation, and the fun house mirror of time’s passage.”

Aldarondo also produced the film heading to HBO later this year, which sees her revisit her 1990s adolescence, a generation after she thought she’d left it all behind.

Aldarondo previously directed and produced the feature docs Memories of a Penitent Heart and Landfall, both of which were co-produced by the award-winning PBS series, POV.

The former title world premiering at Tribeca picks up 25 years after Miguel’s death from AIDS, as his niece cracks open a Pandora’s box of unresolved family drama, by tracking down his estranged lover. The latter, also screening at Tribeca, which examined the fraught relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, won DOC NYC’s Viewfinders Grand Jury Prize, also landing Aldarondo noms at the Cinema Eye Honors Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.

A former Women at Sundance Fellow who was named to DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 list Aldarondo has also previously received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an IDA Emerging Filmmaker Award, among other accolades. While continuing to build on her career behind the camera, she teaches filmmaking at Williams College in Williamstown, MA

Super LTD Acquires North American Rights to the Helena Bonham Carter-Narrarted Holocaust Documentary “Three Minutes — A Lengthening”

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Helena Bonham Carter is spending three minutes in theaters…

Super LTD has acquired the North American rights to Bianca Stigter’s Holocaust documentary Three Minutes — A Lengthening, narrated by the 55-year-old part-Spanish English actress.

Helena Bonham Carter

Co-produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen, the documentary will be released in theaters next year.

Stigter’s first feature-length doc centers on a three-minute home movie shot by David Kurtz on a European holiday in 1938, in a Jewish town in Poland.

The amateur footage— discovered by Kurtz’s grandson, writer Glenn Kurtz, in his parents’ Florida home—captures the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk just one year before the Nazis invaded. Most were eventually killed in the Treblinka extermination camp.

Family Affairs Films’ Floor Onrust produced Stigter’s meditation on history and memory with Lammas Park, with the support of The Netherlands Film Fund and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

The film made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival before screening in Telluride and Toronto. Its upcoming stops on the festival circuit include the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and DOC NYC.

Stigter is a Dutch historian and cultural critic who writes essays for Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. She previously collaborated with McQueen as an associate producer on his films 12 Years a Slave and Widows, and published the book Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945 in 2019.

PBS’ POV Acquires Rights to Cecilia Aldarondo’s Documentary “Landfall,” About Puerto Rico’s Post-Hurricane Maria Rebuilding Efforts

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Cecilia Aldarondo will be enlightening people on Puerto Rico’s post-Hurricane Maria rebuilding efforts.

PBS’ documentary series POV has acquired U.S. broadcast rights to Landfall, the Puerto Rican documentary filmmaker’s feature-length film about the rebuilding of Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane Maria through the stories of farmers, fishermen, educators, real estate agents and newcomers.

Cecilia Aldarondo

The documentary, which had its premiere at the mostly shuttered Tribeca Film Festival, will now air as part of POV’s 34th season set to launch on PBS stations in June. Before that, it will screen at DOC NYC, which runs November 11-19.

The island and its 3.4 million residents (and U.S. citizens) was ravaged by the September 2017 storm, which shuttered electricity to the entire commonwealth and caused billions in damages, leaving behind a crippled infrastructure and a multibillion-dollar debt. Outside investors descended not as much to bail out communities but to cash in, leaving the next generation of Puerto Ricans finding themselves at an inflection point between the dream of a socialist utopia and the reality of recolonization.

Landfall is a co-production of Blackscrackle Films, ITVS, and American Documentary | POV in association with Field of Vision and Latino Public Broadcasting, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

“Landfall is a cautionary tale about unjust recovery, and what happens when powerful interests try to privatize public services in the wake of disaster,” Aldarondo said. “Now that we’re all facing the biggest disaster of our lifetimes, we need public media like POV to champion the visionary, ethical, and independent media we need for a healthy society. I can’t think of a better home for my film.”

“Cecilia’s masterpiece is both a sharp condemnation of the continued colonial exploitation of Puerto Rico and a warm embrace of the land and her people,” executive producer Chris White said. “Rendered with a singular vision and deep affection, you’ll be swept into solidarity with these native Puerto Ricans who resist and rebuild.”

Fuse Acquires Rights to Immigration Documentary “Colossus” About Jamil Sunsin & His Family

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Jamil Sunsin’s oh-so-timely immigrant story is heading to the small screen… 

Fuse has acquired the broadcast and streaming rights to Campanario Entertainment’s immigration documentary Colossus, about the Honduran American teenager and his family.

Colossus,

At a time when children are being put in cages, families are being separated at the border and the president of the United States is degrading immigrants, Colossus is more relevant now than ever. 

The documentary, which made its premiere at DOC NYCin 2018, puts America’s treatment of immigrants and separation of families into perspective by following 15-year-old Jamil Sunsin and his struggle after his undocumented parents and older sister are deported to Honduras and they are separated. As the only U.S. citizen in his family, Sunsin finds himself alone in the country. After a visit to see his family, he navigates the personal turmoil caused by immigration policies affecting his parents and sister, the political realities in Honduras, and must decide whether to continue his education in America or return to Honduras to be with his family.

“From the moment that we met Jamil Sunsin, we knew we had to tell his story and that of his sister Mirka who was raised in the U.S. believing she was an American citizen,” said Jaime Dávila, the film’s executive producer and president of Campanario Entertainment. “Family separation and the root causes of the refugee crisis are major issues in our country today, and with Fuse bringing the Sunsin family’s experience to a wider audience we have an opportunity to advance this conversation as a community.”

The documentary, directed by Jonathan Schienberg, is set to make its broadcast premiere on February 26 as part of Fuse’s Peabody and Emmy award-winning Fuse Docs franchise.

Co-founded by Dávila, a former development executive at Bravo, and Jaime Dávila Sr., former TelevisaCOO and Univision President and Chairman, Campanario Entertainment develops and produces broad appeal scripted and unscripted content driven by Latinos and Latinas in front of and behind the camera. They are the company behind the forthcoming Selena: The Series and the Amazon Prime Original, Como Sobrevivir Soltero. They also produced the Bravo reality series Mexican Dynasties.