Exclusive: The award-winning documentary Afghan Dreamers will exclusively premiere on Paramount+ on May 23, ahead of an expected Emmy push for the documentary about an all-girl robotics team in Afghanistan.
Emmy winner Sheila Nevins and Oscar winner Ellen Goosenberg Kent executive produce the feature from MTV Documentary Films. David Greenwald directs and David Cowan and Beth Murphy produce the documentary, winner of Best Human Rights Film award at Galway Film Fleadh in Ireland and the Audience Award for Tiempo de Historia at the Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain. See the trailer below.
‘Afghan Dreamers’
“Afghan Dreamers tells the harrowing story of an all-girl robotics team from Afghanistan as they struggle to succeed in international competitions,” notes a description of the film, “while combating their male-dominated culture under the threat of Taliban rule.”
In the U.S., the documentary has screened at numerous festivals including Dallas, Boulder, Cleveland, Montclair, and Scad Savannah.
Emmy winner Sheila Nevins and Oscar winner Ellen Goosenberg Kent executive produce the feature from MTV Documentary Films. David Greenwald directs and David Cowan and Beth Murphy produce the documentary, winner of Best Human Rights Film award at Galway Film Fleadh in Ireland and the Audience Award for Tiempo de Historia at the Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain. See the trailer below.
‘Afghan Dreamers’
“Afghan Dreamers tells the harrowing story of an all-girl robotics team from Afghanistan as they struggle to succeed in international competitions,” notes a description of the film, “while combating their male-dominated culture under the threat of Taliban rule.”
In the U.S., the documentary has screened at numerous festivals including Dallas, Boulder, Cleveland, Montclair, and Scad Savannah.
- 5/9/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
“Return to Dust,” the latest work from Chinese director Li Ruin won the top Golden Spike at the Seminci Valladolid Film Festival, Spain’s traditional arthouse platform, which this last week sold over 100,000 tickets for the second time in a row, a sign of much needed, if temporary, vitality in Spain’s desperately sagging art pic market.
“An absorbing, beautifully framed drama that makes a virtue — possibly too much a virtue — of simplicity,” stated Variety’s Jessica Kiang in her Berlinale review, “Dust” is set in a decimated Chinese village, where a downtrodden couple in an arranged marriage forge an unexpected bond as they eke out a living from the land. “Return to Dust” was released in China in September.
“Eo” director Jerzy Skolimowski (“11 Minutes”) earned the best director prize for “a damning polemic on our relationship to other intelligent species — as free labor, food and companions — as seen through the dewy,...
“An absorbing, beautifully framed drama that makes a virtue — possibly too much a virtue — of simplicity,” stated Variety’s Jessica Kiang in her Berlinale review, “Dust” is set in a decimated Chinese village, where a downtrodden couple in an arranged marriage forge an unexpected bond as they eke out a living from the land. “Return to Dust” was released in China in September.
“Eo” director Jerzy Skolimowski (“11 Minutes”) earned the best director prize for “a damning polemic on our relationship to other intelligent species — as free labor, food and companions — as seen through the dewy,...
- 11/1/2022
- by Pablo Sandoval
- Variety Film + TV
Two MTV Documentary films vying for Academy Awards attention — Ondi Timoner’s “Last Flight Home” and Tanaz Eshaghian’s short “As Far as They Can Run” — garnered the top nonfiction honors at the 23rd annual Woodstock Film Festival.
“Last Flight Home,” about Timoner and her family’s last days with her father, won the best documentary prize, while “As Far as They Can Run,” about disabled children in rural Pakistan who have been deemed “useless” by their communities, took home the fest’s best short documentary award.
“Last Flight Home” premiered at Sundance earlier this year before opening the Telluride Film Festival in September. This year marked Timoner’s first time at the Woodstock fest.
“The greatest joy I have is sharing my work in person,” Timoner told Variety. “The reason I make films is to impact people and this film is doing that more than any other film I’ve made.
“Last Flight Home,” about Timoner and her family’s last days with her father, won the best documentary prize, while “As Far as They Can Run,” about disabled children in rural Pakistan who have been deemed “useless” by their communities, took home the fest’s best short documentary award.
“Last Flight Home” premiered at Sundance earlier this year before opening the Telluride Film Festival in September. This year marked Timoner’s first time at the Woodstock fest.
“The greatest joy I have is sharing my work in person,” Timoner told Variety. “The reason I make films is to impact people and this film is doing that more than any other film I’ve made.
- 10/2/2022
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
MTV Documentary Films has boarded new projects about an all-girl Afghan robotics team, a #MeToo crime story, an imprisoned mural artist and a community of disabled children in Pakistan. The documentaries join a slate that includes Ondi Timoner’s Sundance title “Last Flight Home,” which will be screening at Telluride this week in a rare double festival act.
The fledgling division, which was Oscar-nominated for the film “Ascension” earlier this year, was set up in 2019 by legendary HBO Documentary Films boss Sheila Nevins, and ViacomCBS executives Liza Burnett Fefferman and Nina L. Diaz. Nevins was at HBO for 38 years and won 34 Emmys in that period. Her credits include “Citizenfour,” “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and “Paradise Lost.”
The slate spans four feature-length documentaries and six short films (full details below), with Timoner’s “Last Flight Home” serving as a centrepiece.
The “Dig!” director’s acclaimed film follows...
The fledgling division, which was Oscar-nominated for the film “Ascension” earlier this year, was set up in 2019 by legendary HBO Documentary Films boss Sheila Nevins, and ViacomCBS executives Liza Burnett Fefferman and Nina L. Diaz. Nevins was at HBO for 38 years and won 34 Emmys in that period. Her credits include “Citizenfour,” “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and “Paradise Lost.”
The slate spans four feature-length documentaries and six short films (full details below), with Timoner’s “Last Flight Home” serving as a centrepiece.
The “Dig!” director’s acclaimed film follows...
- 9/2/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
’Lakelands’ won best Irish film; ‘The Sparrow’ picked up best first Irish feature.
Robert Higgins and Patrick McGivney’s Lakelands was among the big winners at this year’s Galway Film Fleadh which closed on Sunday evening (July 10).
Set among a community in the Irish midlands where Gaelic football is revered Lakelands centres on a sportsman struggling with the aftermath of a head injury. It won best Irish film and the Bingham Ray New Talent award. The latter was given jointly to Lakelands’ two lead actors, Éanna Hardwicke and Danielle Galligan.
The Fleadh awarded best Irish first feature to Michael Kinirons’ The Sparrow,...
Robert Higgins and Patrick McGivney’s Lakelands was among the big winners at this year’s Galway Film Fleadh which closed on Sunday evening (July 10).
Set among a community in the Irish midlands where Gaelic football is revered Lakelands centres on a sportsman struggling with the aftermath of a head injury. It won best Irish film and the Bingham Ray New Talent award. The latter was given jointly to Lakelands’ two lead actors, Éanna Hardwicke and Danielle Galligan.
The Fleadh awarded best Irish first feature to Michael Kinirons’ The Sparrow,...
- 7/11/2022
- by Esther McCarthy
- ScreenDaily
Actress Vicky Krieps and filmmakers Jim Sheridan and Mike Newell set to attend.
Declan Recks’ Irish-language drama Tarrac! and Michael Kinirons’ The Sparrow are among a raft of new Irish features set to receive their world premiere at Galway Film Fleadh (July 5-10).
The 34th edition of the festival will include 80 international features of which 20 are world premieres. The majority of these premieres will showcase new Irish cinema, with 18 out of the 32 Irish films in the line-up set to debut at the Fleadh.
They include Tarrac! in which a woman returns to her home on Ireland’s Kerry coast and...
Declan Recks’ Irish-language drama Tarrac! and Michael Kinirons’ The Sparrow are among a raft of new Irish features set to receive their world premiere at Galway Film Fleadh (July 5-10).
The 34th edition of the festival will include 80 international features of which 20 are world premieres. The majority of these premieres will showcase new Irish cinema, with 18 out of the 32 Irish films in the line-up set to debut at the Fleadh.
They include Tarrac! in which a woman returns to her home on Ireland’s Kerry coast and...
- 6/22/2022
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Members of an all-girl robotics team from Afghanistan, the majority of whom narrowly fled the country following the Taliban’s brutal takeover of power, are the subjects of a new feature documentary depicting the group’s rise to become national heroes, Variety can reveal.
Directed by David Greenwald and produced by Beth Murphy, “Afghan Dreamers” — named after the original team of six girls — is in post-production, though currently on hold as the pair frantically works to ensure the young women and their families are safe and secure after escaping the Taliban.
Variety can confirm that most of the girls are now in Mexico, while one remains in Doha, Qatar.
“On the way from Herat to Kabul, we were very scared,” reads a tense message from one member of the team, shared with Variety, as she sought to escape. “Every hour, the Taliban would enter the car and check the inside of the car.
Directed by David Greenwald and produced by Beth Murphy, “Afghan Dreamers” — named after the original team of six girls — is in post-production, though currently on hold as the pair frantically works to ensure the young women and their families are safe and secure after escaping the Taliban.
Variety can confirm that most of the girls are now in Mexico, while one remains in Doha, Qatar.
“On the way from Herat to Kabul, we were very scared,” reads a tense message from one member of the team, shared with Variety, as she sought to escape. “Every hour, the Taliban would enter the car and check the inside of the car.
- 8/25/2021
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
"Where is that money today?" "My money's gone..." Virgil Films has released an official trailer for a very personal documentary titled The Blech Effect, a film profiling the former "King of Biotech" named David Blech. Made by editor-turned-filmmaker David Greenwald, the film spends time with David to tell his own rise and fall story, an attempt to save his legacy before it's too late. David Blech wanted to be remembered for creating an industry that saves millions of lives. Instead, he finds himself $11 million in debt, struggling to keep his family afloat and awaiting a possible jail sentence. Mental illness and addiction are the powerful nemeses that threaten to bring down the one-time biotech titan as he races to develop a potential cure for Alzheimer's Disease that could reverse his fortunes and rebuild his legacy. It's an odd trailer, but the poster is fantastic. What an evocative design, capturing that...
- 8/4/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Exclusive: Virgil Films has acquired rights in U.S. and Canada rights to The Blech Effect, which traces the singular path of biotech entrepreneur David Blech.
The documentary’s director is David Greenwald, a seasoned editor who directed the short film My Father’s House. The acquisition deal was struck by Virgil Films president Joe Amodei, Eastgate Films’ Ronna Wallace and Jonathan Gray of Gray Schwartz.
Blech became known as the “king of biotech” after his small firm skyrocketed to the heights of Wall Street and pioneered the model of financing emerging medical solutions. “The Blech Effect” became a term for the way that investment capital, technology and medical science combined to explosive effect.
Although he did not have any training in science, Blech worked as a stockbroker to support his ambition to become a songwriter. At 24, Blech decided to go into business with his brother, Isaac. They hustled and...
The documentary’s director is David Greenwald, a seasoned editor who directed the short film My Father’s House. The acquisition deal was struck by Virgil Films president Joe Amodei, Eastgate Films’ Ronna Wallace and Jonathan Gray of Gray Schwartz.
Blech became known as the “king of biotech” after his small firm skyrocketed to the heights of Wall Street and pioneered the model of financing emerging medical solutions. “The Blech Effect” became a term for the way that investment capital, technology and medical science combined to explosive effect.
Although he did not have any training in science, Blech worked as a stockbroker to support his ambition to become a songwriter. At 24, Blech decided to go into business with his brother, Isaac. They hustled and...
- 7/21/2020
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
The recent reports that Robert Pattinson is all but locked in as the successor to Ben Affleck in The Batman sent shockwaves throughout social media. The sadly predictable reaction touched on Pattinson’s time in the Twilight franchise, as folks behaved with puzzled dismay that anyone who’d appeared in something so disgustingly feminine could ever be their rock-solid man’s man Caped Crusader.
Perhaps they’re forgetting that this whole scene played itself out just over a decade ago though when Heath Ledger was announced as the new Joker. Sure, he’s now considered the finest actor to play the role, but at the time fans were positively howling with derision.
But if this new campaign bears fruit, that howling might reach a new volume. That’s because Twilight fans, hopped up on the news that they’re going to get to see Pattinson in a sculpted rubber suit,...
Perhaps they’re forgetting that this whole scene played itself out just over a decade ago though when Heath Ledger was announced as the new Joker. Sure, he’s now considered the finest actor to play the role, but at the time fans were positively howling with derision.
But if this new campaign bears fruit, that howling might reach a new volume. That’s because Twilight fans, hopped up on the news that they’re going to get to see Pattinson in a sculpted rubber suit,...
- 5/17/2019
- by David James
- We Got This Covered
Vox3, the company behind the Nicole Kidman starrer Fur, has picked up the rights to Peter Alson's memoir Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie. Alson and David Greenwald are writing the screenplay, which Greenwald will direct. Jonathan Kesselman will produce under his newly formed production banner the Worldwide Media Conspiracy, along with Vox3 principals Andrew Fierberg, Christina Weiss Lurie and Steven Shainberg. Bookie centers on Alson when he was a down-and-out Harvard graduate who gets his real education while working as a bookie in Greenwich Village.
- 9/11/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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