Liberal Documentarians Panic as Industry Goes Trump-Friendly, but Conservatives Say ‘They’re Getting a Taste’ of Censorship and It’s ‘Satisfying’

variety.com:

Tatiana Siegel Eight years ago, tech billionaire Jeff Skoll clapped enthusiastically as Al Gore assuaged the opening-night Sundance crowd just hours before Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president. “We will win,” Gore said after the Skoll-backed climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” made its world premiere. “We want this movie to recruit others.” But a funny thing happened over the ensuing years.

The founder and chair of Participant Media appears to have defected to the other side. In January, on the weekend Trump was sworn in as the 47th president, Skoll hosted both the Make America Great Again Victory Rally and the inaugural parade, sending shockwaves through the indie film world. (Skoll declined comment.) For the past two decades, the eBay mogul was the most reliable financier of progressive documentaries, from “RBG” to “He Named Me Malala.” Skoll’s 180-degree turn as he shuttered Participant has left a void that hasn’t been filled by another left-leaning billionaire. “Jeff didn’t give a fuck.

He was just, ‘Get me out of this business. I’m not interested in making Al Gore documentaries anymore,’” says a source familiar with his film business exit, which separately included selling his equity stake in Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners at a steep discount.

Another source says Skoll became “obsessed with Elon,” a reference to Trump’s biggest tech benefactor, Elon Musk. Skoll’s departure isn’t the only seismic shift in the doc world.