Jimmy Chin: Last News

Clouds of gloom have settled over much of the documentary field, brought on by multiple factors: a sluggish acquisition market, cutbacks in the executive ranks at Netflix and Showtime, uncertainty around Hulu’s future, CNN Films taking doc production in house, sharper scrutiny of budgets and content needs, and… well, the list goes on. 

Beau Is Afraid posted the top per-screen average of the year so far and the best limited opening for distributor A24 since Uncut Gems, grossing an estimated $320,396 at four locations in New York and LA for a hefty per-screen average of $80K+ in sold-out shows on both coasts. (Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler had a $105k PSA on five screens in 2019 — a limited-opening record at the time.)

Addie Morfoot Contributor At Tuesday’s New York City premiere of Nat Geo’s documentary “Wild Life,” Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, shed light on his 2022 decision to donate the entire apparel brand, worth $3 billion, to a trust dedicated to fighting the climate crisis.“I’m kind of pessimistic about the fate of this planet,” Chouinard said. “We’ve been giving one percent of our sales for a long time. We’ve given away $200 or $300 million over the years, but I’m always thinking, ‘What more can I do?”Directed by Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “Wild Life” chronicles the decades-long efforts by conservationist Kris Tompkins and her late husband and the North Face founder, Doug Tompkins, to create national parks throughout Chile and Argentina. The couple helped Chouinard, who appears in the doc, create and run Patagonia.Chouinard, who joined Vasarhelyi, Chin and Tompkins onstage after the MoMA screening, added that his decision to give the planet $3 billion also had to do with his two children, who have “simple lives” and no desire to inherit Patagonia.  “When we found a way to basically make earth our stockholder, it seemed real logical,” he continued. “It’s a way for Patagonia as a company to give a lot more money. We’ve given away $33 million since November. We’re going to give away another $40 or $50 [million] within the next couple months. It’s a pretty good system. I can tell you this: it’s not a burden. It’s really a lot of fun.”

CPH:DOX, the international nonfiction film festival in Copenhagen, isn’t shy about stating its ambitions.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Doug and Kris Tompkins’ dream sounded like a fanciful one. Seduced by a region of ravishing South American wilderness in which they found particular sanctuary, and wishing to protect it from any insensitive or unseemly development, they landed on a solution both simple and absurd-sounding: Why not simply buy as much of it as possible? Backed by the fortune they’d collectively amassed from the clothing industry — Doug as the founder of Esprit and The North Face, Kris as the former CEO of Patagonia — the couple successfully parlayed business tycoon status into an unprecedented scale of eco-activism: As one talking head notes in “Wild Life,” Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s soaring documentary tribute to the Tompkins’ romance and shared conservationist mission, they “could do anything, and chose to do anything.”

World class climber Jimmy Chin met his future wife, filmmaker Chai Vasarhelyi, over a mountain – of footage.

Natalie Portman is shining a light on Angel City Football Club in “Angel City”.

Married in 2013, while Oscar-winning filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin both had been making and shooting films before they met (Chin, “Reel Rock 7,” Vasarhelyi, “Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love“), the power of their collaborative work was instantaneous. 2015’s breathtaking high stakes “Meru” was one of the most harrowing mountain climbing docs ever made up until that point, and they managed to somehow even one-up it with their Oscar-winning doc, the vertiginous and death-defying “Free Solo.” READ MORE: SXSW 2023 Preview: 25 Must-See Film & TV Projects To Watch Since then, the duo has turned their love for the outdoors, the environment and landscape, and their innate curiosity about the natural world into some riveting documentaries, many of them fueled by the same ticking-clock adrenaline of “Meru” and “Free Solo” (see 2021’s Thai Cave rescue doc, “The Rescue”).

Annette Bening is set to headline Peacock’s upcoming limited series Apples Never Fall in her return to television nearly two decades after starring in HBO’s 2005 TV movie Mrs. Harris, which earned her an Emmy nomination. Before that, she played herself in an episode of The Sopranos.

There was a great rush by Hollywood for the rights to the young soccer players, their coach and the divers involved in the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand. Ron Howard’s feature take, Thirteen Lives, made it to the finish line first at MGM, and the 2x Oscar winning filmmaker tells us how that came to be on today’s Crew Call.

America’s Cup and Skydance Sports are exclusively partnering for an “all-access, behind-the-scenes” documentary series on the next America’s Cup race, and they’ve enlisted some Oscar-winning talent to help steer the craft.

Twisters is coming!

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment are meeting with directors hoping for a spring start on Twisters, a big-scale sequel to the 1996 storm-chasing blockbuster. Universal and Warner Bros are co-financing with Universal taking the creative lead on the picture. Frank Marshall is producing.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “The Rescue” filmmakers and Oscar winners Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are among the presenters set to appear at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ 43rd Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards.  The news ceremony will take place on Wednesday, September 28 at 7:30 p.m. ET and the documentary ceremony takes place Thursday, September 29 at 7:30 p.m. ET, both at the Palladium Times Square in New York City. Presenters set to appear at the news ceremony include Linsey Davis (ABC News), Margaret Brennan (CBS News), Omar Jimenez (CNN), Morgan Radford (NBC News), Julio Vaqueiro (Noticias Telemundo), Teresa Rodrigues (Univision) and Paola Ramos (Vice News).

EXCLUSIVE: Karl Spoerri, Viviana Vezzani and Tobias Gutzwiller are officially launching production label Zurich Avenue, which will sit under the banner of their finance company SPG3.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“Cha Cha Real Smooth” director Cooper Raiff and former Black Bear Pictures development executive Clementine Quittner are teaming up to launch a new production company, Small Ideas, with a goal of developing and producing independent film and television projects.The duo are joining forces to make projects from emerging filmmakers and creators, as well as projects written and directed by Raiff. Their first endeavor will be an undisclosed television series which Raiff will write, direct, and produce, and which Quittner will produce.Raiff’s most recent film, “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” won the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Apple for $15 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefNetflix has set a Sept. 22 release date for “Thai Cave Rescue,” its six-part mini series about the dramatic events of July 2018 when 12 boys and their football coach were trapped in flooded limestone caves near Chiang Rai. Their plight sparked an unprecedented international rescue effort that ended with the loss of just one life and a flurry of film and TV productions.

Elon Musk’s successful takeover bid for Twitter has raised concerns about his plans for the social media platform, because of his political views. Historically those views have teetered left and right, but tend to gravitate towards libertarian. His anti-union stance as CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla has displeased liberals, even if they constitute his best automotive customers.

Sharon Van Etten has shared a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Starman’ – you can listen to her rendition below.The US singer-songwriter’s short cover – clocking in a little over one minute – features in a new Netflix documentary, Return To Space, which arrived on the platform earlier this week.The film follows Elon Musk’s mission to send NASA astronauts back to the International Space Station through his SpaceX program in an effort to revolutionise the art of space travel, from filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.Bowie’s ‘Starman’ was originally released in 1972; it’s the lead single from the late icon’s fifth studio album, ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’.You can check out Van Etten’s cover of the Bowie classic below:The cover comes days after Van Etten shared details of her sixth studio album, ‘We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong’.The record will arrive on May 6 via Jagjaguwar and is set to explore “the questions we ask ourselves when we think the world – or at least, our world – might be ending”.Unlike Van Etten’s previous albums, there will be no single releases leading up to the album’s arrival.A statement confirmed that recently released singes ‘Porta’ and ‘Used To It’ will not appear on this album.Speaking about the album, Van Etten said: “I wanted to approach this release differently, to engage my fans in an intentional way, in an effort to present the album as a whole body of work.“These 10 songs are designed to be listened to in order, at once, so that a much larger story of hope, loss, longing and resilience can be told.” Van Etten will head out on a UK and European tour this summer.

The rise of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s bid to resurrect America’s space travel ambitions are the focus of a new Netflix documentary. Return to Space is being billed as an intimate portrait of the first crewed mission launched from US soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011.

The latest documentary from Netflix charts the rise of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s two-decade effort to resurrect America’s space travel ambitions. Return to Space offers an intimate portrait of the engineers and astronauts for the first crewed mission launched from U.S. soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011.