Kristi Jacobson: Last News

Naman Ramachandran UPDATE: Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar-winning Israel-Palestine documentary “No Other Land,” has been freed, according to the latest post from co-director Yuval Abraham. “After being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family,” Abraham posted on X on Tuesday.

Addie Morfoot Contributor After making their first narrative feature “Nyad,” which debuted last year and earned Oscar nominations for the film’s stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, Academy Award winning directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (“Free Solo”) are returning to their documentary roots with “Photographer.” The six-part National Geographic docuseries features seven photographers — Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen, Dan Winters, Campbell Addy, Krystle Wright, Muhammed Muheisen, and Anand Varma. Vérité footage of each subject’s current mission is interwoven with interviews and archival footage to demonstrate how each photographer approaches their work, the intention behind that work, their process, and how they each discover, see and experience the world.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Four documentary filmmakers have been selected to participate in Yeti’s inaugural Pretty Wild fellowship program, which supports documentaries that give a fresh perspective on the outdoors and the people and stories that live there. The projects are: Tasha Van Zandt’s “The Arctic Woman,” Mike Day’s “Baby Highlander,” Emily Cohen Ibañez’s “River” and Juliana Schatz Preston’s “Rare Bird.” The four filmmakers, chosen from 330 submissions spanning 30 countries, are currently in Austin, Texas, for the first of two immersive retreats featured in the eight-month program.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Madeleine Gavin’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Beyond Utopia” has garnered the best documentary and best doc editing honors at the 24th annual Woodstock Film Festival. The documentary, which was recently acquired by Roadside Attractions, is vying for Academy Award attention.

Selena Gomez and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams are collaborating on a new project.The 30-year-old singer and actress — who recently scored her first-ever Golden Globes nomination — and the 49-year-old politician are teaming up to produce an upcoming music documentary for the streaming service Discovery+.They will be working on the Kristi Jacobson–directed film Won’t Be Silent, which will hone in on female musicians and their history of advocating for important social issues.'The powerful women we will be highlighting are not only talented but have been on the frontline of pushing culture forward and holding a mirror up to political and social injustices,' Gomez said in a statement. Staying busy: Selena Gomez is teaming up with former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to produce a new music documentary titled Won’t Be Silent, Discovery+ announced Wednesday; seen December 3 in LA Abrams addressed the ways women musicians have used their music to affect societal change.'Throughout history, women in music have used their art as activism by bringing attention to issues impacting our nation and world,' she said in a statement.

Selena Gomez and Stacey Abrams are teaming up to produce a music documentary for Discovery+.

Addie Morfoot Contributor In Barbara Kopple’s 40-plus year career as one of America’s greatest documentary directors, she has won Academy Awards for the seminal 1976 documentary “Harlan County, U.S.A.” a portrait of a Kentucky coal mining town in crisis, and for “American Dream,” a 1990 examination of a meatpackers’ strike at a Hormel plant in Austin, Minn. A pioneer of cinema vérité that got her start with the Maysles brothers (directors of “Gimme Shelter” and “Grey Gardens”), she was most recently nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy award for “Desert One,” a doc about the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Kopple will be a keynote speaker at Variety and Rolling Stone’s Truth Seekers Summit on Thursday.

Manori Ravindran International EditorPBS documentary strand ‘POV’ has acquired “An Act of Worship,” a counter-narrative of the last 30 years of Muslim life in America, out of the Tribeca Film Festival.Directed by Pakistani-American helmer Nausheen Dadabhoy, the film centers on a diverse range of Muslim Americans who recount the past three decades of pivotal moments in U.S. history and policy from their own perspectives.The film weaves together observational footage of activists who came of age after the 9/11 attacks, community-sourced home videos and recollections from individuals impacted by incidents of Islamophobia.“An Act of Worship” premiered at Tribeca on June 9, and will make its national broadcast premiere on Oct.