Nick Shumaker: Last News

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Elon Musk will be the center of a new documentary from the unflinching Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning director of “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.” Already months into production, Gibney announced the project on Monday saying he was “hugely excited” about tackling Musk on film. It is described as a “definitive and unvarnished examination of multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.” Tech mogul Musk reached peak saturation in late 2022 when he completed a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, promising to upend the platform’s user experience as well as restore “balance” to its user body (including the elimination of bot accounts, which Musk has previously said ran rampant on the site).

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has his next doc as he is currently months into the making of Musk, a definitive and unvarnished examination of multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter. 

European Film Market which at one and the same time has underscored the challenges still facing the international independent film business.  Following by way of an industry wrap, a dozen takeaways on the 2023 Berlin market, including its Berlinale Series Market, an ever more building proposition at the Festival.  The Verdict If the European Film Market is anything to go by, broadly, the international movie market is in some ways making a international comeback, despite still vastly challenging circumstances. On Thursday, the EFM reported “record results” of a total of over 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. “It was a rather busy market, with no single must-have, but much mid-sized product,” recognizesConstantin’s Martin Moszkowicz of this year’s Berlin European Film Market, noting that Constantin received about 90 project submissions prior to market, “which is a lot.” “There’s been more deals happening at the EFM than at Sundance and we sense a new vibrancy in the international markets,” says Nick Shumaker, at Anonymous Content’s AC Independent.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent AC Independent, Anonymous Content’s new sales and finance division, is set to introduce Pippa Ehrlich’s anticipated follow-up to her Oscar-winning “My Octopus Teacher,” as well as Walter Salles’ “Sócrates,” to buyers at the Berlin Film Festival. Ehrlich’s untitled new project and Salles’ “Sócrates” are part of AC Independent’s robust slate of documentary features from celebrated filmmakers. In her upcoming project, Ehrlich will shed light on the secretive and endangered world of pangolins, a species viewed as mythological creatures. When Stevie, a baby pangolin, is rescued from death at the hands of poachers in Johannesburg, an investment manager pivots his life to become the animal’s caretaker, teaching him to trust the world again and, in doing so, rediscovers his own purpose. Hand-reared until his release back into the wild, Stevie takes Gareth into his dragon world and together they find freedom and healing in the wild.

EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous Content, Alexander Rodnyansky’s AR Content and The Atlantic have secured rights to journalist Peter Pomerantsev’s article for The Atlantic ‘We Can Only Be Enemies’ and will adapt it for film.

EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous Content and Impact Partners have teamed to produce a new doc on a China-based “mistress dispeller,” to be directed and produced by award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Lo (Stray). Plans for a scripted adaptation of the documentary are also in the works.

Naman Ramachandran Penny Lane (“Listening to Kenny G”) will direct “Mrs. America,” a documentary which will explore the changing role of American womanhood through the Mrs.

Christopher Vourlias Two-time Berlinale prize winner Małgorzata Szumowska (“Body,” “Mug”) will write and direct “The Gambler Wife,” a revelatory portrait of novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s wife Anna Snitkina, to be produced by Russia’s Hype Film, Variety can reveal.Adapted from Andrew D. Kaufman’s book “The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky,” the film tells the story of the courageous woman who saved the life of the Russian literary icon and, as the first Russian woman to found her own publishing house, became a pioneer in the country’s literary history.Ilya Stewart of Hype Film (“Petrov’s Flu,” “Persian Lessons”) will produce in collaboration with Polish production company Nowhere.