Robert Greene: Last News

Guy Lodge Film CriticReconstruction in documentary filmmaking is an eternally divisive technique: What some deem vivid and immediate, others find distancing and artificial, cloaking and blurring reality in the language of fiction cinema. Yet what if the reconstructions don’t just feature the documentary’s real-life subjects, but are expressly conceived and realized by them — not recreating reality so much as their lingering, haunted memories thereof? That’s a different proposition entirely, as is “Procession,” a risky, wrenching film in which celebrated docmaker Robert Greene frequently surrenders the directorial reins to his subjects and collaborators: six middle-aged, middle-American men living with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic Church priests and clergymen.

Using actors to bring to life story elements within documentary film is becoming a more widespread practice, if one that’s still viewed with skepticism by some purists.

Addie Morfoot ContributorIn the past decade, the inclusion of streaming services in the documentary market has made it increasingly harder for smaller docus struggling with funding to break into the nonfiction feature Oscar race. But in spite of the deep pockets they are up against, a number of cash-strapped docs inevitably make it onto the shortlist every year. This year was no exception.Jessica Beshir’s “Faya Dayi” (Janus Films, pictured above), Camilla Nielsson’s “President” (Greenwich Entertainment) and Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas’ “Writing with Fire” (Music Box Films) are three films on this year’s feature doc shortlist that are up against competitors with multi-million-dollar campaign budgets being paid by media and tech conglomerates including Apple, Netflix, ViacomCBS, the Walt Disney Co.

Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This biweekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.

Multiple award-winning documentaries have been made about the child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, including Amy Berg’s Deliver Us From Evil, Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, and Kirby Dick’s Twist of Faith. 

NETFLIX fans have been left horrified as a group of men recounted being raped as children by priests in a harrowing new documentary. Procession sees a group of survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church collaborate with a therapist and director to dramatise their stories.

Procession director Robert Greene said he would have stopped filming at any point if it was harming his subjects. He followed six survivors of sexual abuse by Kansas City priests as they re-created scenes of their experiences in the church. Greene spoke with Deadline’s Matthew Carey about the film for The Contenders: Documentary.

Ben Croll When Robert Greene began work on “Procession,” which follows six middle-aged survivors of abuse as they work together to reenact their traumatic memories on film, the director wanted to upend long standing documentary models.“I didn’t want to have a traditional film where you put the camera in someone’s face, they feel a lot of stuff, you edit it into something powerful, and they feel left out,” Greene tells Variety.

Thanks to some great investigative reporting, some of which is featured in the Oscar-winning film, “Spotlight,” the sexual abuse perpetrated by some priests against young boys has been in the national spotlight for years now. But just because folks know about it, the trauma inflicted on the victims doesn’t just go away.

In the pre-pandemic world, the leading lights of American nonfiction cinema would gather in Columbia, Missouri on the first weekend of March for the annual celebration of their craft known as True/False Film Fest. Across four glorious days, the programming would explore the innumerable definitions of this hazily defined discipline, but this year, the ongoing COVID-19 crisis forced the festival into outdoor venues elsewhere in the city for a somewhat truncated version.

Addie Morfoot ContributorNetflix’s awards hopefuls Robert Greene’s “Procession” and Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “A Cop Movie” are heading to Manhattan’s Paris Theater as part of its “New Directions in Documentary” series.Both hybrid features, which are vying for a spot on this year’s Academy Award doc shortlist, will screen alongside previously celebrated form-bending Netflix docus in the upcoming series beginning Oct.

Addie Morfoot ContributorImmediately following premieres of their latest documentaries at major awards-circuit festivals, veteran filmmakers Liz Garbus, Robert Greene and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi headed to a small, remote village on the coast of Maine – two hours from a major airport.The trio made the trek so they could attend the 17th edition of the Camden Intl. Film Festival.

In the form-expanding documentaries of Robert Greene, the artifice of performance clears a path with higher emotional truth waiting at its summit. Still, the distance between the two has varied.

50 Cent and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris are developing a new Netflix series based on The 50th Law, the bestselling book co-authored by the rapper alongside Robert Greene.The 50th Law is a semi-autobiographical account of the ‘I Get Money’ artist’s early life and career, which also includes quotes from historical figures such as Sun Tzu, Socrates, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, and Malcolm X.Barris will co-write and executive produce the pilot script with Hale Rothstein, who executive produces Netflix comedy series blackAF alongside Barris, as well as Greene and Jackson via G-Unit, according to Deadline.Lionsgate TV are set to produce via Jackson’s overall deal at Starz.

EXCLUSIVE: In a pairing of two of the most prolific TV producers of the past decade, Kenya Barris, the creator/executive producer behind the black-ish franchise, and the Power franchise executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson are developing a series for Netflix. It is based on The 50th Law, the best-selling book by Jackson and Robert Greene.

Today (March 26), Billboard can announce that Drake and his co-manager Adel "Future" Nur will executive produce a new series on Quibi titled 48 Laws of Power. Based on Robert Greene's New York Times best-selling book of the same name, 48 Laws of Power will "detail the nature of power and how one can secure and maintain it."Drake will also direct an episode.