Sam Pollard: Last News

The 22nd edition of the Tribeca Festival unveiled a 2023 lineup with a record number of female helmers and heavy on films directed by actors like Chelsea Peretti’s First Time Female Director, John Slattery thriller Maggie Moore(s) with Tina Fey and Jon Hamm, David Duchovny’s Bucky F*cking Dent and Steve Buscemi’s The Listener.

EXCLUSIVE: The Gotham Film and Media Institute and HBO Documentary Films have set the inaugural cohort and mentors for their Documentary Development Initiative, first announced in June.

Diane Garrett On Friday, during the 18th edition of the Camden Intl. Film Festival, organizers unveiled a Diane Weyermann Fellowship at Points North Institute.Weyermann, the former chief content officer at Participant and former director of the Sundance Institute’s documentary film program, died last October of cancer.

EXCLUSIVE: Production is underway on a feature documentary from HBO Documentary Films and This Machine inspired by New York Times columnist Charles Blow’s book The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto.

EXCLUSIVE: Six finalists were announced today for the richest prize in documentary film—the 4th Annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film.

Sasha Urban editorMartin Luther King III will host a new docuseries produced by Calabasas Film and Media, the company announced Monday.Titled “Protect/Serve,” the series sees King, the oldest child of revered civil right activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., moderate a series of conversations with law enforcement officials, activists, grass-roots organization founders, DAs and other prominent figures. The conversations will focus on the role of police in America and the origins of institutional racism, with a goal of finding solutions to these problems.

EXCLUSIVE: Peacock has acquired the civil rights documentary Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power ahead of its world premiere next week at the Tribeca Festival. A streaming release date will be announced soon for the pic, which is presented by Participant, a Multitude Films production, in association with The Atlantic and will bow on the streamer as a Peacock Original.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterLatin American jazz fusion icon Carlos Santana will be the subject of an expansive documentary directed by Emmy winner Rudy Valdez.Imagine Documentaries is collaborating with Sony Music Entertainment on the project, who is co-financing and handling distribution. It will follow Santana’s journey from 14-year-old street musician to a 10-time Grammy winning global sensation, and feature unseen archival footage and tracks.Valdez is the director of the Sundance documentary audience award winner “The Sentence,” about the corrosive effect of mandatory minimum sentencing on convicts and their families.

Dan Rather, whose broadcast journalism career has spanned six decades including being anchor of CBS Evening News from 1982-2006, has been given the Peabody Career Achievement Award.

J. Kim Murphy Dan Rather has received the Peabody career achievement award, with Dolly Parton presenting the broadcast journalist with the honors.

The full Tribeca Film Festival lineup of 109 feature films from 40 countries and 88 world premieres for the 2022 event that takes place June 9-18 has been announced. It’ll be interesting to see if some of the films at the festival will end up being popular breakouts, land major studio/streamer distribution, or eventually move on to get recognized during awards season.

Wu-Tang Clan member Ol’ Dirty Bastard has been announced.This will be the first official documentary on ODB and is co-produced by his widow Icelene Jones.Ol’ Dirty Bastard, real name Russell Tyrone Jones, was a founding member of the legendary hip-hop group. He passed away in November 2004 at the age of 35 following an accidental drug overdose.Currently under the working title Biography: Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the film will be co-directed by Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, Citizen Ashe) and his son Jason Pollard (Bitchin’: The Sound And Fury Of Rick James).A&E Network, who will be releasing the documentary, promises a “definitive” look at ODB, produced with the cooperation of the rapper’s estate and featuring “a never-before-seen personal archive shot by his wife, Icelene Jones, and access to his closest friends and family.”“This culture-defining special humanizes ODB as a man, a father, and a husband like never before,” a statement added, “providing an intimate picture of ODB’s life and reflecting on his lasting impact on music and culture.”The documentary will focus on the ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’ rapper’s solo career, “from his first album release in 1995 until his untimely passing from a drug overdose in 2004,” according to a release.“A celebration of his artistry and legacy, the documentary is an unflinching look at the complexities of his life including addiction, adultery, fame, mental illness, sudden wealth, race and criminal justice, and will ask the question of just how complicit the media and music industry were in hastening his demise.”Jones said she was “thrilled to tell the full story of my husband” and looked forward to the film shining a light on “the son, the husband, the father, and the artist”.

A&E Network has signed on for a feature documentary about Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the late founding member of pioneering hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures today announced the first round of exhibition rotations scheduled for the 2022–2023 season, which further its mission to advance the understanding, celebration, and preservation of cinema.

EXCLUSIVE: Award-winning filmmakers Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard are partnering on a documentary about the late Archbishop Carl Bean, the pioneering gay African American singer turned pastor and AIDS activist.

Angelique Jackson NBA legend Bill Russell is getting the definitive documentary treatment from Netflix.The Boston Celtics great is the subject of a yet-to-be-titled documentary directed by Oscar nominee Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI,” “Citizen Ashe”), with a team of producers including Larry Gordon (“Field of Dreams,” “Die Hard”), Ross Greenburg (“Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals,” “Miracle”) and Mike Richardson (“Hellboy,” “The Umbrella Academy”).Produced by High Five Productions, LLC, the film will feature personal interviews with Russell and make use of the sprawling personal archives from the life and career of the five-time NBA MVP, 12-time All-Star and Olympic gold medalist.The official synopsis explains that the documentary serves as the “definitive bio-doc” on “the greatest champion in the history of American sports,” tracing Russell’s history on the court and off, paying special reverence to his work as a Civil Rights pioneer. When President Barack Obama awarded Russell with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, he described the Hall of Fame player as “someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men.” “From the humblest of beginnings, Russell went on to lead each and every one of his basketball teams to championships — two California State High School Championships, two back-to-back NCAA titles, a gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games and 11 championship titles in his 13-year career as a Boston Celtic (his last two as the first Black head coach in NBA history, while still playing for the Celtics),” the description reads.

Award-winning director Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, Citizen Ashe) is helming an untitled doc about the life and legacy of NBA legend Bill Russell for Netflix, the streamer announced today.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor“The Sound of Philadelphia,” a documentary on the 1970s “Philly Soul” sound and its masterminds Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell, is coming from Warner Music Entertainment, Warner Chappell Music, and Imagine Documentaries, in partnership with Jigsaw Productions, the companies announced on Wednesday. The lushly orchestrated but soulful sound — exemplified by songs like “Love Train” by the O’Jays, “If You Don’t Know Me Now” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, “Me and Mrs.

EXCLUSIVE: The story of Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell, who created the sound of Philly Soul, is to be chronicled in a new feature documentary.

EXCLUSIVE: Growing up in the 60s, director Sam Pollard lived in a household that loved baseball, specifically the St. Louis Cardinals. It was that 1961 team that consisted of a large list of African-American players that stood out to Pollard, especially in a time when rosters that looked like this were very scarce across the MLB. That team would be the beginning of his love affair with baseball and the history of the sport, specifically the Negro League and the impact it would have not only on sports history but American history in the years to come.

At 70-years-old, filmmaker Sam Pollard has had a massive career spanning five decades as a dedicated chronicler of the Black experienced in America. But it’s arguably just getting its due in a major way and unlike never before (“The phone’s been ringing off the hook,” he said).