Amanda Macbaine Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Ellenberg’s Media Res, the production company behind high-profile scripted series such as Apple TV+’s The Morning Show and upcoming Pachinko, is expanding into nonfiction. The company has launched a new division, focused on premium nonfiction content, including docuseries, documentary films and unscripted programming.

Deadline on Monday launched its streaming site for Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted, showing off the full panels of all 20 shows that participated in Saturday’s all-day showcase of the year’s best in nonfiction, unscripted and late-night programming as Emmy season ramps up.

When filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss first spoke with friends about the focus of their Apple TV+ documentary Girls State — a companion piece to their Emmy- and Sundance-winning 2020 documentary Boys State — they were surprised to hear about the expectations it conjured in their minds.

The strikes are behind us, Emmy season is upon us, and it’s time to hear from the creatives and talent behind some of the TV season’s most talked-about nonfiction programs. Deadline’s daylong Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted virtual event will offer just that this weekend, giving awards-watchers a chance to kick back at home and take in the tales.

As award-winning directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss prepared to shoot their new documentary Girls State, they had no way of knowing real-world events would intrude upon the production in a major way. Nor, of course, did their protagonists.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Chris Smith‘s “Devo” will open the ninth edition of Chicago’s Doc10 documentary film festival on May 2. The film, which premiered at Sundance 2024, charts the life of the art-movement-turned-band Devo from Akron, Ohio, through archival footage of the band and candid sit-down interviews with band members.

Lisa Kennedy The list of accomplishments high school student Emily Worthmore reels off early in “Girls State” sounds impressive at first. Then it becomes a bit concerning. It’s not that the personable teen from suburban St.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic The world will never know what was going through 26-year-old Christian missionary John Allen Chau’s head when he was shot and killed by arrows off the coast of North Sentinel Island. There are jokes, of course, and educated guesses, but the best most of us can do is search inside ourselves for the answer.

John Chau’s death in 2018 made headlines around the world: an evangelical young man killed on an island in the Andaman Sea inhabited by an isolated Indigenous group. Chau came to North Sentinel Island bearing a waterproof Bible and dreams of converting the North Sentinelese to Christianity, but his ill-fated mission ended in a hail of sharpened arrows. 

What is the fine line between altruism and narcissism, and what happens when “higher-calling” religious beliefs blur those demarcations? That vague space is not exactly what celebrated doc filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine are trying to resolve in their compelling new documentary “The Mission.” Honestly, their story is more subtle and nuanced; a fairer and balanced look at the ideas of self-sacrifice, an empathetic examination of a tragedy, and yet a sobering probing of good intentions and the paths that lead us astray.

Addie Morfoot Contributor The 19th edition of the Camden Intl. Film Festival, kicking off Sept. 14, will feature a handful of award-contending documentaries fresh off showings at Telluride, Toronto, Sundance, South by Southwest, Berlin and Tribeca film festivals.

The January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol underscored the precarious state of American democracy in a time of deep political polarization. But the Emmy-contending Apple Original Film Boys State offers some hope that bridging ideological differences remains a possibility.

Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the pair’s acclaimed documentary feature Boys State in a THR Presents Q&A powered by Vision Media. Joining them was Steven Garza, one of the 1,000 teenage subjects in the film who participated in the annual event at the University of Texas at Austin.

The pressure was on when directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine set about making Boys State, their film documenting an annual exercise in Texas that gives high school boys the chance to practice democracy in action.

Eli Countryman Documentary and docuseries creators have found themselves amidst a rapidly expanding market for their work.During the FYC Fest documentary roundtable, Variety‘s Matt Donnelley discussed the state of documentary filmmaking with panelists including “Time” director Garrett Bradley, “Boys State” director Amanda McBaine, “Rebuilding Paradise” director Ron Howard, “The Dissident” director Bryan Fogle, “Welcome to Chechnya” director David France and “Crip Camp” director Nicole

Many might describe “Boys State,” the critically acclaimed and Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine as timely. Especially as the United States finds itself once again in a divisive presidential election.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorEvery year, the American Legion sponsors high school boys as they’re given a crash course on American politics.

Boys State, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ Sundance-winning documentary, is an occasionally excruciating but always captivating political commentary that hints at what the future of US democracy might look like. Arriving this week on Apple TV+, the film spotlights the Texan chapter of a week-long annual leadership conference that teaches young men about government.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterAfter delaying its 2020 edition due to the pandemic, Sundance’s London offshoot will return August 7-9 in an online form for a scaled down version. The event will present three features from this year’s Park City festival: Alan Ball’s Uncle Frank, Zeina Durra’s Luxor, and Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s Boys State, which won the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary in Utah this year.

By Dino-Ray Ramos

Every summer, more than 1,000 teens swarm the Texas capitol building to attend Boys State, the annual American Legion-sponsored leadership conference where these incipient politicians divide into rival parties, the Nationalists and the Federalists, and attempt to build a mock government from the ground up.

By Anthony D'Alessandro