| An Open Secret | |
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 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Amy J. Berg |
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Release dates |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
An Open Secret is a 2014 American documentary film directed by Amy J. Berg [1] [2] exposing child sexual abuse in the film industry in California.
Berg decided to make the documentary after she was approached by Matthew Valentinas in 2011. Valentinas and Gabe Hoffman wanted to make a film about victims of sexual exploitation. Valentinas said, "We chose Amy because we didn't want it to be exploitative or tabloid. We wanted it to be empowering for the victims." [3] Matthew Valentinas, an entertainment lawyer, came up with the idea when he heard Corey Feldman talking about his sexual abuse as a child actor in a TV interview. [4] Berg's 2006 film Deliver Us from Evil , a documentary on systemic child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, had been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
After the film's premiere at Doc NYC, it was re-edited to remove mention of Michael Egan's 2014 lawsuit against filmmaker Bryan Singer and three other Hollywood figures, after Egan had withdrawn the suit. [5] [6] In October 2015, after beginning a limited theatrical release in the United States, the film was re-edited again, so as to receive a PG-13 rating. The film was originally rated R for graphic language. To acquire the PG-13 rating, the only change made to the film was a censoring of the word "blowjob" in two instances. [7] [8] [9]
The documentary follows the stories of five former child actors who were sexually abused by multiple predators. Much of the film focuses on Marc Collins-Rector, who was convicted of child sexual abuse, and co-owned and operated Digital Entertainment Network, with Brock Pierce also owning a minor share. DEN produced brief online videos during the early days of the Internet, and was noted for wild parties featuring underage boys at Collins-Rector's house. [10] [11]
The film makes multiple references to director Bryan Singer, who was allegedly at some of the DEN parties, [10] but does not detail allegations against him. A lawsuit alleging that Singer sexually abused Michael Egan as an underage boy was withdrawn during the production of the film. [12] As a result, the film only details allegations made by persons willing to appear on camera. [2] The documentary also featured archival footage from sex offender Brian Peck. [13] [14]
Among the people interviewed is Vanity Fair journalist John Connolly, who states that an article on pedophilia in Hollywood was dropped at the last minute by Details magazine. [11]
An Open Secret premiered on November 14, 2014 at Doc NYC. [3] [15] [16] It screened at Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2015, and began a limited theatrical release in the United States on June 5 of that year. [17] [18] [6] Producers were encouraged about its commercial potential because a pirated version was viewed 900,000 times. However, the film received no television deal or video-on-demand distribution. According to Gabe Hoffman, who financed the film: "We got zero Hollywood offers to distribute the film. Not even one. Literally no offers for any price whatsoever." [19]
In July 2015 the producers of An Open Secret accused Berg of not supporting the film. [20] Producers Gabe Hoffman and Matthew Valentinas filed an arbitration against Berg for allegedly delivering the movie late and incomplete, and failing to promote it. [21] Hoffman's Esponda Productions claimed that Berg failed to get the proper release forms from some of the interviewees and that this error almost caused the film to miss its premiere at Doc NYC. [21] On October 12, 2017, Hoffman and Valentinas released the film for nine days on Vimeo "to commemorate serial predator Harvey Weinstein finally being exposed." It went viral, and free viewing was then extended for a longer period due to the interest shown in the film, with over three million viewings garnered on various social media platforms in the first two weeks. [19]
At the time of its Vimeo release, the producers said they were seeking further distribution of the documentary. [10] It has not been released to home video. [22] [3]
An Open Secret has an approval rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews from 17 critics. [23] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on reviews from nine critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [24]
The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film offered a "sober look at accusations that lend themselves to sensationalism." [25]
The Los Angeles Times describes the film as "not the hard-hitting exposé that it aims to be" but as "an unsettling look at pedophilia in Hollywood". [26]
The New York Times wrote that the "topic deserves a tenacious call for answers" and hoped for "further aggressive reporting" which they missed in the movie, when Berg linked Martin Weiss "to a string of other men" but only presenting "a secretly taped conversation and some menacing music". [27]
Flavorwire said that "the film feels less shocking as a cult-of-celebrity document and more just quietly horrifying, as it details the trauma and the abuse of power inflicted on young men with stars in their eyes." [28]
Indiewire described the documentary as "an incisive and utterly unflinching look at a subject too rarely scrutinized." [15]
Actor Elijah Wood praised the film in 2016 as "a powerful documentary". [29]
In June 2015, The Hollywood Reporter wrote of Egan's lawsuit, "His cases against the four men began to collapse in May 2014, just a month after they were filed, when his prior contradictory statements came to light". [30] Egan's attorneys, Jeff Herman and Mark Gallagher, later settled with Garth Ancier and David Neuman and issued an apology that called the allegations "untrue" [31] and paid a seven-figure settlement to both. Neither Singer nor Gary Goddard received an apology because they didn't file countersuits as Ancier and Neuman had, although "Egan’s cases against all four were framed in virtually identical complaints and centered on the same purported events, timeframes, locations and supposed trip(s) to Hawaii". [32] After Egan's lawsuits were dropped, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Berg was still "convinced of Egan’s general credibility." [3] In 2019, The Atlantic reported that there "are reasons to believe Egan may have been abused." [33]
The documentary previously named all four men in connection with the 2014 lawsuits, but was edited to remove those references. [30]
Corey Scott Feldman is an American actor, and musician. As a youth, he became well known for his roles in popular 1980s films such as Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985), and Stand by Me (1986). Feldman collaborated with Corey Haim starring in numerous films such as the comedy horror The Lost Boys (1987), the teen comedy License to Drive (1988) and the romantic comedy Dream a Little Dream (1989). They reunited for the A&E reality series The Two Coreys, which ran from 2007 to 2008.
Russell Wendell Simmons is an American entrepreneur, writer and record executive. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. He has promoted veganism and a yoga lifestyle, and published books on lifestyle, health, and entrepreneurship. Simmons' net worth was estimated at $340 million in 2011.
Wade Jeremy William Robson is an Australian dancer and choreographer. He began performing as a dancer at age five, and has directed music videos and world tours for pop acts such as NSYNC and Britney Spears. Robson was the host and executive producer of The Wade Robson Project, which aired on MTV in 2003. In 2007, he joined the Fox television dance series So You Think You Can Dance as a guest judge and choreographer. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography for the dance number "Ramalama " of So You Think You Can Dance.
James Lee Toback is an American screenwriter and film director. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1991 for Bugsy. He has directed films including The Pick-up Artist, Two Girls and a Guy and Black and White.
Bryan Jay Singer is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed.
Kirby Bryan Dick is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best known for directing documentary films. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith (2005) and The Invisible War (2012). He has also received numerous awards from film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival.
Digital Entertainment Network was a multimedia dot-com company founded in the late-1990s by Marc Collins-Rector and his partner, Chad Shackley. Rector and Shackley had sold their ISP, Concentric Network, and used the proceeds of that sale, along with additional investor funding, to launch DEN. In February 1999, Jim Ritts resigned as commissioner of the LPGA to become chairman of DEN.
Deliver Us from Evil is a 2006 American documentary film that explores the life of Irish Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady, who admitted to having molested and raped approximately 25 children in Northern California from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Written and directed by Amy J. Berg, it won the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, though it lost to An Inconvenient Truth. The title of the film refers to a line in the Lord's Prayer.
Marc John Collins-Rector is an American-born businessman who founded Digital Entertainment Network, an online streaming video broadcaster and dot-com failure. In 2004, he was convicted of child sexual abuse which was highlighted in the 2014 documentary An Open Secret.
Mary Pilon is an American journalist and filmmaker who primarily covers sports and business. A regular contributor to the New Yorker and Bloomberg Businessweek, her books are The Monopolists (2015), The Kevin Show (2018), Losers: Dispatches From the Other Side of the Scoreboard, and The Longest Race, co-authored with Olympian Kara Goucher. She has also worked as a staff reporter covering sports for The New York Times and business at The Wall Street Journal and has also written and produced for Vice, Esquire, NBC News, among other outlets.
Amy J. Berg is an American filmmaker. Her 2006 documentary Deliver Us from Evil (2006), about sex abuse cases in the Roman Catholic Church, was nominated for an Academy Award and won Berg the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay.
Jeffrey Marc "Jeff" Herman is an American trial lawyer who specializes in representing victims of sexual abuse, and has been described as a "[t]op church sex abuse attorney". He is the founding and managing partner of the South Florida-based firm Herman Law, and has been described in the media as "the nation's leading attorney when it comes to handling high-profile sexual abuse lawsuits".
Amy Ziering is an American film producer and director. Mostly known for her work in documentary films, she is a regular collaborator of director Kirby Dick; they co-directed 2002's Derrida and 2020's On the Record, with Ziering also producing several of Dick's films.
There have been many reported cases and accusations of sexual abuse in the American film industry reported against people related to the medium of cinema of the United States.
Leaving Neverland is a 2019 made-for-television documentary film directed and produced by Dan Reed. It focuses on two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who allege they were sexually abused as children by the American singer Michael Jackson.
The Ohio State University abuse scandal centered on allegations of sexual abuse that occurred between 1978 and 1998, while Richard Strauss was employed as a physician by Ohio State University (OSU) in the Athletics Department and in the Student Health Center. An independent investigation into the allegations was announced in April 2018 and was conducted by the law firm Perkins Coie.
On the Record is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering. It centers on allegations of sexual abuse and harassment against hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. Executive producer Oprah Winfrey publicly withdrew from the film shortly before it was released, citing "creative differences", severing a production deal with Apple TV+. The film premiered at Sundance on January 25, 2020, and was acquired by HBO Max, which released it digitally on May 27, 2020.
My Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Brian Herzlinger and produced by Corey Feldman and Arthur Jameson. Feldman also stars in the film. The film showcases allegations that Feldman and fellow actor Corey Haim were sexually abused as young children and adolescents by several men connected to the entertainment industry.
Allen v. Farrow is an American documentary television miniseries directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering that explores an allegation of sexual abuse made against Woody Allen in 1992. It consists of four episodes and premiered on February 21, 2021, on HBO.
Phoenix Rising is an American documentary miniseries directed and produced by Amy J. Berg. It follows Evan Rachel Wood as she tells her story of domestic violence and her campaign for justice. It aired on March 15–16, 2022, on HBO.
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