Film Manufacturers Inc.

Last updated

Film Manufacturers Inc. (FMI) was founded by filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein to create an international production company that develops, produces and co-produces fiction and non-fiction entertainment.

In 2006, FMI’s Absolute Wilson [1] had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival; after a successful international festival run, it went on to win the Art Film of the Year award from Art Basel. In 2007, Absolute Wilson – The Biography was published by Prestel Publishing as a companion book.

Otto-Bernstein directed and produced Beautopia [2] for FMI, which screened in competition at Sundance Film Festival in 1998 and won the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival the same year. FMI's other titles include The Need For Speed, Coming Home, When Night Falls Over Moscow, and The Second Greatest Story Ever Told.

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures , produced by Otto-Bernstein for FMI, received its premiere at Sundance Film Festival [3] in January 2016, followed by the International Premiere at the Berlin Film Festival [4] in February, and a world television premiere on HBO in April. The film was released theatrically in the US and UK in April 2016, followed by the rest of the world. Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures was nominated for two Emmy Awards: Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Cinematography For A Nonfiction Program.

In 2018, FMI executive-produced The Price of Everything , a documentary examining the role of art and artistic passion in today’s money driven, consumer-based society. The film had its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival, followed by a theatrical run, and a TV premiere on HBO.

In 2019, FMI was a co-producer on the Amazon Prime TV-Series Fur Umme, which is currently developing its second season. [5]

In 2021, FMI produced the narrative feature Maalsund (starring Ulrich Tukur and Sibel Kekilli, Westdeutscher Rundfunk). [6] Currently in pre-production are Heisenberg (directed by Uli Edel) [7] and The Galapagos Affair (directed by Marc Rothemund). [8]


Related Research Articles

HBO Films is an American production and distribution company, a division of the cable television network HBO that produces feature films and miniseries. The division produces fiction and non-fiction works, primarily for distribution to their own customers, though recently the company has been funding theatrical releases.

Nick Gomez is an American film director and writer. He has directed for a number of television and film. His first feature-length film was the 1992 movie Laws of Gravity, which won awards at both the Berlin International Film Festival and the Valencia International Film Festival. Gomez's next film was the 1995 crime drama New Jersey Drive, which was screened and competed for a Grand Jury Prize during that year's Sundance Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Levin</span> American film director

Marc Levin is an American independent film producer and director. He is best known for his Brick City TV series, which won the 2010 Peabody award and was nominated for an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and his dramatic feature film, Slam, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Caméra d'Or at Cannes in 1998. He also has received three Emmy Awards and the 1997 DuPont-Columbia Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World of Wonder (company)</span> American production company known for its LGBTQ programming

World of Wonder Productions is an American production company founded in 1991 by filmmakers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey. Based in Los Angeles, California, the company specializes in documentary television and film productions with a key focus on LGBTQ topics. Together, Bailey and Barbato have produced programming through World of Wonder for HBO, Bravo, HGTV, Showtime, the BBC, Netflix, MTV and VH1, with credits including the Million Dollar Listing docuseries, RuPaul's Drag Race, and the documentary films Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2016) and The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000).

James Crump is an American film director, writer, producer, art historian and curator. His films include Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe; Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art; and Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Guttentag</span> American film director

Bill Guttentag is an American dramatic and documentary film writer-producer-director. His films have premiered at the Sundance, Cannes, Telluride and Tribeca film festivals, and he has won two Academy Awards.

Bruce Leddy is a comedy writer, director, and producer. His credits include the Fox political satire series Let's Be Real, the MTV/Universal feature How High 2, segment directing for John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on HBO, Taraji Henson's White Hot Holidays on Fox, and writing humor pieces for The New Yorker online. Prior credits include directing episodes of Nickelodeon's School of Rock, the ABC sitcom Cougar Town starring Courteney Cox, and the pilots for Disney's I Didn't Do It, Nickelodeon's The Haunted Hathaways, and Comedy Central's "Midnight with Anthony Jeselnik." Other projects include directing "Important Things with Demetri Martin" for Comedy Central, the pilot and multiple episodes of Disney XD's Crash & Bernstein, and sketch segments for "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" His award-winning independent film "The Wedding Weekend" is available on Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes, after airing on The Sundance Channel. It stars David Harbour, Molly Shannon, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Mark Feuerstein.

Steven Ascher is an American independent director, producer and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award and has received the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival among many other awards. His book The Filmmaker’s Handbook is a bestselling text.

Katharina Otto-Bernstein is a German-American filmmaker and producer. She is best known for The Price of Everything, Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, Absolute Wilson, When Night Falls Over Moscow, The Need for Speed and Beautopia, as well as the author of an intimate memoir of theatre and opera director Robert Wilson, Absolute Wilson - The Biography.

<i>Love Child</i> (2014 film) 2014 documentary film directed by Valerie Veatch

Love Child is a 2014 South Korean-American documentary film directed by Valerie Veatch. Veatch produced the film with David Foox. The film premiered in-competition in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 2014.

<i>Going Clear</i> (film) 2015 film by Alex Gibney

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is a 2015 documentary film about Scientology. Directed by Alex Gibney and produced by HBO, it is based on Lawrence Wright's book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief (2013). The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It received widespread praise from critics and was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, winning three, including Best Documentary. It also received a 2015 Peabody Award and won the award for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America.

Craig William Macneill is an American film director, writer, and editor. His feature film Lizzie, starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart, premiered in the U.S Dramatic Competition section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film was acquired by Roadside Attractions and Saban Films and released theatrically in the fall of 2018. Macneill's first feature film, The Boy, premiered in the narrative competition at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival and which was also based on a previous short film he co-wrote, directed, and edited titled Henley, which screened in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the grand jury prize for "Best Short Film" at the Gen Art Film Festival and Clint Eastwood’s Carmel Film and Arts Film Festival. In 2016.

Hisko Hulsing is a Dutch director, animator, composer, painter and storyboard artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Goldman (producer)</span> American film producer

Julie Goldman is a film producer and executive producer. She founded Motto Pictures in 2009. She is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning producer and executive producer of documentary feature films and series.

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures is a 2016 American documentary film about the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, directed and executive produced by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, and produced by Katharina Otto-Bernstein for Film Manufacturers Inc.

<i>The Price of Everything</i> 2018 American documentary on contemporary art

The Price of Everything is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Nathaniel Kahn and produced by Jennifer Blei Stockman, Debi Wisch, Carla Solomon and Katharina Otto-Bernstein for HBO.

The 2019 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 24 to February 3, 2019. The first lineup of competition films was announced on November 28, 2018.

Karim Amer is an Egyptian-American film producer and director. He worked on The Square (2013) and The Great Hack (2019); the former was the first Egyptian film to earn an Academy Award nomination and went on to win three Emmy Awards, while the latter got nominated for an Emmy and a BAFTA Award. In 2020, he produced and directed The Vow, an HBO documentary series about the self-improvement group, NXIVM.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20 to 30, 2022. Due to COVID-19 pandemic protocol, it was initially intended to be an in-person/virtual hybrid festival, but on January 5, 2022, it was announced that the in-person components would be scrapped in favor of a wholly virtual festival due to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 9, 2021.

<i>Navalny</i> (film) 2022 American film

Navalny is a 2022 American documentary film directed by Daniel Roher. The film revolves around Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and events related to his poisoning. It was produced by HBO Max and CNN Films. The film premiered on January 25, 2022 at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received critical and audience acclaim and won the Audience Award in the US Documentary competition and the Festival Favorite Award. It also won the Best Documentary Feature at the 95th Academy Awards, won the award for Best Political Documentary at the 7th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards and picked up best documentary at the 76th BAFTA awards ceremony.

References

  1. Gold, Sylviane (22 October 2006). "Austere, Enigmatic Innovator. And Charming Fellow, Really". The New York Times.
  2. "Sundance Institute".
  3. "Sundance Film Festival page for Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures". Archived from the original on 2019-11-04. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  4. Berlin Film Festival page for Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures
  5. "Für Umme - Staffel 1 : Michael Schumacher, Oliver Korritke, Martin Semmelrogge, Sabine Vatua, Heiko Pinkowksi, Eva Habermann, Vlady Oszkiel: Amazon.de: Prime Video". Amazon Germany.
  6. "Presselounge - WDR". 2 February 2021.
  7. "Uli Edel to Direct Nazi Atom Bomb Drama 'Heisenberg'". 6 March 2020.
  8. "Film Manufacturers boards Oscar-nominated Marc Rothemund's bestseller adaptation Galapagos".