Dick spent the following decade pursuing a variety of projects while working on Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997). Sick examined the life of performance artist Bob Flanagan, who utilized sadomasochism as a therapeutic device to help cope with cystic fibrosis and agreed to participate in the documentary only if his eventual death was included.[7] The film was an international festival hit, winning a Special Jury Prize at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival[6] and helping to establish Dick's position in the world of independent filmmaking.
His next film, Chain Camera (2001), was made entirely with footage shot on consumer digital video cameras by students at John Marshall High School, near Dick's home in Los Angeles. The film premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Dick followed up this project with Derrida (2002), which he co-directed with Amy Ziering. The film explores the life and work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida while questioning the limitations of biography. It won the Golden Gate Award at the 2002 San Francisco International Film Festival.
Twist of Faith marked the beginning of a politicization of Dick's work, as his subsequent films similarly exposed the hypocrisy of powerful organizations. This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) hired Becky Altringer to investigate the Motion Picture Association of America and its secretive ratings board. The film argues that the MPAA serves major Hollywood studios' interests at the expense of independent filmmakers and also that it often turns a blind eye to violence while working to effectively censor sexual content, especially when it involves homosexuality or female sexual empowerment.
Dick's 2009 film, Outrage, discusses supposedly closeted politicians, predominantly Republican, who vote against gay rights. The film also criticizes the mainstream media's reluctance to report on this subject. The film received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.
The Invisible War
In 2012, Dick directed The Invisible War, which examined the epidemic of rape in the U.S. military. It was heralded for exposing a culture of sexual abuse at Marine Barracks Washington.[8] Several government officials have commented on the film's influence on policy, including Secretary of DefenseLeon Panetta, who has said that viewing the film convinced him to implement a wave of reforms designed to reduce the prevalence of military sexual assault.[9]
The film's revelations have also been discussed in congressional hearings and spurred lawmakers to seek better safeguards for assault survivors.[10] Senator Kirsten Gillibrand credits the film with inspiring her to introduce the Military Justice Improvement Act, which would establish an independent judiciary to oversee accusations of sexual assault in the armed forces.[11]
Among other honors, The Invisible War received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards and won Emmy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Outstanding Investigative Journalism.[12][13]
The Hunting Ground
In 2015, The Hunting Ground premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Written and Directed by Dick and produced by Amy Ziering, the documentary is about the incidence of sexual assault on U.S. college campuses and the failed response of college administrators. It was released on February 27, 2015,[14] an edited version aired on CNN on November 22, 2015,[15][16] and was released on DVD the week of December 1, 2015.[17] It was released on Netflix in March 2016.[18]Lady Gaga recorded an original song, "Til It Happens to You", for the film.[19]
One day before the film's theatrical release, a bipartisan group of 12 U.S. Senators, accompanied by the film's lead subjects, Annie Clark and Andrea Pino, reintroduced the Campus Accountability and Safety Act requiring universities to adopt standard practices for weighing sexual charges, and to survey students on the prevalence of assault.
The Hunting Ground was nominated for a 2016 Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and for the Producers Guild of America's Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Picture award.[20] It won the 2016 Stanley Kramer Award given to "a production, producer or other individual whose achievement or contribution illuminates and raises public awareness of important social issues."[21]The Hunting Ground was also one of the five movies nominated in the Documentary category of the 2016 MTV Movie Awards.[22]
The Bleeding Edge
The Bleeding Edge premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival to rave reviews and received further critical acclaim after its worldwide release on Netflix on July 27, 2018.[citation needed] Currently at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes[23] and a New York Times Critic's Pick of the Week,[24] the documentary, written and directed by Dick and produced by Ziering and Amy Herdy, is an investigation into the $400 billion medical device industry,[25] where the filmmakers find remarkably lax regulations, corporate coverups and profit-driven incentives that put patients at risk daily.[26]
The film's impact was felt immediately as a week before its release, The Bleeding Edge became a part of a national news story when Bayer removed the birth control device Essure from the U.S. market, one of the many devices heavily criticized and warned about in the film.[27]Entertainment Weekly added it to its list of documentaries that have changed the world.[28] The documentary was awarded the George Polk Award for Medical Reporting[29]—one of only a few documentaries to receive the award—and was nominated for a Peabody Award[30] and the Grierson Award for Best Science Documentary.[31]
On the Record
On October 23, 2017, Dick and Ziering announced an upcoming film on equity, parity, abuse, and representation in Hollywood.[32] They had begun working on this project while screening The Invisible War.[33] In a statement to media, Ziering said, "Every time we screened that film in Hollywood, actors and executives would come up to us and say that they had had similar experiences right here. So we began working on this project and immediately found ourselves grappling with the same forces that had kept this story silenced for so long. Everyone was frightened about what would happen to their careers, and worried about whether they would be sued. Distributors were unwilling to fund or release the film, and few people were willing to talk on the record."[34]
Once the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations went public, funding appeared through Impact Partners, which also financed The Hunting Ground and The Invisible War.[35] Ziering said, "People at long last are speaking out in large numbers, and we feel this industry, and the country, is finally ready for an unflinching film about the reality of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood."[34]
On the Record, Dick and Ziering's film about sexual abuse allegations against Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons, premiered to a standing ovation at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.[36] The film, which includes the voices of nine alleged survivors such as Drew Dixon, Sheri Sher, Sil Lai Abrams, Jenny Lumet, and Kelly Cutrone, has received critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 99% based on 71 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "On the Record uses harrowing first-person accounts to powerfully and persuasively confront the entrenched sexism of an industry and its culture."[37] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 84 out of 100, based on 22 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[38]
Allen v. Farrow
Dick and Ziering's first documentary series, Allen v. Farrow is a four-part series that examines the sexual assault allegation made against Woody Allen by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, who was seven when the abuse allegedly occurred. It follows the custody battle between Allen and his former partner Mia Farrow, his marriage to her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, who is 35 years younger than Allen, and the events of subsequent years.[39] The series premiered on HBO on February 21, 2021, with the last episode airing on March 14. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 82% based on 56 reviews.[40] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[41]
RAINN announced that the series resulted in a nearly 20% increase in calls.[42]
Dick's work often focuses on issues of secrecy, hypocrisy, and human sexuality. Many of his films explore subjects and issues that have traditionally been taboo, such as homosexuality, sadomasochism, and sexual abuse. In Variety, Owen Gleiberman called Dick a "a deadly earnest but instinctively dramatic filmmaker."[45] Ryan Stewart of Cinematical wrote, "Kirby Dick has been compared to photographer Diane Arbus in the way he prefers to open the camera lens to the pained, the freakish and the inexplicable that exists on the margins of everyday life."
Dick often employs intricately edited montages that blend together television news clips, archival footage, music videos, documentary interviews, and other sources. Beginning with This Film Is Not Yet Rated, he has also pioneered applying the "fair use" doctrine to appropriate copyrighted footage without obtaining licenses or compensating rights holders.[35]
Dick often employs a cinéma vérité style. He has said that he prefers to work this way because it allows for a more complex relationship with his subjects.[46] In many cases, Dick has also encouraged his subjects to record their own footage, which is then incorporated into his film.
Critics have increasingly remarked on the impact of his films as investigative journalism, with The New York Times's A. O. Scott writing, "Kirby Dick has become one of the indispensable muckrakers of American cinema, zeroing in on frequently painful stories about how power functions in the absence or failure of accountability"[47] and Entertainment Weekly including three of his films on its list of documentaries that have "changed the world".[28]
Heywood Allen is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many accolades, including the most nominations (16) for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He has won four Academy Awards, ten BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Grammy Award, as well as nominations for a Emmy Award and a Tony Award. Allen was awarded an Honorary Golden Lion in 1995, the BAFTA Fellowship in 1997, an Honorary Palme d'Or in 2002, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2014. Two of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
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.
Twist of Faith is a 2004 American documentary film about a man who confronts the Catholic Church about the abuse he suffered as a teenager, directed by Kirby Dick. The film was produced for the cable network HBO and screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
Armand Douglas Hammer is an American actor. He began his acting career with guest appearances in several television series. His first leading role was as Billy Graham in the 2008 film Billy: The Early Years and Hammer gained wider recognition for portraying the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in David Fincher's biopic The Social Network (2010).
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.
Margaret Brown is an American film director who has directed four feature length documentaries. Her film Descendant, about the descendants of survivors of the last ship to carry enslaved Africans into the United States, was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Awards.
The Invisible War is a 2012 American documentary film written and directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering and Tanner King Barklow about sexual assault in the United States military. It premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the U.S. Documentary Audience Award. The film has been lauded by advocates, lawmakers, and journalists for its influence on government policies to reduce the prevalence of rape in the armed forces.
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.
Annie Elizabeth Clark is a women's rights and civil rights activist in the United States. She was one of the lead complainants of the 2013 Title IX and Clery Act charges lodged against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, claiming that the institution violated the law by the way they handled sexual assault complaints. Clark and Andrea Pino, then a fellow UNC student and also a victim of sexual assault, launched a nationwide campaign to use Title IX complaints to force U.S. universities to address sexual assault and related problems more aggressively. Clark is co-founder with Pino of End Rape on Campus, an advocacy group for victims of campus sexual assault.
Andrea Lynn Pino (born February 15, 1992) is an American women's rights and civil rights activist, author, and a public scholar on issues of global gender based violence, media framing of violence, gender and sexuality, and narratives of survivorhood. She is the queer daughter of Cuban refugees and has stated that she is a survivor of sexual assault.
The Hunting Ground is a 2015 American documentary film about the incidence of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States and the reported failure of college administrations to deal with it adequately. Written and directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering, it premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released on February 27, 2015, an edited version aired on CNN on November 22, 2015, and was released on DVD the week of December 1, 2015. It was released on Netflix in March 2016. Lady Gaga recorded an original song, "Til It Happens to You," for the film, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
"Til It Happens to You" is a song produced and performed by American singer Lady Gaga. She co-wrote the song with Diane Warren for the 2015 documentary film The Hunting Ground, which deals with campus rape in the United States. The song had leaked onto the Internet through an unofficial recording made at the film's premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. It was later released by Interscope Records to digital retailers on September 18, 2015. The director and producer of the film had looked for someone influential to write a song for it, and music supervisor Bonnie Greenberg contacted Warren, who was interested. She wrote the song with Gaga and producer Nile Rodgers accompanied them during the recording, providing his suggestions.
Sil Lai Abrams is a domestic violence awareness activist and National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) award-winning writer. Abrams is a sought after speaker on sexual assault, domestic violence, race, and depictions of women of color in the media and has spoken at over 300 organizations and universities around the United States. She regularly provides television commentary on gender violence and has been profiled in numerous magazines, including The Hollywood Reporter, EBONY, Redbook, Modern Woman, and ESSENCE. The Root praised Abrams for her use of “social media to protest the narrative that Black women’s realities can be defined by dysfunctional entertainment”, and she has served on the Board of Directors for two of the nation’s largest victim services nonprofit organizations, Safe Horizon and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
The Bleeding Edge is a 2018 Netflix original documentary film that investigates the $400 billion medical device industry. Written and directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering and Amy Herdy, it premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where it was billed as "the stuff of dystopian nightmares". The film was released for streaming on Netflix on July 27, 2018.
Amy Herdy is a film producer. She won a 2018 George Polk Award, for her Netflix documentary, The Bleeding Edge.
Geralyn White Dreyfous is an American film producer. She has produced multiple documentary and narrative films focusing on social justice issues including The Invisible War (2012), The Square (2013), The Hunting Ground (2015), Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018), The Great Hack (2019), and On the Record (2020). Dreyfous has been nominated for Primetime Emmy awards.
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.
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.
Impact Partners is an American film production and television production company founded in 2007, by Dan Cogan and Geralyn Dreyfous. The company primarily produces documentary films focusing on social issues. They have produced such films as The Queen of Versailles (2012), How to Survive a Plague (2012), The Hunting Ground (2015), Icarus, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Of Fathers and Sons (2017), Won't You Be My Neighbor (2018), and On the Record (2020).
Artemis Rising Foundation is a nonprofit organization and film production and television production company, founded by Regina K. Scully. The company has produced films including The Invisible War (2012), The Hunting Ground (2015), The Breadwinner (2017), Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018), Knock Down the House (2019), The Truffle Hunters (2020), On the Record (2020), Ailey (2021) and Bring Your Own Brigade (2021).
References
↑ "Kirby Dick". International Film Festival Rotterdam. Archived from the original on September 23, 2014. Retrieved September 23, 2014.
1 2 3 Blade staff and David Germain (Associated Press) (January 26, 2005). "Academy Award nominations - Aviator's 11 Howard Hughes biopic leads Oscar nomination". The Blade. Toledo, Ohio. p.D1.
1 2 3 Aufderheide, Pat (February 13, 2005). "Docs, Good for What Ails Us? - Social-Minded Films Add Entertainment Values to Their Messages". The Washington Post. p.N3.
↑ Miller, Melinda (November 28, 2001). "Sundance 2002 Opens With 'Laramie Project' - Sundance: Fresh, Familiar Faces at Festival". The Salt Lake Tribune. p.D1.
↑ "Feelin' a draft in N.C.". Bucks County Courier Times. Levittown, Pennsylvania. June 28, 2005. p.5E.
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