| Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Matt Wolf |
| Produced by |
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| Cinematography |
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| Edited by | Keiko Deguchi |
| Music by | Owen Pallett |
Release date |
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Running time | 87 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $54,566 [1] [2] |
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Matt Wolf about Marion Stokes [3] and the television news archive she created. [4] [5] [6]
Stokes captured 840,000 hours of news footage over the course of 35 years, from 1977 until her death in 2012; [7] [8] the VHS and Betamax video recordings were donated to the Internet Archive. [9] [10] [11] [12]
The Iran hostage crisis, which lasted from 1979 to 1981, made Stokes decide to make her project a round-the-clock job due to its continuous development as it happened. [13] [14] [15]
The film premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and was released and distributed by Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] It was also submitted for Oscar consideration. [21]
The film has a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The site's critical consensus reads, "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Story uses one person's singular quest to illuminate the blurred line between brilliance and obsession." [22]
The DVD and Blu-ray were released on March 10, 2020. [23]
A VHS edition of the documentary will be released by Lunchmeat between mid-to-late October of 2023. [24]
Zeitgeist Films is a New York-based distribution company founded in 1988 which acquires and distributes films from the U.S. and around the world. In 2017, Zeitgeist entered into a multi-year strategic alliance with film distributor Kino Lorber.
Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, such as documentary films, classic and rarely seen films from earlier periods in the history of cinema, and world cinema. In addition to theatrical distribution, Kino Lorber releases films in the home entertainment market and has its own streaming services for its digital library.
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Teddy Leifer is a British film and television producer. He founded Rise Films in 2006, a London-based production company, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2023.
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Input was a Sunday morning public access talk show co-produced by Marion Stokes and her husband John that aired locally in Philadelphia from 1967 to 1971.
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Marion Marguerite Stokes was an American access television producer, businesswoman, investor, civil rights demonstrator, activist, librarian, and prolific archivist, especially known for her compulsive hoarding and archiving of hundreds of thousands of hours of television news footage spanning 35 years, from 1977 until her death in 2012, at which time she operated nine properties and three storage units. According to The Los Angeles Review of Books review of the 2019 documentary film Recorder, Stokes's massive project of recording the 24-hour news cycle "makes a compelling case for the significance of guerrilla archiving."
Matt Wolf is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and producer. His notable films include Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, Teenage, Bayard & Me,Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, and Spaceship Earth. In 2010, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. His subjects include youth culture, artists, archives, music, and queer history.
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Mr. Soul! is a 2018 American documentary film produced, written and directed by documentary filmmaker Melissa Haizlip. The film was co-produced by Doug Blush and co-directed by Sam Pollard. The film tells the story of Ellis Haizlip, the producer and host of SOUL!, the music-and-talk program that aired on public television from 1968 to 1973 and aimed at a Black audience. It was released in 2018 and has since received 21 filmmaking awards. Attorney Chaz Ebert, record executive Ron Gillyard, producer and director Stan Lathan, producer Rishi Rajani, producer Stephanie T. Rance, actor Blair Underwood and screenwriter, producer and actress Lena Waithe are the executive producers of the film.
China: A Century of Revolution is a series of television documentary films about the history of China in the 20th century. Produced by Ambrica Productions for PBS, the films were written and directed by Sue Williams and first aired in the United States from 1989 to 1997. The first installment, China in Revolution, 1911–1949, was broadcast on September 27, 1989. The second installment, The Mao Years, 1949–1976, was broadcast on April 13, 1994. The third installment, Born Under the Red Flag, 1976–1997, was broadcast on July 9, 1997.
Sophia Nahli Allison is an American documentary filmmaker and photographer. Her documentary short A Love Song for Latasha (2019) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. It debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. Allison directed and co-wrote the 2021 HBO Max special Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground.
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Giant Pictures is an American independent film distribution company founded by Nick Savva and Jeff Stabenau with offices in New York City and Los Angeles. The company releases feature films, documentaries and series on streaming platforms, with an emphasis on flexibility and customization for filmmakers. Giant Pictures owns and operates specialty theatrical label, Drafthouse Films. Giant is the distribution and technology partner of the Tribeca Festival.
Heart Valley is a 2022 short documentary film about Welsh shepherd Wilf Davies. Directed and produced by filmmaker Christian Cargill, the film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 9, 2022 where it won the award for Best Documentary Short. It first broadcast in the UK on BBC Two Wales and BBC iPlayer on July 26, 2022 and released online with The New Yorker on December 2, 2022. The documentary won the BAFTA Cymru Award 2023 for Best Short Film and was nominated for The Grierson Award 2023 for Best Documentary Short. The Hollywood Reporter named Heart Valley as one of their Top 23 Short Documentaries of 2022 and it was one of 98 films to qualify for the 95th Academy Awards for Best Documentary Short.
