Brian Fogel’s first documentary, “Icarus”, helped expose the Russian doping scandal that led to the country’s expulsion from the 2018 Winter Olympics. It also won scars for him and Netflix, which released the film.
For his second project, he chose another topic with a global interest: the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian dissident and Washington Washington columnist, and the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The Scar-winning filmmaker’s film usually attracts a lot of attention from streaming services, using documentaries and exclusive movies to attract subscribers and earn awards. Instead, when Mr. Fogel’s film, “The Accident,” was finally available to distributors eight months later, it was an independent company with no streaming platform and very narrow reach.
“These global media companies are no longer just thinking, ‘How will this work for the US audience?'” Mr. Fogel said. “They ask: ‘What if I put this film in Egypt? What happens if I leave it in China, Russia, Pakistan, India? ‘All these factors are being implemented, and it is moving forward like such stories. ”
“Decidend” will now open in 150 to 200 theaters across the country on Christmas Day and will be available for purchase on premium video-on-demand channels on January 8. (Original plans, called for an 800-theater release in October, but it was withdrawn due to the epidemic.) Internationally, the film will be released through a network of distributors in Britain, Australia, Australia, Italy, Turkey and other European countries.
It’s a big boom from a potential audience that it could have reached through a service like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, and Mr. Fogel said he believes this is a sign of how the platform is becoming more and more powerful in the world of commentary. Film – was in the business of expanding their customer base, not necessarily paying attention to the excesses of the powerful.
For his film, Mr. Fogel interviewed Mr. Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Sengiz, who was waiting outside the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul in 2018 when the murder occurred; Fred Ryan, publisher of The Washington Post; And many members of the Turkish police force. Mr. Khashoggi gasped and obtained a 37-page transcript from a recording of what happened in the broken room. He also spent considerable time with Omar Abdulaziz, a young dissident from exile in Montreal, who worked with Mr. Khashoggi to use Twitter to defame the party’s anti-party voices and state criticism by the Saudi Arabian government.
“Decident” landed at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The Hollywood Reporter called it “enthusiastic, deep and comprehensive”, while Variety said it was a “documentary thriller of surprising consistency.” Hillary Clinton, who was at Sundance for a documentary about her, urged people to watch the film, saying in an on-the-spot interview that it was “an effective job to demonstrate the germs that can be on social media.”
Mr. Fogel was left to secure the sale of a leading streaming platform that could expand the film’s findings, such as Netflix’s “Icarus.” Done with When “Dissident” got a distributor in September, it was an independent company, Brycliffe Entertainment.
Mr Fogel said he informed Netflix about his film when it was in production and months later when it was accepted into Sundance. “I told them how excited I was to show them,” he said. “I haven’t heard anything back.”
Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, was at the film’s suspense premiere, but the company did not bid on the film. “I wasn’t shocked when I was disappointed,” Mr. Fogel said.
Netflix declined to comment, however, spokeswoman Emily Finogale pointed to a handful of recently created service documents, including the 2019 “Edge of Democracy”, about the rise of dictatorial leader Jar Bolsonaro in Brazil.
Amazon Studios also declined to bid. Footage of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, who privately owns The Washington Post, is shown in the film. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
Fox Searchlight, now owned by Disney, did not bid. Neither the independent distributor Neon, which was behind last year’s screw-winning best picture, “Parasite” and often receives challenging content.
“What I observed was that the desire for corporate corporate profit undermined the integrity of the American film culture,” said Thor Hulverson, founder and chief executive of the nonprofit Human Rights Foundation, which funded the film and served as producer.
Documentaries do not usually draw on large B-box office fees, so traditionally they have found their audiences elsewhere. PBS has long been a platform for leading documents, but with the rise of streaming, companies like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have become very important to the genre. As those companies have evolved, their business needs have changed
“This is undoubtedly political,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of the Chapman University Film School. “It’s frustrating, but there are big companies in the race to survive.”
He added: “Do you think Disney will do anything different with Disney +? Will Apple or any of the mega corporations? They have economic weaknesses that are difficult to ignore, and they have to balance with free speech issues. “
“The Dissident” is not the only political documentary that has failed to secure a home on a streaming service. This year, Magnolia Pictures, which has a streaming deal with Disney-owned Hulu, backs a deal with the makers of the document “The Assassins”, which tells the story of the poisoning of a half-brother named Kim Jong-un. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The film’s director, Ryan White, mentioned the hack of Sony Pictures in an interview with Variety in 2014, and the “pitted roads” of U.S. distribution felt that they felt they could be hacked in a way that would be disastrous to them. Could. Their bottom line. ”
Netflix was eager to get “Icarus” many years ago, which bought the film for millions of dollars after it was released in Sundance in 2017. , Who was Netflix’s vice president of original documents, said in a statement at the time.
Mr. Fogel wondered if the company would now be excited about that film.
“Icarus had 100 million subscribers when it came out.” (Netflix currently has 195 million subscribers worldwide.) They were looking for a way to meet. That’s why it was so important that they had a film with which they could win an award. “
In January 2019, Netflix aired an episode of comedian Hassan Minhaj’s series “Patriot Act” when he criticized Prince Mohammed after Mr Khashoggi’s death. Mr Hastings later defended the move, saying: “We are not trying to ‘power from the truth’. We are trying to entertain.”
In November, Netflix signed an eight-picture film deal with Saudi Arabian studio Telfaz 11, stating that it “aims to have a wide appeal to both Arab and global audiences.”
The outcome for “The Accident” has not been ideal, but Mr. Fogel still hopes people will see the film.
He said, ‘I love Netflix and after our wonderful experience with’ Icarus ‘I consider myself a part of the Netflix family.’ “Unfortunately, they are not as company as they were a few years ago, when they passionately stood up against Russia and Putin.”
