NEW DOCUMENTARY SHOWS ‘THE PRICE OF TRUTH’ IN PUTIN’S RUSSIA

The film follows Nobel Prize-winning Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov as he tries to keep the country’s last independent newspaper in operation.

Aboard a train leaving Moscow in April 2022, Nobel Prize-winning Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov was doused in red paint laced with acetone, damaging his eyesight.

As the editor-in-chief of Russia’s last independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, Muratov is no stranger to the consequences of printing the truth in Vladimir Putin’s autocratic Russia: his paper has seen six journalists murdered since its inception in 1993. The Price of Truth, a documentary directed by Patrick Forbes, follows Muratov as he endeavored to keep the paper in operation after Russia invaded Ukraine. The newspaper suspended operations in Russia in March 2022, citing “military censorship,” and was ultimately stripped of its Russian media license in September 2022.

ICIJ interviewed Forbes about press freedom and Muratov’s fight to print the truth in a country where journalists are constantly under threat. The film is part of the Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival and Symposium, a forum dedicated to highlighting investigative journalism through a visual lens. Continue reading..

Sorry/Not Sorry Uses the Fall and Rise of Louis C.K. to Prove Cancel Culture Isn’t Real

There’s no need to put “alleged” before C.K.’s crimes: He’s admitted, publically, to them—masturbating in front of (or on the phone with) young women comedians whom he’d led to believe he was mentoring.

There’s no need to put “alleged” before C.K.’s crimes: He’s admitted, publically, to them—masturbating in front of (or on the phone with) young women comedians whom he’d led to believe he was mentoring.

Co-directed by Caroline Suh and Cara Mones, the New York Times-produced documentary is told in chapters. Viewers are quickly introduced to C.K. via clips from his original, self-deprecating standup about women and pitiful men. As Variety’s Alison Herman notes, C.K.’s comedy, often critical of himself and men in general, helped endear him to women audiences. Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur, who cast C.K. in the sitcom and admits to bringing him back to the show despite knowing the rumors circulating about C.K.’s behavior, speaks of C.K.’s brilliance, as do a handful of other comedians and critics.

But, before 10 minutes pass, viewers are confronted with the accusations made by various women, C.K.’s statement—“These stories are true”—and hordes of mostly men defending his actions and declaring C.K. didn’t really do anything wrong. A clip of Matt Damon (one has to wonder why Damon was ever asked to meditate on C.K. in the first place) captures the actor saying “well, we can work with that,” in response to C.K.’s admission. “Like what the hell else are we supposed to do?” Continue reading….

At Double Exposure Film Festival, Stripped for Parts Uncovers How American Journalists Fought a Private Hedge Fund Takeover

A Q&A with filmmaker Rick Goldsmith

The documentary Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink tells the story of a secretive hedge fund’s takeover of America’s local news industry through the eyes of journalists who worked at the papers Alden acquired. Alden Global Capital gradually bought out local newspapers across the United States, laying off journalists to reap a profit with little concern for the news industry’s role as a public service. From the Bay Area, to Denver, to Baltimore, journalists fought back. We sat down with producer and director Rick Goldsmith to go behind the film and discuss the future of local journalism.

730: How did you go about identifying the sources that you highlighted in Stripped for Parts?

RG: I was actually engaged with Bill Moyers, maybe one of the top journalists in our country, and we were discussing films that we might do together. Then one day I got an email from him, and he said, “I’m sitting here in the barber’s chair and reading this article, and this looks like a film that has to be made, and Goldsmith’s the one to make it.” I was a little bit floored. But the link that he put in the email drew me to an article which you see at the beginning of this film, the headline being something like: “Alden Global Capital is making so much money wrecking local journalism, they might not stop anytime soon.” So that’s what got me into it. All you had to do was read the article, and it was about this kind of Denver rebellion that had happened, and then you start looking up who’s involved. There were articles in The New York Times already about it and articles in the local Denver papers about it. So I just followed the leads, and they drew me to the people in Denver and Boulder who were directly involved. It also took me to Julie Reynolds, who ended up being really, if anybody, the central character in the film, because she was doing the investigation of Alden Global Capital two years before I got into it and for several years after. I tried to stick as much as I could to people who were directly involved in the story as opposed to might have been writing about it or focusing on it second or third hand. Continue reading…