NEW YORK, NY, January 6, 2005 – As part of AMC's ongoing commitment to quality original programming, AMC launched the New Year by announcing that it will begin a series of original documentaries that explores and analyzes Hollywood's involvement in various social, political and historical issues. The documentaries are produced by award-winning filmmakers and include: Daniel Anker's Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust; Hollywood and the Vietnam War, by Robert Stone; and Good Cop, Bad Cop, from producer/director Barak Goodman.
Today's announcement comes on the heels of AMC's 2004 success with such topical documentaries such as Rated R: Republicans in Hollywood and Hollywood and the Muslim World. Additional issue oriented documentaries on Hollywood and filmmaking will be announced throughout the year.
"AMC is dedicated to telling rich, complex stories that explore the intersection between film and society," said Jessica Shreeve, AMC's Vice President of Documentaries. "The documentary format is the perfect way to dissect how movies have influenced our way of life, told by talented and award-winning filmmakers. In 2005, AMC is committed to producing larger, topical documentary films – a natural addition to the network's slate of original series and themed movie festivals."
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust will debut on AMC on March 1 at 9 pm ET/PT. Hollywood and the Vietnam War will air on May 30 at 10 pm ET/PT during a Memorial Day movie marathon, which includes the films Apocalypse Now, Sands of Iwo Jima, Force 10 From Navarone and other war-themed films. Good Cop, Bad Cop will premiere in September during a special Labor Day film festival.
AMC's growing documentary slate provides detailed explorations of topical issues and plays a major role in the network's mission to produce interesting and entertaining original programming and provide popular movies to its viewers. The documentaries have also helped increase AMC's audience and ratings delivery over the last year.
IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST
Hollywood's ambiguous relationship with the horrors of the war is revealed in AMC's controversial, insightful and ultimately fascinating 90-minute documentary, IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST, narrated by Gene Hackman. Three years in the making by Oscar nominated and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Daniel Anker, IMAGINARY WITNESS unearths surprising new information and rare newsreel footage. The documentary features a compelling interview with director Steven Spielberg explaining for the first time artistic choices he made in his Holocaust masterpiece, SCHINDLER'S LIST. Director Sidney Lumet talks about creating his groundbreaking Holocaust film, THE PAWNBROKER, starring Rod Steiger, who gives his last interview just weeks before his death. Ninety-six year old director Vincent Sherman (UNDERGROUND) and blacklisted writer Norma Barzman offer historic perspective on Hollywood's indifference in the face of unimaginable evil. And noted scholars Neal Gabler and Annette Insdorf debate the morality of turning the Holocaust into art. IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST will premiere on March 1 at 9 pm ET/PT.
HOLLYWOOD AND THE VIETNAM WAR (WORKING TITLE)
In the years following the end of the Vietnam War, a generation of Hollywood filmmakers set out to make movies about this troubled and stubbornly irresolute episode in our nations history. The result was a new sub-genre of war film, which, like the times and the war itself, was quite different from war movies of the past. The Vietnam War movie and it's influence on our understanding of the war itself is the subject of a new original one-hour documentary produced by Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Robert Stone ("Radio Bikini," "Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst"). Drawing on over 30 films of the genre and including insightful interviews with prominent Vietnam veterans and people involved in the making of these films, HOLLYWOOD AND THE VIETNAM WAR takes us on a mythical journey to the Vietnam War and back, as it was imagined by Hollywood. With an emphasis on how these films both succeed and fail to depict the reality of Vietnam, this documentary sets out to examine how history is communicated through storytelling, and ultimately what these stories tell us about our age-old love-hate relationship with warfare. HOLLYWOOD AND THE VIETNAM WAR will premiere on AMC in May 2005.
GOOD COP, BAD COP
The beat cop. Movie audiences love him and they love to hate him. He is the embodiment of good and evil – a reluctant hero, a hard-drinking loner, a conflicted every man – but nevertheless, always a compelling character. As the "Cop Film" evolved from rogue cop (Dirty Harry) to maverick cop (Axel Foley) to super hero cop (John McClane), so did society's view of law and order. AMC will investigate the movie cop stereotypes and the development from the gritty realism of the 70's to the romanticized versions of the men in blue in the one-hour documentary GOOD COP, BAD COP. Featuring interviews with prominent filmmakers Sidney Lumet, Michael Mann and Clint Eastwood, the documentary will also include award-winning actors Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Paul Newman, among many others. The special will premiere on AMC in September 2005.
About AMC
AMC, a division of Rainbow Media's Entertainment Services, which also includes WE: Women's Entertainment and IFC Companies, is a 24-hour, movie-based network, dedicated to the American movie fan. The network, which reaches over 86,000,000 homes, offers a comprehensive library of popular movies and a critically-acclaimed slate of original programming that is a diverse, movie-based mix of original series, documentaries and specials. AMC has garnered many of the industry's highest honors, including 14 Emmy awards. AMC is "TV for movie people."