Anti-Trumpists Are Suddenly Progressive Documentary Funders
Anti-Trumpists have emerged as a new and growing source of financing for embattled political documentary makers. Richard Lorber, president of Kino Lorber, on Friday told a Toronto Film Festival panel on connecting audiences to non-fiction movies that progressive, or politically-oriented, documentaries are drawing on “civic-minded citizens with significant contributions, which allow them to get made and give viewers a chance to go to the theater.” Beyond such “impact partners,” the TIFF: The Market panel centered on how to get documentaries financed and released as they make slow return to theaters after the pandemic. “The only thing you can count on in releasing quality art house specialty films is disappointment,” Lorber argued, even as he has had recent gains with theatrical docs like the Oscar-winning Mr Nobody Against Putin and the summer arthouse hit Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World. That theatrical success offered Lorber proof of “a ray of light that you’ve suddenly activated, a sleeper cell of fans who you didn’t know even existed.” mTuckman Media principal Michael Tuckman had his own recent success …
