Projects matching: Nick Broomfield

Synopsis

A story of enduring love between Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen. The film follows their relationship from the early days on the idyllic Greek island of Hydra in 1960 as part of a bohemian community of foreign artists, writers, and musicians, a time of ‘free love’ and open marriage; observing how their love evolved when Leonard became a successful musician.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Documentary Premieres - World premiere

Synopsis

Whitney Houston was the most awarded female recording artist of all time, with more consecutive number one hits than The Beatles, and on top of that she was America’s Sweetheart. Yet despite her fame, talent, and success, she died tragically at the age of 48.
Featuring largely never-before-seen footage and recordings and interviews with some of her closest collaborators and friends, this moving documentary tells the story of the girl behind the voice, her extraordinary life and her tragic death.
According to band members, “Can I Be Me” was her most used expression, so much so they sampled it and would play it at the start of rehearsals.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2017 - Spotlight Documentrary - World premiere

Synopsis

Perennially provocative documentarian Nick Broomfield (Aileen Wuornos: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Biggie and Tupac) digs into the case of the notorious serial killer known as the 'Grim Sleeper', who terrorised South Central Los Angeles over a span of twenty-five years.
Telluride Film Festival 2014 - World premiere

Synopsis

Nick Broomfield ("Biggie & Tupac"; "Kurt & Courtney") goes in pursuit of Sarah Palin, interviewing her family and friends, for a decidedly unauthorized perspective on this growing force in American politics.

Synopsis

The small UK town of Hebden Bridge, where film-maker Jez Lewis grew up, is a beautiful and quirky rural idyll. But while it is paradise to many, it is purgatory to others. In the twenty years since he left, dozens of Jez's old friends have died young, many of them through suicide and drug overdoses.

Beginning with a personal quest for understanding, the film moves into a year-long drama of human tragedy and redemption as Jez re-bonds with his oldest friend Cass.

Coming to terms with his own imminent mortality, Cass attempts to lift himself out of the cycle of self-destruction he has lived amidst for so long. Around this emerges an intimate study of a place claimed to be the funkiest town in Europe, but which harbours an undertow of lethal hedonism and disillusionment. As young people continue to die by their own hands, a maelstrom of conflicting values throws up unexpected truths about the human condition, whilst Jez finds himself drawn inexorably into the action.

Filmed among friends, with absolutely unrestricted access, Shed Your Tears And Walk Away is a searingly authentic portrayal of a marginalised and overlooked people who seem to have lost their survival instinct.

Synopsis

Iraqi insurgents bomb a convoy of US Marines, resulting in the death of their most popular officer. Enraged by this loss, his young Marine buddies carry out a brutal retaliation. Their violent house-searches lead to the massacre of 24 people, many of whom are women and children – tragic casualties of a war they cannot control. The Marines too are victims, attacked, wounded, and forced to respond in the way they have been trained. But when events occur at great speed and under extreme stress, can Marines in the line of fire be accused of murder.

Synopsis

This is film based on a true story.  It is disturbing portrayal of a secret world that is all around us.
 
Ai Qin, a young Chinese girl from Fujian borrows $25,000 to pay the Snakehead gang to smuggle her into the UK so she can support her son and family back in China. Once in the UK she becomes another one of three million migrant workers that are the bedrock of its food supply chain, construction and hospitality industries. She lives with 15 other Chinese in a two-bedroom suburban house. With an illegally forged work permit, she works in factories preparing food for British supermarkets.  In their search for better paying jobs to repay their debts they end up cockling in Morecambe Bay at night. On 5 February 2004 23 Chinese drowned in Morecambe, their families in China are still paying off their debts.
 
Ai Qin and the other principal characters are played by Chinese former illegal immigrants who have drawn on their life experiences to give passionate and authentic performances. The director, Nick Broomfield, has stepped out of his documentarian role, to create a grippingly compelling film that will change your views on the entire migrant population and leave you wondering about slavery in the 21st century.

Synopsis

Twelve years ago Nick Broomfield made a film Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer.  Aileen's lawyer, her born-again Christian mother and the Florida State police have all been involved in trying to sell her story - that of America's first female serial killer - to the highest bidder.  Aileen herself, who was convicted of murdering seven men, ironically emerged with the most credit.
 
Aileen and Nick Broomfield kept in contact, writing to each other occasionally.  Then, in October 2002, Broomfield was subpoenaed to appear at Aileen's final State appeal prior to her execution.  Extracts of Aileen Wournos: The Selling of a Serial Killer were shown in court and many of her childhood friends were also called as witnesses.
 
Then, unexpectedly, Aileen changed her plea and announced she had killed the seven men in cold blood, not in self-defence as she had asserted previously and she wanted to die immediately.  Jeb Bush, the State's governor, welcomed Aileen's decision and announced his intention to reunite Aileen with her maker as soon as possible.  In a subsequent interview Aileen admits in an unguarded moment, when she thinks the camera is turned off, that she did kill in self defence but that she can no longer stand being on death row and has to die.
 
The film portrays Aileen's childhood in Troy, Michigan, as one of terrible abuse and violence, which continued during her years on the road as a hitch-hiking prostitute and ultimately culminated in the murders.  In her last interview, which Aileen grants to Nick Broomfield exclusively, she said she believed her mind was being controlled by radio waves and that she would be taken away by angels on a space ship.
 
The film provides an insight into the mind of a deeply paranoid, yet seemingly sympathetic person, who lost her mind and killed seven people.
 
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer is a powerful statement against the death penalty and raises disturbing questions about executing the mentally ill.
 
Aileen Wuornos was executed in the State of Florida on October 9th, 2002.

Synopsis

In April of 1994 rock legend Kurt Cobain was found dead in his Pacific Northwest home, an apparent victim of suicide. Cobain, lead singer and songwriter for the seminal band Nirvana, touched the core of a generation with music that reflected the growth anguish, loneliness and confusion of growing up in a world shattered by unraveling families and values. His death, though foreshadowed by admitted troubles with drugs and depression, shocked the world.

Three years later, British filmmaker Nick Broomfield set out to make the first feature film about Cobain's tumultuous life, tragic death and very public romance with wife Courtney Love.

But Broomfield never got to make the film he wanted to make - due to restraint and interference by Love, her various media companies, agents and representatives. So, instead he made Kurt and Courtney - the story of how he tried to make a movie about Generation X's most famous lovers, the people he met and the powers that tried to stop him along the way.

Kurt and Courtney is not a rockumentary. In fact, Courtney Love prevented Broomfield from licensing all but one of Nirvana's songs. Instead, the film is a human mystery - an inquiry into how Cobain lived and more importantly, why it is that he died so young and so sorrowfully. But it is also an inquiry into the treacherous nature of fame, ambition and media control - and the role they played and continue to play in the legacies of Kurt and Courtney. Finally, the film has elements of a chase, as Broomfield and his kamikaze video crew attempt to find the elusive Courtney Love and get her to answer the questions they hoped she would volunteer to answer in the beginning.