During the lead-up to the Academy Awards, it’s common for an A-list celebrity to join a feature documentary as an executive producer. The addition of a boldface name to a doc title creates buzz and involves little to no legwork for the celebrity.
But ever since the doc marketplace fell into disarray several years ago, an increasing number of celebrities have stopped simply slapping their names onto titles. Instead, they have begun to use their clout to bolster small, independently made nonfiction films, often about pressing political issues.
Recently Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Thompson, and Jesse Eisenberg used their their A-list status to help get three indie docus made and seen.
After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, Lawrence and her producing partner at Excellent Cadaver, Justine Ciarrocchi, reached out to Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani (“A Thousand Girls Like Me”) about directing a documentary about what was happening to the 15 million Afghan women essentially being held captive in their own homeland.
“Like the rest of the world, I was watching what was happening when Kabul fell to the Taliban, and women’s rights were completely stripped overnight,” says Lawrence. “It was horrifying. As a human being, I felt desperate and wanted to do something, anything helpful. My only course of action, or my only weapon, if you will, is filmmaking. It was important to me to make something permanent. We were aware of Sahra’s work, so we reached out to her.”
Mani was in the midst of collecting videos from various women on the ground in Afghanistan when she got the email from Lawrence.
“I received this email from Jennifer Lawrence’s production company saying that, “If you want to make a film about this (situation), we are happy to support you,” Mani recalls. “At first, I thought it was spam, so I just deleted it. Then the email came back again after a week. I did some research and found out that Excellent Cadaver was real. After that, we built a team and began working on the film.”
That film would become “Bread & Roses,” a docu that follows three women as they fight to recover their autonomy amid Taliban oppression. Mani says that without Lawrence’s involvement, “Bread & Roses,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, would likely not exist.
“I don’t think I would have been able to finance this film without the help of Excellent Cadaver,” says Mani.
Lawrence admits that it was “really, really hard to find financing” via an independent financier for the docu.
“This is a film that was happening on the ground, in the moment,” she says. “We didn’t know how it was going to end. We weren’t able to be in contact (with the film crew) all the time. We would go weeks and weeks with no word. So, we were really lucky to find financing.”
In April, Apple Original Films acquired global rights to “Bread & Roses,” which was fortuitous given some major streamer’s recent avoidance of political content. (Another doc that Lawrence produced, which came out this year, “Zurawski v Texas,” about anti-abortion laws, is currently streaming on Jolt.film.)
Despite a successful film festival run, Hasan Oswald’s documentary “Mediha” has not been acquired for streaming or broadcast distribution. About Mediha Alhamad, a teenage Yazidi girl who turns her camera on herself to process her trauma after returning from three years in ISIS captivity, “Mediha” premiered at DOC NYC in 2023. The film has remained in the spotlight for over a year in large part because of Emma Thompson, who served as an executive producer.
The actress met Oswald after she saw a short film he made for YouTube about the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing the war in their homeland to Europe.
“The humanity of the (short film) deeply moved me,” says Thompson. “I looked up the filmmaker to write him a note. It was Hasan, and we have been in contact ever since.”
Thompson explains that she was drawn to “Mediha,” in part, due to her work with survivors of sex trafficking.
“I have worked with survivors of sex trafficking and other human cruelties for many decades now and have made work with other artists that tries to tell those difficult stories differently – without objectifying the sufferers,” Thompson says. “This film chimed with that earlier work.”
Oswald thought that Thompson would just lend her name to “Mediha,” but to his surprise, the actress has been very involved with the release of the docu. In addition to hosting screenings, Thompson, according to Oswald, “has spoken with journalists and media executives about the film, helping to raise its profile and find champions.”
“We are very lucky to have Emma,” says the director. “We wouldn’t be where we are with the film today without her attachment.”
When it comes to “Secret Mall Apartment,” Jeremy Workman feels the same way about Jesse Eisenberg. The actor served as an executive producer of the doc about a group of artists who created a secret apartment inside a busy mall in Rhode Island in 2003.
“What’s so interesting about this film is the way that it becomes this larger discussion about housing, gentrification, urban development, and even about class and race as these artists contemplate their own kind of privilege,” Eisenberg says. “I wanted to be helpful in any way that I could to Jeremy because I love documentaries so much, and they have such a hard time finding audiences. Taking advantage of my platform to help the film get attention made sense.”
Eisenberg was in Austin, Texas, for the film’s debut at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March and has since reached out to buyers in an effort to get the indie film distribution.
“He goes to bat for the film, like to the point where it makes me blush,” says Workman. “He writes very direct emails to the heads of the nonfiction departments at streamers or at a specific company. He will call them personally. It’s incredible.”
“Secret Mall Apartment” is still seeking distribution.
“I just do whatever I can,” says Eisenberg. “I’m thrilled to email people out of the blue because it feels like I’m doing something to kind of correct the balance of power in the industry and give something attention that deserves it but has a harder time finding it.”
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