“Code of the West” will have it’s World Premiere at SXSW on March 11.  Congratulations to Director/Producer Rebecca Richman Cohen and the rest of the crew!

Synopsis

In Austin, Texas, a group of fifteen people is influencing what is taught to the next generation of American schoolchildren.  The highly politicized Texas State Board of Education goes through the once-in-a-decade process of rewriting the teaching and textbook standards for its nearly 5 million schoolchildren.  And when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas affects the nation as a whole.

Don McLeroy — a dentist and Sunday school teacher, who while in dental school became a Christian after an intellectual examination of the claims of Christianity — leads the Creationist charge.  After briefly serving on his local school board, McLeroy was elected to the Texas State Board of Education and later appointed chairman.  In his 12 years on the board, McLeroy oversaw the adoption of new science and history curriculum standards, drawing national attention and placing Texas on the front line of the so-called “culture wars.”

In his last term, McLeroy — aided by Cynthia Dunbar, an attorney from Houston and professor of Law at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University — finds himself not only fighting to change what Americans are taught, but also fighting to retain his seat on the board.  Challenged by Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, and Ron Wetherington, an anthropology professor from Southern Methodist University in Texas, McLeroy faces his toughest term yet.

THE REVISIONARIES follows the rise, fall, and rise again of some of the most controversial figures in American education through some of their most tumultuous intellectual battles.

Credits

• Directed by Scott Thurman
• Produced by Pierson Silver & Orlando Wood
• Executive Producers: Jim Butterworth & Vijay Dewan
• Co-Producers: Daniel J. Chalfen & Chandra C. Silver
• Edited by Jawad Metni

At a time when the country is rethinking its drug policies large and small, one state raises to the forefront of national attention. Once a pioneer in legalizing medical marijuana, the state of Montana is poised to become the first in the nation to repeal its medical marijuana law. Set against the sweeping vistas of the Rockies, the steamy lamplight of marijuana grow houses, and the bustling halls of the State Capitol, CODE OF THE WEST follows the 2011 Montana State Legislature as it debates the fate of medical marijuana. This is the story of the many lives and fraught emotions tied to one of the most heated policy questions facing the country today.

Credits

• Directed and Produced by Rebecca Richman Cohen
• Produced and Edited by Francisco Bello
• Co-producer and Director of Photography: Joshua Z. Weinstein
• Executive Producer: David Menschel
• Consulting Producers: Jim Butterworth & Daniel J. Chalfen
• Field Producer/Production Sound: Mike Kasic
• Field Producer/Additional Camera: Ian Kellett

Danish director Ada Bligaard Soby’s intimate story of two American outsiders struggling through the current decade of economic and cultural downfall in San Francisco and New York. Petey works at a porn distribution center. Ginger was a stripper. In this coming of age tale, Petey and Ginger consistently search for meaning, happiness and new possibilities in the America they grew up to believe was a land of opportunity and possibility.

Credits

BeoFilm & Silverosa Film Present a DR, SVT, NRK Production
Supported by The Danish Film Institute, The Swedish Film Institute & The Nordisk Film & TV Fund
In association with Naked Edge Films

• Directed by Ada Bligaard Soby
• Produced by Morten Kjems Juhl
• Co-Executive Producer: Jim Butterworth
• Consulting Producer: Daniel J. Chalfen
• Original Soundtrack by Thee Oh Sees

Trailer

Synopsis

Mark DeFriest is an American prison legend, a notorious escape artist who has spent 30 years behind bars, with little light, hope or human contact. In 1981, despite doubts about Mark’s mental competency following a series of 13 attempted breakouts, seven of which were successful, the 19-year-old “Houdini of Florida” was sent to Florida State Prison – “the end of the line” as an ex-warden calls it. The original crime that sent him to prison: stealing tools that were willed to him by his father.

From his custom isolation cell above the electric chair, Mark persisted in creating ingenious methods of escape, both physical – master keys – and emotional – ingesting copious amounts of drugs. Every moment became a rebellious mission as his manic mind won day-to-day battles, but lost the war with officials. His endless number of disciplinary sanctions cost him any chance for parole.

Today, at 50, Mark’s life again hangs in the balance. 30 years after a Florida state psychiatrist, Dr. Berland, claimed in court that Mark was faking mental illness – paving the way for Mark’s long sentence – he steps forward to make a stunning admission: “I was wrong.” When Berland sets out to right that wrong, a parole case is born.

Improbably, Mark’s behavior changes for the better. He gains access to the outdoors, and a less restrictive cell. When Dr. Berland comes to visit – 30 years after his diagnosis doomed Mark – redemption for both men seems possible.

Asking how a low-level criminal can get stuck in prison for so long, the film becomes an exploration of the prison world as seen through the lens of the life, mind, and parole case of Mark DeFriest. The once-doomed prisoner begins to hope of a life on the outside, and for a moment freedom seems possible. As the Parole Commission finally takes up the case, they must weigh Mark DeFriest’s infamous reputation against new testimony in his favor, in deciding whether to give him another chance.

Credits

Found Object Films and Naked Edge Films Present “The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest”

• Directed by Gabriel London
• Produced by Daniel J. Chalfen
• Executive Producers: Jim Butterworth & David Menschel
• Co-Producer: Charlie Sadoff
• Director of Photography: Eric Koretz
• Editor: Nick Clark

NEF-supported film Saving Face has been nominated for an Academy Award® in the Documentary Short Subject category!  Many congratulations to the whole production team!

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET.  The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

Synopsis

Californian hip-hop duo Silibil ‘N’ Brains were going to be massive. What Sony didn’t know was the pair were students from Scotland, with fake American accents and made up identities. The Great Hip Hop Hoax is a feature documentary about truth, lies and the legacy of faking everything in the desperate pursuit of fame.

Credits

MET FILM and GLIMMER FILMS Present a BBC 4 (Storyville) and BBC Scotland Co-Production

• Directed by Jeanie Finlay
• Produced by Al Morrow & Jeanie Finlay
• Producer for Naked Edge Films: Daniel J. Chalfen
• Executive Producer: Jerry Rothwell
• Executive Producer for Naked Edge Films: Jim Butterworth

States follows personal stories in marginalized non-states around the world, from the standoff in Western Sahara to the first Independence Day in Southern Sudan. These and other non-states proliferating throughout the post-colonial world lack the diplomatic expertise necessary to gain recognition in the international political theater. They do not have diplomats because they are not states, and they cannot become states (in part) because they have no diplomats. In response to this, a cadre of state-less diplomats, called The Independent Diplomat, offers its services to those seeking the right to exist.

As the characters navigate the rituals and customs of global politics, sovereignty will be explored as a contingent concept and an abstract idea with vast material consequences for the lives of the world’s least powerful. Through the distinct struggles of multiple non-states, each charting their own path toward recognition, the film looks at how the organization of peoples is the central political problem of our time, fundamental to war, famine, climate change, poverty and human rights.

Credits

• Directed by David Soll
• Produced by Daria Vaisman & Daniel J. Chalfen
• Executive Producer: Jim Butterworth

NEF-supported film Saving Face has been shortlisted for an Academy Award® in the Documentary Short Subject category!  Many congratulations to the whole production team!  Keep your fingers crossed – the official nominations are announced on January 24, 2012.

“Cape Spin: An American Power Struggle,” the feature documentary about the epic battle over the Cape Wind project, America’s first offshore windfarm proposed for the storied waters of Nantucket Sound, will have its World Premiere on September 23rd at the Woodstock Film Festival.

Stated the festival: “Fueled by a satiric ‘revolutionary’ soundtrack, ‘Cape Spin’ is a gripping and entertaining study of eco-capitalism and grassroots democracy.”