I’m Not Your Negro, The Invisible War, Minding the Gap, The Mole Agent, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail: These are just a sampling of the iconic films that ITVS has co-produced with independent filmmakers for decades, more than 900 films over the last 35 years.
But the future of our public-private partnership is at risk with the short-sighted and destructive July 18 vote to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) by Congress. ITVS, which is funded by CPB, will continue to receive federal funding until Sept. 30, 2025 and then nearly $9 million annually will no longer go to independent documentary filmmakers.
It’s perhaps ironic that ITVS was founded in 1989 through a visionary and bipartisan act of Congress that instructed CPB to fund an independent television service that would serve the American public with innovative and diverse content made by independent producers. Since then, ITVS’ mission — done in partnership with PBS, series like American Masters and POV, and the National Multicultural Alliance — has held firm to help ensure that every American’s story, particularly those that are underrepresented, is seen through public media. And today, PBS is the foremost distributor of independent documentary, featuring stories and storytellers that don’t meet the interests or priorities of commercial media like the big studios and streamers.
Over the last five years, ITVS has directly invested $44 million of CPB funds in documentaries. In the same period, ITVS brought 126 films to public media viewers for free, or close to free, at a taxpayer cost of about five cents per American. What does that five cents buy?
Consider the more than 70 films with a disability angle that ITVS has co-produced in its lifetime and the hundreds of in-person community events it supports each year. Or, the more than 60 people on average that Oscar-nominated doc producer Beth Levison hired on the eight ITVS/public media films that she’s produced. Or, the Matter of Mind trilogy that conveys the day-to-day realities of families impacted by ALS, Parkinson’s Disease, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Or, the filmmakers like Loira Poitras, Roger Ross Williams, Dawn Porter, and Nanfu Wang whose early films were co-produced by ITVS before they moved on to prolific commercial careers.
One of the reasons that I chose to lead ITVS is because I know firsthand what makes it a cornerstone of the documentary ecosystem: I got my start in documentary in the early aughts when ITVS funded the Academy Award-nominated The Weather Underground, which I produced and broadcast on the second season of Independent Lens.
While ITVS can and will continue to shepherd through more than 40 feature films that are currently in production and present an incredible slate of documentaries on Independent Lens next season, our open calls and development funds that infuse production money into the field have been put on hold. If we can’t replace lost funds, the number of trusted original American independent films will diminish from the domestic and international stage, from film festivals to awards shows.
At the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, six ITVS films premiered in the line-up. In the last five years alone, ITVS supported 50 Academy-qualifying films. One can guess that the number of Academy-qualifying films will go down, and film festival curation may become increasingly commercial. In all likelihood, urgent, groundbreaking, artful, and impactful documentaries might not be made at all, let alone distributed to all Americans. In this new reality, the notion of independence itself hangs in the balance.
When it comes to documentaries, commercial producers have already contracted. A24 is the most recent entertainment company to stop producing documentaries, while Participant Media permanently shut its doors despite huge successes like Citizenfour and An Inconvenient Truth.
Congress’ vote will not only exacerbate the growing hardships in the industry, it will also endanger the cornerstone of storytelling that exists for the public good. ITVS films are where viewers in underserved parts of the country see themselves represented (If Dreams Were Lightning) and where creating common ground and deepening viewers’ understanding of a complex and varied nation are the ultimate goals. They elevate pressing issues by showing how they impact everyday people (Matter of Mind: My Alzheimer’s). And they educate and inspire, giving Americans everywhere access to stories in all 50 states to learn about literature (Alice Walker: Beauty and Truth),to travel to remote reservations in Wyoming (Folk Frontera), and to experience culture, beauty, and joy through documentary.
The rescission of CPB funds will hit producers outside of major cities the hardest, where funding opportunities are far more limited. This impact will be felt well beyond public media, touching every aspect of the documentary industry. Americans will have less access to compelling, rigorous content produced for the public good as filmmakers will change careers, investors will divest, and fewer films will be produced.
The stories ITVS produces, those rooted in social justice, lived experience, and structural inequality, are being sidelined at larger media companies. And what’s at stake isn’t just coverage, but care; the kind of long-form, ethically grounded storytelling that invites the public not only to watch, but also to understand the world around them.
We need more than breaking news today; we need stories that stick.
In the current media landscape, these federal funds are not easily replaced, and a profitable distribution model for public service films has yet to emerge in the nearly six decades PBS has been around. But the need to tell America’s stories has never been greater.
Long-form, big-budget films are not viable for every storyteller, and audiences must be met where they are. ITVS bridges those gaps, whether they are financial or programming. At ITVS, we recognize that, with Congress’s decision to defund public media, a lot will and must change, and we intend to be part of that evolution.
We may have lost our funding, but unlike Congress, we have not lost our way.
Carrie Lozano is the President & CEO of ITVS, the publicly funded documentary company behind hundreds of titles from Oscar nominees to festival favorites.
Update July 31, 1pm A previous version of this story mentioned CNN eliminated its documentary unit. In 2022, CNN revived its arm that produces documentaries.
M3GAN 2.0 star Violet McGraw has found her next horror project. She will unveil the short film The Littles this fall in New York Comic Con, and The Hollywood Reporter has the first teaser.
Janel Parrish (Pretty Little Liars) and Dominic Sherwood (Shadowhunters) also star in the film, which kicks off when 11-year-old Juliet (McGraw) stubs her toe on a loose floorboard. Per the logline, “she unwittingly sets off a series of mysterious events. A faint noise and an unusual glow seeping through the cracks capture her curiosity. But as she investigates, Juliet finds herself pulled into a chilling, otherworldly encounter – one that will unravel the secrets of her home and alter her reality forever.”
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The Littles hails from filmmaker Andrew Duplessie, the author of the novel Too Scared to Sleep who has worked as a producer on American Horror Stories. It features a mix of live-action and stop-motion animation from Anthony Scott, one of the animators on Tim Burton’s a Nightmare Before Christmas.
Music on The Littles is by Cornel Wilczek (Talk to Me), VFX by Edward Douglas (The Monkey), sound foley from Eugenio Battaglia (Longlegs), puppeteering by Katy Struz (Beetlejuice), and is editing by Justin Li (Heretic).
Superman has leapt past the $300 million mark at the domestic box office in less than three weeks in a major milestone for James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios.
The pic crossed the $300 million mark early Thursday thanks to East Coast matinées after finishing Wednesday with a domestic tally of $299.7 million. It’s the first DC pic release to achieve the milestone since The Batman in 2022. That pic topped out at $369.2 million by the end of its run, not adjusted for inflation.
In a second milestone, Superman has already passed up the entire lifetime of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, which topped out at $291 million domestically in 2013, not adjusted. That film was the last solo Superman movie; in 2016, Snyder’s sequel Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice grossed $330.4 million domestically. (The latest Superman pic will soon overtake Dawn of Justice as well.) Globally, Superman has already cleared $500 million.
Other accomplishments: Superman, which is heading into its third weekend, is only the fourth title of 2025 so far to cross $300 million in North America behind Warners’ A Minecraft Movie and Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch — those two films have since climbed north of $420 million — and Universal‘s Jurassic World Rebirth, which has earned nearly $310 million domestically to date.
Gunn’s film faces plenty of competition, between a glut of male-skewing titles such as Rebirth, F1: The Movie and, most notably, Marvel Studios‘ The Fantastic Four: First Step, which opened last weekend to a promising $117.6 million domestically and $99 million internationally for a global bow of $216.6 million.
Both superhero films have been embraced to almost the same degree by reviewers and moviegoers alike. Each film was bestowed with an A CinemaScore by consumers, although Fantastic Four does boast a slightly higher critics and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, or 86 percent and 93 percent, respectively, versus 83 percent and 91 percent, respectively for Superman.
Gunn is in the unique position of both directing Superman and running DC Studios alongside Safran. The big-budget tentpole is their inaugural release as they go about reinvigorating the DC brand at the behest of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav after such recent misses including The Flash, Aquamanand The Lost Kingdom, Blue Beetle and Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic in in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios
Just as Superman is a boost for DC, the early performance of Fantastic Four is a seminal win for the Kevin Feige-run Marvel Studios, which has likewise been plagued by a string of misses, excluding 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine. Not to mention that Fantastic Four was a troubled film franchise when Feige and his team inherited the property as a result of the Disney-20th Century Fox merger in 2019.
Through Wednesday, Fantastic Four had earned $151 million domestically and $280 million globally, similar to where Superman ranked at the same point in its run (that’s impressive, considering the Fantastic Four are not marquee comic book heroes like Superman).
Mister Fantastic and his family are expected to stay atop the domestic box office chart this weekend with an estimated haul of $45 million. And if all goes as planned, the pic will finish the weekend with a worldwide tally well north of $300 million as it heads for the $200 million milestone domestically.
Pamela Anderson plays Beth Davenport and Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr. in ‘The Naked Gun’ from Paramount Pictures.
Paramount Pictures
The wild card of the Aug. 1-3 weekend is Paramount’s well-reviewed The Naked Gun revival, produced by Seth MacFarlane and starring Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., who is trying to follow in the footsteps of his father, Frank Drebin, the infamous comedic character played by Leslie Nielsen in the original films.
Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu and Danny Huston also star. The fourth film in the franchise, directed by Akiva Schaffer from a script he wrote with Dan Gregor and Doug Maudm, opens more than three decades after the last movie, 1994’s Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.
As fate would have it, Naked Gun is the last film that will be released by the current iteration of Paramount Pictures before David Ellison’s Skydance officially closes its $8 billion merger with Paramount Global in the early part of August. Affable movie studio chief Brian Robbins — who has also been serving as one of the three (temporary) CEOs of Paramount Global since sale talks began last year — intends to step down once Ellison takes control of the entertainment conglomerate and installs his executive team both in the C-suite and at Paramount Pictures, according to sources.
The smart and sassy marketing campaign for Naked Gun has gone all out in promoting the film’s hilarious tone, as well as the passing of the comedic torch to Neeson. Tracking services show the movie opening in the $15 million range domestically, while others think it could come in closer to $20 million or even higher.
Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s loving homage to Jean Luc-Godard’s 1960 film Breathless and the French New Wave, which received a 10-minute standing ovation and rave reviews following its world premiere at May’s Cannes Film Festival, will be released in American theaters on Oct. 31 and play on big screens for two weeks before dropping on Netflix on Nov. 14, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
When Netflix acquired Nouvelle Vague’s U.S. rights shortly after Cannes, some reacted with surprise and dismay that a movie shot on film and about cinema would end up with a streamer. But the company is planning a robust theatrical release that will include not only screens in New York (where, appropriately enough, it owns the historic Paris Theater) and LA, but in all of the top 10 U.S. markets.
Additionally, THR can report that the largely French-language film will be pushed across all categories. In my humble opinion, it could well end up a finalist for best picture, a category in which non-English-language films have landed many noms in recent years (including France’s Netflix-distributed Emilia Pérez earlier this year); best director (Linklater is a beloved auteur, but his only nom in the category came for 2014’s Boyhood); and screenplay (it has yet to be determined if Holly Gent, Laetitia Masson and Vincent Palmo Jr.’s script will be classified as adapted or original).
Meanwhile, Zoey Deutch, who is luminous as Breathless star Jean Seberg, will be campaigned in the supporting actress race, while French actors Guillaume Marbeck and Aubry Dullin, who eerily resemble the characters they play — Godard and Breathless breakout Jean-Paul Belmondo — will be pushed for lead actor and supporting actor, respectively.
Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg in Nouvelle Vague
Courtesy of Netflix
The big question moving forward is whether or not France will select Nouvelle Vague as its entry for the best international feature Oscar competition. Each country’s submission is determined by a selection committee comprised mostly of people associated with that country’s film industry, who must attest that “creative control of the film was largely in the hands of citizens, residents, or individuals with refugee or asylum status in the submitting country.”
The key word is “largely.” In the case of Nouvelle Vague, Linklater and Deutch are American, but almost everyone else who worked in front of or behind the camera is French, including the film’s two producers, Laurent Pétin and Michèle Pétin, so the film is certainly eligible. Plus, its financing came from France; it was shot in France; it premiered in France; and it is an out-and-out celebration of French cinema.
Some selection committees are hesitant to submit a film directed by someone born outside of their country’s borders, feeling that doing so would be a missed opportunity to highlight homegrown talent. But other countries enter whichever film they think offers them the best shot at actually landing an Oscar nom. For instance, Japan put forward — and landed a nom in 2024 for — German filmmaker Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days. Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland has had films entered by Poland, West Germany and the Czech Republic. And twice in the last decade, France itself submitted films by non-French filmmakers: Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven’s Elle in 2016 and Italian filmmaker Filippo Neneghetti’s Two of Us in 2020.
France, however, has had bruising experiences with its last two submissions. In 2024, it entered The Taste of Things instead of Anatomy of a Fall; ultimately, the former was not nominated, while the latter went on to five other noms (best picture, director, original screenplay, actress and film editing), suggesting that it almost certainly would have been nominated for — and might have even won — best international feature had it been entered. And in 2025, its submission Emilia Pérez looked certain to bring the country its first win in the category since Indochine prevailed in 1993, but its prospects imploded shortly before the final round of voting, thanks to the exposure of problematic social media posts from its principal star, and it ultimately lost.
Again, Emilia Pérez was handled by Netflix, so you can be sure that the company is hungry for another chance to get a French film across the finish line in the best international feature Oscar race. (In just the last six years, it backed two films from other countries that went on to win that prize, Mexico’s Roma in 2019 and Germany’s All Quiet on the Western Front in 2023.) But the decision about whether or not it will have that opportunity is ultimately France’s, or at least the French selection committee’s.
Given that no other French film has emerged this year, so far, that would appear to offer the nation a better shot than Nouvelle Vague at landing a best international feature Oscar nom, and possibly even a win, it will be very interesting to see how France’s selection committee plays it cards.
Guillaume Marbeck as Jean Luc Godard in Nouvelle Vague
Add Jeremy Strong to the list of bold-faced names circling Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network Part II.
Sorkin, who won an Academy Award for penning the 2010 original movie, wrote the script and will direct the Sony drama that is inspired by a series of articles Jeff Horwitz wrote for The Wall Street Journal known as The Facebook Files.
Strong joins Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White as the select few master thespians who have been meeting with Sorkin as he packages a cast and budget that he will then show to the studio for final approval.
Insiders stress that no offers have been made and that the film is still in the development process, although the project is a top priority for the studio and moving fast.
While the acclaimed 2010 drama focused on the making of the Facebook, now known as Meta, the story of the new feature will focus on how the company’s own reporting pointed to the negative effects the company’s social media was having on teens and kids, how it knew misinformation was proliferating and causing violence, and how it contributed to the coup attempt of Jan. 6, 2021.
If offers and, indeed, dealmaking closes, Madison would play Frances Haugen, the data engineer-turned-whistleblower who went to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Wall Street Journal with her information. White would play the former WSJ tech reporter who leads the breaking of the Facebook files.
The big question is who could Strong be playing. Sources say there is a role for a WSJ editor, but the other option is a doozy: Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
One source said that Jesse Eisenberg, who earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Zuckerberg has passed, at least at this time, on reprising the part. Whether that is a negotiating tactic or not remains to be seen.
Sony had no comment.
Sorkin, Todd Black, Peter Rice, and Stuart Besser are producing the sequel.
One source said the project would have shades of The Insider, the 1999 movie from Michael Mann that told of a whistleblower blowing the lid off the tobacco industry by talking to 60 Minutes. Another source offered comparisons to Spotlight, the 2015 movie that centered on reporters from the Boston Globe investigating child sex abuse by the city’s Roman Catholic clergy.
A winner of Tony and Emmy awards, Strong may be best known for his work on HBO’s critical darling Succession, where he played the eldest son of Logan Roy, the patriarch of the Murdoch-like family played by Brian Cox. He previously worked with Sorkin on Netflix’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 in which he played anti-war leader Jerry Rubin.
Last year, Strong portrayed as Donald Trump mentor Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, a performance that netted him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.
Horror meister Guillermo del Toro and two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster are set to receive TIFF Tribute Awards at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival.
Oscar winner del Toro will receive the TIFF Ebert Director Award, while fellow Oscar winner Foster will receive the TIFF Share Her Journey Groundbreaker Award on Sept. 7 during the annual festival fundraiser.
Del Toro is bringing his latest movie, Frankenstein, to Toronto for a North American premiere after a bow in Venice and ahead of a November global release on Netflix. Foster will return to Toronto with a star turn in Rebecca Zlotowski’s Private Life, a French psychological mystery that had a world premiere in Cannes.
Fest organizers also announced Thursday that Japanese writer, director and producer Hikari will pick up the TIFF Emerging Talent Award, while veteran South Korean actor and Squid Game star Lee Byung-hun will receive a TIFF Special Tribute Award.
Hikari is bringing Rental Family, which stars Brendan Fraser as an American actor in Japan, to Toronto for a world premiere. Fraser will also serve as TIFF honorary chair for the 2025 Tribute Awards. And Toronto has booked a North American premiere for Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, in which Byung-un stars.
Proceeds from the Tribute Awards go towards the festival’s year-round talent development programs that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion in filmmaking. The gala dinner fundraiser for the fest’s philanthropic efforts is also an occasional harbinger of Oscar recognition and is held each year at Fairmont Royal York Hotel.
TIFF Tribute Award honorees tend to have films in Toronto’s official lineup. More Tribute Award honorees will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
The 50th Toronto Film Festival is set to run Sept. 4 to 14.
