The Producers Guild of America has announced A Spotlight on Indie Producers and the Films that Inspired Them, a new quarterly speaking event as part of the Guild’s existing “Producers on Producing” series. A Spotlight on Indie Producers and the Films that Inspired Them will feature conversations between independent producers and the producers who made the films that influenced their careers. The first conversation will premiere on Tuesday, November 17 with prolific producer Stacey Sher, film/TV producer and founder of Shiny Penny Productions and one of the producers of the iconic film Erin Brockovich, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Sher is also a producer on the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic Respect starring Jennifer Hudson and directed by Liesl Tommy, which will be released next summer. Selecting Erin Brockovich and leading the conversation with Sher is indie producer and partner at Killer Films, David Hinojosa.
“It feels so appropriate to revisit a movie as impeccably made and socially relevant as Erin Brockovich. That such sophisticated filmmaking could exist at that commercial scale inspired me to understand and pursue producing,” said Hinojosa. A Spotlight on Indie Producers and the Films that Inspired Them is curated by the PGA’s Independent Film Producers Task Force, a group of members dedicated to protecting and advancing the interests of independent film producers. Click here to register for the event.
Launched in 2018 “Producers on Producing” is the Producers Guild of America’s series celebrating the unique and critical role that film and television producers play in taking projects from script to screen. Through lively discussions between producers spanning a project’s development, production and distribution, the series provides audiences with an insider’s perspective on how some of our most iconic productions came together and eventually cemented their place in cinematic history. Streamed live during this period of remote programming, “Producers on Producing” is a must attend event for producers, film students and interested public audiences.
Erin Brockovich was produced by Sher and her then Jersey Films partners Danny DeVito and Michael Shamberg. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Susannah Grant, Erin Brockovich starred Julia Roberts in her Academy Award-winning Best Actress performance as the title character. 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the film’s theatrical release by Universal Pictures. In addition to Erin Brockovich, Sher has produced more than two dozen major motion pictures amassing nearly $2.2 billion at the global box office. She is a two-time Academy Award nominee and an Emmy Award nominee. Her many critically acclaimed production credits include Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight; Out Of Sight, Contagion, Garden State, Reality Bites and Get Shorty.
While at Killer Films, Hinojosa has developed Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer’s Academy Award-winning Still Alice and Todd Haynes’ Carol which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and received six Academy Award nominations. Most recently, Hinojosa produced Josephine Decker’s Shirley, Janicza Bravo’s Zola, Mona Fastvold’s The World To Come, and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults โ two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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