By Bruce Shipkowski
TRENTON, NJ (AP) --Bruce Sinofsky, an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker who gained prominence for his works that shined a spotlight on a child murder case in a small Arkansas town, has died. He was 58.
Sinofsky died at his Montclair, New Jersey, home on Saturday, the eve of the Oscars, a spokesman for Hugh M. Moriarty Funeral Home said Sunday.
Sinofsky's longtime collaborator, director Joe Berlinger, said on Twitter that Sinofsky died of complications from diabetes.
Sinofsky and Berlinger drew praise and attention for their "Paradise Lost" trilogy, a series of films about the case of three teenage boys convicted in 1994 of killing three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. The films, released in 1996, 2004 and 2011, raised questions about evidence used to convict the teens, who became known as the West Memphis Three.
The teens each spent 18 years in prison, but in 2011 they were allowed to enter a plea in which they asserted their innocence while acknowledging there was enough evidence to possibly convict them. The initial film in the trilogy, "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills," won an Emmy, while the final film, "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" was nominated for an Academy Award.
Sinofsky and Berlinger also collaborated on the critically acclaimed "Brother's Keeper," which documented the case of an elderly man accused of killing his brother, and on "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster," a documentary of the renowned heavy metal band.
"We lost a valued member of our family … as award winning filmmaker Bruce Sinofsky passed away," the members of Metallica wrote in a statement posted on the band's website. "Smart, funny and dedicated, Bruce was with us almost every day in the early 2000's and was an integral part of helping us to navigate the rough waters during those times. Although not very welcomed at times, he was there through some of the darkest times of Metallica."
Born in Boston, Sinofsky graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University in 1978. He and Berlinger eventually formed their own production company, Creative Thinking International, in 1991.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More