Nonfiction Unlimited, the commercial production company that works with accomplished documentary filmmakers, has signed Abby Fuller, who directs for the award-winning Netflix documentary series Chef’s Table created by David Gelb, another Nonfiction roster director. Fuller is the youngest filmmaker and the only woman on the Netflix Original series. The documentary director got her start producing the Emmy Award-winning series True Life for MTV and since then has directed, produced and edited documentaries for: Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment, Sundance Channel, MTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, Netflix and National Geographic.
“I’m happy that David introduced her to us,” said Loretta Jeneski, executive producer at Nonfiction Unlimited. “She’s insightful and smart and knows how to weave a beautiful story; for example, her Chef’s Table episode about Ana Ros, the Slovenian chef who’s spent 16 years revolutionizing her country’s food. Abby sets the table for Ana in such a way that you not only smell and taste what the great chef is cooking, but you feel and embrace her down-to-earth personality. Abby brings a fresh face and perspective to Nonfiction and we love that.”
Fuller’s feature documentary Do You Dream In Color? examines the injustices in the education system suffered by blind students. It has won awards at festivals across the nation and was screened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Fuller is currently directing a documentary featuring heroic woman athletes from around the globe. In June 2017 these women will climb Mount Kilimanjaro to set the world record for the highest altitude soccer match ever played in an effort to inspire unprecedented awareness in the fight for gender equality.
With Fuller’s addition, half of the directors at Nonfiction Unlimited are now women. The roster includes Barbara Kopple, Rory Kennedy, Tracy Droz Tragos, Chai Vasarhelyi and Jessica Yu. The 22-year old company is also woman-founded and owned.
“It’s not that I set out to hire women specifically,” said Jeneski. “I was just looking for great directors, and what do you know? Half of them turned out to be women. Interesting what can happen when you aren’t wearing blinders. Great talent is great talent.”
Writers of “Conclave,” “Say Nothing” Win Scripter Awards
The authors and screenwriters behind the film โConclaveโ and the series โSay Nothingโ won the 37th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards during a black-tie ceremony at USCโs Town and Gown ballroom on Saturday evening (2/22).
The Scripter Awards recognize the yearโs most accomplished adaptations of the written word for the screen, including both feature-length films and episodic series.
Novelist Robert Harris and screenwriter Peter Straughan took home the award for โConclave.โ
In accepting the award, Straughan said, โAdaptation is a really strange process, youโre very much the servant of two masters. In a way itโs an act of betrayal of one master for the other.โ He joked that โYou start off with a book that you love, you read it again and again, and then you end up throwing it over your shoulder,โ crediting author Robert Harris for being โso kind, so generous, so open throughout.โ
In the episodic series category, Joshua Zetumer and Patrick Radden Keefe won for the episode โThe People in the Dirtโ from the limited series โSay Nothing,โ which Zetumer adapted from Keefeโs nonfiction book about the Troubles in Ireland.
Zetumer referenced this yearโs extraordinary group of Scripter finalists, saying โprojects like these reminded me of why I wanted to become a writer when I was sitting in USCโs Leavey Library dreaming of becoming a screenwriter. If you fell in love with movies, or fell in love with TV, chances are you fell in love with something dangerous.โ
Special guest for the evening, actress and producer Jennifer Beals, shared her thoughts on the impact of libraries. โIf ever you are at a loss wondering if there is good in the world,โ she said, โyou have only to go to a... Read More