CreativeChaos To Adapt Polish Activist Klementyna Suchanow’s Book ‘This Is War: Women, Fundamentalists And The New Middle Ages’

Jesse Whittock
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Social change doc maker CreativeChaos has acquired rights to activist and author Klementyna Suchanow’s non-fiction non-fiction book This is War: Women, Fundamentalists and the New Middle Ages.

New York-based CreativeChaos will look to turn Suchanow’s story into a four-part doc series. Suchanow will executive produce alongside the production company’s co-founders Tom Donahue and Ilan Arboleda, and project co-creator Jan Swietlik. Suchanow will write the script.

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The untitled project will follow Suchanow’s transformation from author to activist in a trial for actions against Poland’s ultra-conservative government. She and two other Polish women were arrested for allegedly organizing protests against new anti-abortion laws during the Covid-19 crisis.

During this period, Suchanow — a co-founder of the grassroots women’s rights movement All-Poland Women’s Strike — began working with an international network of investigative reporters and activists to expose a fundamentalist global efforts to destroy human rights and turn democracies into authoritarian regimes.

During an eight-year mission she has scrutinized a network of traditionalist-conservative organizations throughout Europe, Latin America, Africa and the U.S. Her series will link these groups to Kremlin agents and the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, which were linked to interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

“As the world awaits the elections in 2024, the threats posed by the Kremlin must be made transparent in order for western democracy to be preserved,” said Donahue. “Klementyna’s plight is an urgent reminder that democracy is fragile and isn’t guaranteed,” added Arboleda.

“I am glad I have found courageous partners for making my investigation into a movie to raise awareness about the geopolitical danger hiding behind the anti-abortion and anti-LGBT attacks,” added Suchanow.

For CreativeChaos, the series will be the latest in a line of socially-impactful docs such as Casting By for HBO, This Changes Everything for Starz and Thank You For Your Service for Hulu. Upcoming projects include Paramount+ series Mafia Spies, which follows on from another for that streamer, The Murder of God’s Banker; The Great Divide, which premiered at the Aspen and Denver Film Festivals; and a Canadian adaptation of This Changes Everything with Geena Davis. Other docs have included Dean Martin biog King of Cool with with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way and Danny Strong; cautionary film Bleed Out for HBO Max; and music documentary Los Tigre del Norte at Folsom Prison for Netflix. Donahue and Arboleda launched the production house in 2010.

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