The Final Truth
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Last Wednesday, Rolling Stone and Variety made more news regarding their upcoming Truth Seekers Summit, presented by SHOWTIME on August 2nd. The two brands announced a digital content hub for attendees, featuring the kind of reporting that’s at the heart of the event’s celebration of hard-nosed journalism and documentary and investigative storytelling. Seeking to dig “underneath the surface to reveal what’s hidden, what happened and what might come next,” the content hub will showcase stories on documentaries of all genres by both Rolling Stone and Variety.
One of which is a Variety interview with Sam Pollard, the documentary filmmaker of The League, which tells the story of The Negro Leagues in professional baseball. Also in the hub is a Rolling Stone-reported story on Grady Kurpasi, a 50-year-old Marine who made a huge, and possibly ultimate, sacrifice by joining the Ukrainian National Legion during the Russian invasion, only to vanish without a trace soon after. There will also be a report on the $830,000 sexual harassment allegation settlement against composer Danny Elfman, an extensive deep-dive on the war between Israel and Palestine, and a piece on David Bunevacz, a decathlete-turned-grifter who conned the city of Los Angeles. Additional contributions to the digital space include the story behind the pandemic relief bailout, following pilgrimages to a psychedelic temple, how AVOD—Advertising-based Video on Demand—is helping struggling independent documentarians, and how budgetary constraints affect doc makers.
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Also announced for next week’s Summit were the additions of a keynote conversation with Sacha Jenkins, director of the upcoming Showtime doc, All Up in the Biz, which chronicles the life of hip-hop legend Biz Markie, as well as a sit down with Laverne Cox who recently kicked off the second season of her Shondaland Audio podcast The Laverne Cox Show.
These announcements only build the excitement of the robust Truth Seekers Summit, headlined by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who will be honored with the 2023 Variety and Rolling Stone Truth Seekers Award, followed by a Q&A about her journey. Notable names confirmed also include The Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr; Dawn Porter, who will talk about her Showtime docuseries Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, which focuses on the highest judiciary in America; and Rolling Stone’s Editor-In-Chief, Noah Shachtman who will moderate the “Washington Political Roundtable” headlined by Laura Barrón-López (PBS NewsHour), Mary Bruce (ABC News), Mehdi Hasan (MSNBC, The Mehdi Hasan Show), and Robert Costa (CBS News).
There will also be “The Art of Investigative Storytelling” panel discussing investigative and true crime storytelling, led by Tracy Pattin, co-producer and host of Hollywood and Crime, and including Shannon Evangelista, Executive Producer of the Investigation Discovery docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace; Development & Production Vice President (non-fiction television and documentaries) for Condé Nast Entertainment; and Executive Producer of FX’s The Secrets of Hillsong, Sarah Amos; and Mike Gasparro, Executive Producer of Prime Video’s Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, and Netflix’s Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.
Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst Dr. Orna Guralnik of Showtime’s Couples Therapy will tell her story while leading a conversation. And rounding out the Summit will be a “Documentary Filmmaker Roundtable” featuring documentarians R.J. Cutler (Belushi, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry); Roger Ross Williams, who is the first African-American director to win an Academy Award for his 2010 short documentary, Music by Prudence; Liz Garbus and Dan Cogan, director and Executive Producer of Harry & Meghan, respectively; Sam Pollard, director, Citizen Ashe; and Lisa Cortes, director and producer of Little Richard: I Am Everything.
You can register for the Truth Seekers Summit, presented by SHOWTIME, here. Registration and virtual access are free, including networking chatrooms and on-demand access to panel and keynote conversations for those who can’t physically be in attendance.
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