Joe Berlinger: An American Cinematheque Tribute

ABOUT THE SERIES:

The American Cinematheque is honored to celebrate the films of documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger, whose long and distinguished solo career began with Bruce Sinofsky, together they co-directed six films including BROTHER’S KEEPER and PARADISE LOST: THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS. Of ‘This Is Not A Fiction,’ Joe Berlinger states, “I’m excited to include the work I made with the late Bruce Sinofsky, and it is especially gratifying to screen these archival 35mm prints, giving LA audiences the intended experiences on their original celluloid formats.”

Berlinger is one the preeminent nonfiction filmmakers of his generation and a pioneer in the genre of true crime documentaries with landmark films such as: BROTHER’S KEEPER a Sundance and DGA Award-winner that broke new ground with its narrative storytelling techniques, UNDER AFRICAN SKIES, an Emmy-winning A&E Indie film about Paul Simon’s controversial recording of the seminal Graceland album during South Africa’s Apartheid regime, and SOME KIND OF MONSTER, an intimate portrait of Metallica that redefined the rockumentary genre and won the Independent Spirit Award. His PARADISE LOST trilogy, an HBO feature documentary series that led to the 2011 release of the wrongfully convicted West Memphis 3 after 18 and a half years on Arkansas’ death row, earned Berlinger multiple Emmy and Peabody awards, as well as an Academy Award Nomination.

In 2019, Berlinger broke new ground for himself, igniting a global conversation by becoming the first filmmaker to cover the same subject in scripted and unscripted forms at the same time with CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER: THE TED BUNDY TAPES and EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKING EVIL AND VILE, which starred Zac Efron as Bundy. Both aired on Netflix and attracted enormous audiences around the world.

Berlinger’s body of social justice work expanded with the Netflix docuseries JEFFREY EPSTEIN: FILTHY RICH, a victim-focused look at the sordid life of one of the world’s most vile serial pedophiles. His streak of chart-topping series on the platform continued into 2021 with two seasons of CRIME SCENE, which examined the social and systemic forces that allowed Los Angeles’ Cecil Hotel and 1970’s Times Square to become areas of unabated criminal activity. In November 2022, CRIME SCENE released its third season, centered around the disappearances of young women in and around an area known as the Texas Killing Fields.

Seasons two and three of Berlinger’s CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER franchise premiered in 2022. Taking in-depth looks at the stories of John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer, both seasons made Netflix’s list of top ten TV series, with the Gacy Tapes becoming Berlinger’s fifth straight release to debut as #1 on the platform. The recently-released film GHISLAINE MAXWELL: FILTHY RICH and doc series BERNIE MADOFF: THE MONSTER OF WALL STREET also both debuted in the Netflix top ten as the #1 documentaries on the list upon their release.