Former Pres. Obama is going to bat for a baseball-themed documentary. The ex-POTUS sent an Instagram message to his 36 million+ followers on the social media platform, urging them to check out The Turnaround, a short film in Oscar contention directed by Kyle Thrash and co-directed and produced…

Mary McGee, the motor racing legend profiled in the Oscar-contending documentary Motorcyle Mary, died Wednesday in Gardnerville, Nev., according to her family. She was 87. "Mary embodied resilience, grace, and optimism," McGee's family wrote on Facebook. The post did not disclose a cause of…

Michelle and Barack Obama are teaming up with double Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot and Kyle Thrash for The Turnaround, a short documentary that will make its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. The film tells a remarkable story from the sporting world that suggests Philadelphia…

Longtime L'Oreal ambassador Andie MacDowell says that she feels comfortable saying "Because I'm worth it" for the first time in nearly 40 years, after viewing a film about the woman who first came up with the enduring slogan. MacDowell, speaking at Cannes Lions Festival, said: "I have said this…

EXCLUSIVE: ESPN Films has acquired the documentary Motorcycle Mary ahead of its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival on June 7. The 22-minute film by Haley Watson – her directorial debut – tells the story of Mary McGee, known as Motorcycle Mary, a legend in the world of motorsports who became…

Filmmaker Ben Proudfoot is set to premiere his latest documentary short, just a few months after winning the second Academy Award of his career. The Final Copy of Ilon Specht, produced by Traverse32 and Breakwater Studios, tells the story of "the unsung advertising genius who coined L’Oréal’s…

For the second time in the last three years, the Oscar for Best Documentary Short has been claimed by Ben Proudfoot. The Canadian-born filmmaker and his fellow director Kris Bowers won the Academy Award tonight for their film The Last Repair Shop, the story of craftspeople in Los Angeles who keep…

The LAUSD Education Foundation is embarking on a major capital campaign to benefit the musical instrument repair operation documented in the Oscar-nominated film The Last Repair Shop. The $15 million campaign, revealed at an event at Hollywood High School Tuesday night, will invest in the…

EXCLUSIVE: Searchlight Pictures and the L.A. Times Studios have released a new trailer for their Oscar-nominated short documentary The Last Repair Shop, days before the film debuts in hundreds of theaters. Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers directed the film about the handful of repair people who…

At the age of 84, documentary legend Sheila Nevins today earned the first Oscar nomination of her career. Nevins was nominated in the Documentary Short category this morning for her directorial debut, The ABCs of Book Banning, from MTV Documentary Films. She has won more than 30 Emmy Awards…

In a hidden corner of Los Angeles, a small group of people toil in obscurity, tending to broken pegs, stuck valves, clogged tubing and damaged keys – all to restore musical instruments to perfect working order for the city's public-school students.  These dedicated professionals are used to…

EXCLUSIVE: End credit sequences for documentaries usually consist of the standard scroll of names, titles, duties, etc. But the sequence that wraps The Last Repair Shop – the Oscar-contending short directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers — is pure magic, a musical summation of everything the film…