Sphinx Productions, EPIX, the multiplatform premium entertainment
service, Astral's The Movie Network and Submarine Entertainment
announced today they will partner on the production of ALTMAN, a
feature length documentary about the life and art of American film
director Robert Altman (1925 - 2006) to be directed & produced by
filmmaker Ron Mann. The deals were negotiated by David Koh, Dan Braun &
Josh Braun and Stanley Buchthal on behalf of Submarine Entertainment &
Dakota Group Ltd. along with Ron Mann of Sphinx Productions. From M*A*S*H,
McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, Gosford
Park, to A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman's
naturalistic and prophetic movies reinterpreted every conceivable genre
to chronicle a post-war America in transition. Sphinx and EPIX have
partnered on the production with Submarine Entertainment to handle
Worldwide Sales.
Robert Altman’s extraordinary life — from growing up in Depression-era
Kansas City to his receiving in 2006 an honorary Oscar “in recognition
of a career that has repeatedly reinvented the art form and inspired
filmmakers and audiences alike” — will be woven together from interviews
with key actors, his collaborators and family members, along with
archival footage of Altman himself and clips from his groundbreaking
films.
ALTMAN will be produced and directed by award-winning documentary
filmmaker Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential,
Twist, Go Further). Consultants to the production include Kathryn
Reed Altman, widow of Robert Altman and Matthew Seig, film producer who
worked closely with Robert Altman.
"I am pleased and honoured to have acclaimed documentarian Ron Mann
shepherd this long overdue project," said Kathryn Reed Altman. "Ron's
prodigious, challenging, engaging, and one-of-a-kind films revealed him
to be the perfect choice to examine and celebrate Bob's monumental life
and art. I have no doubt Bob would be happy and may well be smiling
right now."
Filmmaker Ron Mann stated, "Robert Altman reinvented not only what a
movie might be, but how we might view ourselves.