SAG-AFTRA Documentary in the Works

The filmmakers behind outstanding documentaries on casting administrators and the #MeToo motion have set their sights on one other Hollywood topic: the evolution of the performers’ union SAG-AFTRA.

Director-producer Tom Donahue and producer Ilan Arboleda are engaged on a movie in regards to the transformation of the labor group union between 2008, when the Writers Guild of America struck movie and tv studios and the Display screen Actors Guild thought of (however finally didn’t notice) their very own work stoppage, and 2024, within the aftermath of the union’s landmark 118-day actors’ strike. The movie will characterize the fruits of interviews which have spanned a decade performed by the filmmakers, whose challenge will moreover cowl the union’s historical past and its longtime combat to create a center class of actors, they shared with The Hollywood Reporter.

With two earlier initiatives below their CreativeChaos vmg banner, the filmmaking staff has leveraged Hollywood narratives to inform bigger tales about social points in America: 2018’s This Modifications All the things explored gender inequality within the office, whereas 2012’s Casting By tackled a female-dominated discipline that wasn’t as celebrated as different crafts. With this upcoming movie, the filmmakers need to use SAG-AFTRA as a method to debate “the destruction of the center class in America due to the destruction of the unions in America,” says Donahue.

The filmmakers set to work on the topic in 2011, after the Display screen Actors Guild overhauled its management within the wake of a failed strike authorization try by former president Alan Rosenberg. Arboleda and Donahue started filming interviews with Rosenberg and the leaders of the political faction he was related to, Membership First, adopted by interviews with its rival group, Unite for Power. The staff then “captured the merger because it occurred” between the Display screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Tv Artists in 2012, says Arboleda.

The filmmakers put the challenge on the shelf as they pursued different movies, however picked it up once more after the 2023 actors’ strike. They plan on documenting how a number of contract negotiation cycles set the stage for the final word 118-day work stoppage and the impression that president Fran Drescher had on the union. In addition they plan on displaying how the rise of “new media” (streaming leisure) modified charges and residuals for performers. Says Arboleda of resuming the challenge after so a few years, “Time is on our aspect with this, and the period of time it took was truly nearly vital to have the ability to see this long-view lens of the issue.”

Drescher and present nationwide government director Duncan Crabtree-Eire have agreed to sit down for interviews with the filmmakers. Says Drescher in an announcement, “SAG-AFTRA’s ‘Scorching Labor Summer season’ of 2023 is without doubt one of the most vital chapters in leisure business historical past. This can be a vital story that must be instructed.” Provides Crabtree-Eire, “Our combat for our members impressed employees in every single place and is a narrative that deserves to be instructed and amplified within the a long time forward.”

The filmmakers beforehand logged interviews with former labor leaders Ken Howard, Roberta Reardon and Ed Asner in addition to union insiders and observers like Michael Sheen, Amy Aquino, David White, Rebecca Damon, Matthew Kimbrough, David Prindle and former Hollywood Reporter journalist Jonathan Handel, amongst others. The filmmakers are presently aiming to complete the movie in mid-2026.