News

In 2019, Ina and David Steiner became the victims of a cyberstalking campaign. There were threats, odd deliveries to their home – from a bloody pig mask to late-night pizza – and terrifying messages. Soon, they found it wasn’t some individual, unhappy with their reporting on EcommerceBytes website. It was eBay.

“It’s a very crazy story,” director Jenny Carchman told Variety.

In “Whatever It Takes: Inside the eBay Scandal,” she exposes the bad side of the company whose slogan claimed that “people are basically good.”

“When I spoke to the Steiners, the anxiety of not knowing [who’s behind the harassment] and not being able to stop it was the most frustrating thing. They really, really suffered psychologically, to the point where they wouldn’t leave the house,” she said.

“Sometimes David would drive to the store and Ina would be lying down in the backseat, because she didn’t know who was watching them. I...

For over two decades, Ina Steiner advised online sellers on her blog, EcommerceBytes. In the summer of 2019, threatening messages on social media marked the start of a disturbing new phase in her life. Deliveries arrived containing an iconic horror mask and insects, while David received help for coping with loss. As events escalated, their small town world became gripped by unseen forces pulling frightening strings.

Directed by Jenny Carchman, Whatever It Takes unravels this cyber mystery with care and intrigue. Piece by piece, connections emerge between Steiner’s work covering e-commerce and shadowy movements within a corporation. What begins with anonymous tweets branches into an intricate saga with shifting characters and motivations. Throughout, we feel steadied by Carchman’s guiding hand, led towards revelations while left guessing until the final, shocking expose.

This brief overview only hints at the true depths awaiting within Whatever It Takes. With a story this twisted,...

Screen Rant interviewed the filmmakers behind the new documentary Whatever It Takes Director Jenny Carchman & producer Allyson Luchak expertly condense a unique story into essential & gripping parts. The documentary shocking corporate culture & personalities involved in eBay scandal, highlighting dark side of online world.

Whatever It Takes is a new documentary that premiered at South by Southwest 2024 and tells a story of harassment that could only have taken place in the digital age. It explores a 2019 scandal in which employees of eBay stalked and harassed Ina Steiner and her husband David for running EcommerceBytes.com, a financial blog that had been critical of the site. The documentary also delves into the shocking corporate culture of eBay at the time and highlights the personalities of key players involved in the event.

Setting Whatever It Takes apart from other documentaries is the way the film has been structured, providing audiences with a blend...

The first clip for the SXSW Film Festival documentary, “Whatever It Takes,” about two journalists targeted in a Silicon Valley Scandal, has been released in conjunction with its festival screenings.

The clip shows journalists Ina and David Steiner — who are the targets of an online harassment campaign, subjected to cyberstalking threats and bizarre deliveries — receiving what appears to be a pig fetus, the first of many abnormal packages.

“We got your order for the ‘wet specimen,'” a phone operator says in the clip. When the Steiners follow up to ask what exactly a “wet specimen” is, Ina turns to the audience to reveal that the operator told her that it’s a “pig fetus.”

“So we asked her, what’s a ‘wet specimen,’ and she goes, ‘Oh, it’s a pig fetus.'”

The clips also show the Steiners being on the receiving end of many online expletive-laced messages.

Undeniable, a new documentary label from Fremantle, has partnered with Big Pond Films and Concordia Studio on true crime doc Whatever It Takes, which tells the true story of Ina and David Steiner, two journalists targeted in one of the most extraordinary and bizarre scandals in Silicon Valley. Helmed by Jenny Carchman, the Emmy nominee behind Showtime’s The Fourth Estate, the film is slated to premiere in the Documentary Spotlight section of SXSW later this year.

Whatever It Takes picks up in the summer of 2019, as a middle-aged couple is subjected to cyberstalking threats and bizarre deliveries including a bloody pig mask and funeral wreath. As the harassment intensifies, the police and FBI close in on a Silicon Valley giant and some very unlikely suspects. The film tells the extraordinary story of eBay, a Fortune 500 company founded on the principle that “people are basically good,” and how members of...

March fest announces multiple competition sections.

SXSW announced on Wednesday that Netflix series 3 Body Problem from Game Of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss is the festival’s opening night TV premiere, while Universal’s action comedy The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is the centrepiece screening.

Top brass at the Austin, Texas, festival (March 8-16) also unveiled feature and short competitions and Midnighters and Global sections, as well as select titles from other categories and Xr Experience for the 31st edition.

Headliners selections include world premieres of Pamela Adlon’s Babes starring Ilana Glazer,...

In Showtime’s new docuseries “Gossip” a recording of Donald Trump pretending to be his own publicist is played; a story about Tom Cruise’s front teeth falling out during a dinner with former New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allen is told; and 91-year-old Cindy Adams defends her past and present friendships with Roy Cohn, Imelda Marcos, John Gotti, Gen. Manuel Noriega and, of course, Trump.

But beyond salacious Page Six stories and Adams’ questionable friendships, “Gossip,” is at its core an examination of power and how Rupert Murdoch fundamentally shifted the foundation of the news industry via the New York Post and its tabloid journalism.

The four-part docuseries explores how New York City’s most prominent gossip columnists – Liz Smith, George Rush, Richard Johnson and Adams – built their careers and used their power.

“Gossip” director-producer Jenny Carchman is no stranger to covering media outlets, having received an Emmy nomination...

Anyone who reads her work knows that Cindy Adams can’t be still.

In normal times, the columnist — now 91 and still publishing multiple times a week — goes out to do reporting for her column in the New York Post. The column is a strange mélange of quotes from celebrities, conservative political analysis, invective against foes real and perceived, anecdotes about the peculiarity of life in Manhattan, and aphorisms and puns. About the only consistent thing about her column day to day is the tone — choppy, clipped, and utterly direct, treating the reader as someone intimate enough with Adams that she can speak frankly, and in shorthand.

It’s fitting that “Gossip,” Showtime’s new documentary series on which Adams is the central figure, takes a similar attitude to its subjects. “Gossip” is, at once, a personal and professional biography of Adams, a look at the rise of Rupert Murdoch as a media mogul stateside,...

The Cut's voyeuristic Sex Diaries series is set to bare even more.

HBO is developing a verité docuseries based on the sex and dating column with The Fourth Estate producer and co-director Jenny Carchman set to direct. 

Vox Media Studios is producing. This would be the first New York Magazine project to hail from the production shingle since Vox Media acquired the publication in September. 

New York began publishing Sex Diaries on its Daily Intelligencer blog in 2007, selecting one person each week to anonymously recount a seven-day diary of his or her sex life. It drew a devoted following ...

In today’s TV news roundup, Quibi has released the names of several celebrity guests slated to appear in Jennifer Lopez’s new series “Thanks A Million,” and Showtime has teamed up with Imagine Documentaries to produce “Gossip Starring Cindy Adams.”

Castings

Quibi has announced several of the participants for its Jennifer Lopez-produced series “Thanks A Million.” The show will see celebrities kickstart a donation chain by gifting $100,000 to an unsuspecting individual who has had a positive impact on their life. Lopez, Kristen Bell, Karlie Kloss, Tracy Morgan, Aaron Rodgers and Alex Rodriguez are all set to lead individual episodes.

Developments

Showtime has partnered with Imagine Documentaries for a limited series examining the four-decade career of stalwart New York Post columnist Cindy Adams. “Gossip Starring Cindy Adams” will examine the power and influence that Adams wielded from her perch at Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid. It will also delve into some...

Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Documentaries will chart the rise of New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams in a docuseries for CBS’s Showtime Networks.

Jenny Carchman, who made Showtime’s Emmy-nominated New York Times documentary The Fourth Estate, will direct the Adams series, working closely with the New York Post, where the columnist still writes for Page Six.

Gossip Starring Cindy Adams will premiere in 2021 and chronicle Adams’ four-decade career as the “reigning queen of gossip,” the notorious characters that have emerged from her writing, and her journalistic colleagues.

Grazer and Howard are executive producers alongside Imagine Entertainment’s Michael Rosenberg, Imagine Documentaries’ Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes, and Troy Searer from New York Post Entertainment. Carchman is directing and producing.

Gossip Starring Cindy Adams was announced by Vinnie Malhotra, executive vice president of nonfiction programming for Showtime Networks.

The BBC/BBC America show earned 14 nods, including for its leads Jodie Comer and Sandrah Oh, and best drama.

Killing Eve leads the nominations for this year’s Bafta Television and Bafta Craft awards.

The BBC/BBC America show earned 14 nods, including for its leads Jodie Comer and Sandrah Oh in the best actress category, and best drama.

Just behind was A Very English Scandal starring Hugh grant and Ben Whishaw, with 12 nominations including best mini-series.

Patrick Melrose scooped six nominations, with Bodyguard and The Little Drummer Girl earning five.

Netflix’s Bandersnatch episode of Black Mirror picked up three nominations including best single drama.

Disney/Marvel’s blockbuster Black Panther and NBC’s This Is Us are among the nominees for the 44th annual Humanitas Prize. Winners will be revealed in a ceremony February 8 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The prize was created to honor film and TV writers whose work inspires compassion, hope, and understanding in the human family.

The February ceremony will also also honor Marta Kauffman with The Kieser Award and Kenya Barris

with the Voice For Change Award.

Here are the nominees:

60-minute Drama

God Friended Me, “Pilot” Written by Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt

Orange Is The New Black, “Be Free” Written by Brian Chamberlayne

The Good Doctor, “More” Written by David Shore and Lloyd Gilyard Jr.

This Is Us, “This Big, Amazing, Beautiful Life” Written by Kay Oyegun

30-minute Comedy

Dear White People, “Volume 2: Chapter VIII” Written by Jack Moore

One Day At A Time, “Hello, Penelope” Written...

Showtime has made available the documentary short film The Family Business: Trump and Taxes for free online and across multiple platforms.

The film follows a team of New York Times investigative reporters through their diligent and intense efforts in uncovering the information that led to their exclusive report on Trump family finances. The film is now available for online sampling on YouTube, Facebook and Sho.com. It also is rolling out across multiple television and streaming providers’ devices, websites, applications and authenticated online services and their free On Demand channels.

The film was directed by Jenny Carchman and produced by Oscar nominees Liz Garbus and Justin Wilkes (The Fourth Estate) who were embedded for more than a year inside The New York Times. It follows Times investigative reporters David Barstow, Russell Buettner and Susanne Craig as they expose the untold story of how Donald Trump became rich. Mr. Trump has...

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi‘s “Free Solo” leads the third annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards with six bids, including Best Documentary and Best Director. Also nabbing nominations in those two top categories is Bing Liu‘s “Minding the Gap,” which is also in the running for Best First Time Director, as well as “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Dark Money,” “Hitler’s Hollywood,” and “Three Identical Strangers.” In all 10 films were nominated for the top prize at these awards bestowed by the Broadcast Film Critics Assn. (Bfca). The other four are “Crime + Punishment,” “Hal,” “Rbg,” and “Wild Wild Country.”

Last year the Bfca nominated 16 films for this award, three of which –“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” “Faces Places,” and “Strong Island” — went on to contend at the Oscars. And in 2016 the Bfca shared its Best Documentary winner (“O.J.: Made in America”) with the Academy...

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s “Free Solo,” which captured rock climber Alex Honnold’s hair-raising ascent of Yosemite National Park’s 3,000-foot El Capitan rock formation, led the nominations for the third annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, it was revealed Monday. The film netted six nominations including best documentary and best director.

Close behind with five mentions each were “Minding the Gap” and “Wild Wild Country,” from Hulu and Netflix respectively.

Voted on by the Broadcast Film Critics and Television Journalists Assns., the awards will be presented at a gala event hosted by science educator and television personality Bill Nye on Saturday, Nov. 10 at Bric in Brooklyn, New York.

The nominees are:

Best Documentary

“Crime + Punishment” – Director: Stephen Maing (Hulu)

“Dark Money” – Director: Kimberly Reed (PBS)

“Free Solo” – Directors: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (National Geographic Documentary Films)

“Hal” – Director: Amy Scott (Oscilloscope)

“Hitler’s Hollywood” – Director: Rüdiger Suchsland...

The Broadcast Film Critics Association (Bfca) and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (Btja) have announced the nominees for the third annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards. The winners will be presented their awards at a gala event, hosted by science educator and television personality Bill Nye, on Saturday, November 10 at Bric in Brooklyn, New York.

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s “Free Solo” leads this year with six nominations and one honor, including Best Documentary, Best Directors, Best Sports Documentary, Most Innovative Documentary, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and a Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary honor for Alex Honnold. “Minding the Gap” and “Wild Wild Country” follow with five nominations each, with “Dark Money,” “Hitler’s Hollywood,” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” each earning four nods.

“We are thrilled to celebrate this year’s outstanding documentary work at the upcoming event,” said Broadcast Film Critics Association President...

When the New York Times editors hit publish on yesterday’s exhaustive report detailing how Fred Trump fraudulently funneled millions to his son — President Donald J. Trump — Showtime’s cameras were rolling. A holdover from Liz Garbus’ “The Fourth Estate” — a four part series documenting the New York Times covering President Trump’s first year in office that aired this spring — director Jenny Carchman helmed a crew that continued to follow the reporters working on this particular story about Trump’s tax avoidance, which took nearly two years to report.

The Times story by Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and David Barstow calls into question President Trump’s image as a self-made billionaire, revealing that he received the equivalent today of $413 million from his father. Worse yet for the President, the Times reported that the money transfers were “dubious tax schemes” that sometimes involved “outright fraud.”

The film about the process,...

The New York Times is heading to the UK after BBC Two picked up the rights to Showtime documentary series The Fourth Estate.

The British public broadcaster will air Liz Garbus’ four-part series later this month after its launch on the premium U.S. cable network last month.

The Fourth Estate looks at the inner workings of the gray lady during the first 12 months of Donald Trump’s presidency. It follows journalists including Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush as well as editor Dean Baquet covering Trump’s inauguration, accusations of fake news as well as major stories about the Russia investigation. The doc also looks at how the New York Times is changing, launching the Daily podcast, and responding to the challenges of being a digital publication.

The series was produced and directed by Garbus and Jenny Carchman and is a Radical Media and Moxie Firecracker Films Production in association...

Watching the 2016 presidential election play out, Oscar-nominated documentarian Liz Garbus was as surprised as anyone by the outcome, as Republican candidate Donald Trump took a surprise victory over Hillary Clinton.

“All the predictors were telling us it was going to turn out one way, and it turned out another, and I think there was a moment in which storytellers were figuring out, what is our role in this new political landscape?” Garbus said in conversation with Deadline, “Do we have one, and how should we use it?”

This question would become the seed of Garbus’ Showtime docuseries The Fourth Estate, in which the filmmaker offers an inside look at The New York Times‘ efforts to cover the first year of Trump’s presidency, with unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to Nyt journalists and editors—those individuals the President has declared “the enemy of the people.”

Becoming “addicted” to Twitter throughout this past election cycle,...

The 17th annual Tribeca Film Festival Closed on Saturday night with the World Premiere of the first part of Liz Garbus’ new four-part documentary series The Fourth Estate. The fly-on-the-wall doc offers an inside look at The New York Times during the first year of the Trump Presidency.

The screening was introduced by Tribeca Co-Founder Robert De Niro who berated Trump for his use of the term Fake News: “it’s a funny thing calling something ‘fake news’ just because you don’t like it. It’s still news and when it’s the truth, it’s the truth and when it exposes you as a liar, a scam artist and a criminal, that so called ‘fake news’ can lead you to doing real time. And I hope I can do that on Saturday Night Live, depose him, interrogate him, then I want to put him in handcuffs and I...

Typically Tribeca Film Festival press luncheons preview their annual lineup, with a reminder of the event’s social and economic impact to downtown New York in the years post-9/11. However, Tribeca co-boss and two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro kicked off this year’s 17th annual event at Thalassa Restaurant by jabbing at his favorite punching bag: President Donald Trump.

“Look at all the Fake News writers here today,” joked Robert De Niro to several laughs.

“The country has had a bad year, and you — the press – have taken a lot of hits. America is being run by a madman who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it came inside a bucket of his beloved Colonel Sanders Fried Chicken,” exclaimed De Niro.

“When he doesn’t like what he hears, he dismisses it by saying it’s un-American and damning it as ‘fake news’. But we know the truth. All...

This year’s Tribeca Film Festival will again live-stream a dozen panels and events exclusively on Facebook for free — no ticket or trip to Manhattan required.

The 12 sessions from Tribeca include the April 19 panel with HBO’s “Westworld” co-creators/showrunners/directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, along with cast members Evan Rachel Wood (pictured above), Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, and James Marsden. They’ll be talking about the upcoming season 2 premiere, slated for April 22, after it screens at the festival.

Tribeca’s Facebook live-streams also are scheduled to include sessions with Spike Lee, Alec Baldwin, Jamie Foxx, Paris Hilton, Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski, André Leon Tally, Antonio Banderas, Terrance McNally and John Legend. The 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by At&T, runs April 18-29.

The talks are available exclusively via Facebook Live on the Tribeca Film Festival Facebook page at facebook.com/tribeca. Tribeca also live-streamed 12 panels during last year’s fest on Facebook.

Lodged between the meat market of the Sundance Film Festival every January and the prestige of the Cannes Film Festival every May, the Tribeca Film Festival is an odd duck. Each and every April for the last 16 years, Tribeca has showcased a wife variety of (mostly) independent movies, many of which struggle to see the light of day. Still, there’s always a gem or two in the lineup, and even the occasional Academy Award nominee. With screenings for press beginning before this month is out, now is a solid time to take a look at some of what Tribeca has to offer for 2018. First up, it’s worth noting some of the prior Tribeca titles that have struck my fancy. Last year, it was the grouping of Blame, The Boy Downstairs, and especially Flower that highlighted a rather week lineup. The year before, 2016 featured Between Us, Dean, Don’t Think Twice,...

The 17th annual Tribeca Film Festival has revealed its feature film lineup, including its closing night offering — Liz Garbus’ documentary series “The Fourth Estate,” which follows The New York Times’ coverage of the Trump administration’s first year — and a Centerpiece Gala featuring Drake Doremus’ sci-fi romance “Zoe.” As was previously announced, the spring fest will open with the Gilda Radner documentary “Love, Gilda.”

Standout titles include Desiree Akhavan’s Sundance winner “The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” Sebastian Lelio’s “Disobedience,” Marianna Palka’s latest “Egg,” Karen Gillam’s directorial debut “The Party’s Just Beginning,” and many more.

The 2018 feature film program includes 96 films from 103 filmmakers. Of the 96 films, 46% of them are directed by women, the highest percentage in the Festival’s history. The lineup includes 75 World Premieres, 5 International Premieres, 9 North American Premieres, 3 U.S. Premieres, and 4 New York Premieres from 27 countries.

“We are proud to present a lineup...

After announcing the opening night film, Lisa D’Apolito’s documentary Love, Gilda, the complete lineup for the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival has been unveiling. Along with festival favorites, including Disobedience, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, and Daughter of Mine, there’s a number of anticipated world premieres: The Seagull, starring Annette Bening and Saoirse Ronan, Kent Jones’ drama Diane, the documentary McQueen, Miguel Arteta’s Duck Butter, Ondi Timoner’s Mapplethorpe, the Ethan Hawke-led Stockholm, and more. The centerpiece of the festival will be Drake Doremus’ Zoe, starring Léa Seydoux, and closing night is Liz Garbus’ documentary The Fourth Estate.

“In a year that has reminded us more often of our divisions than our connections, this Festival’s program embraces film’s unique power to overcome differences – that connecting with stories not our own is the road into our deeply programmed human capacity for empathy and understanding,” said Cara Cusumano,...

In October 2009, James Arthur Ray was atop his game. A best-selling author and spiritual leader — he disdains “self-help guru” — his company had earned $9.4 million the previous year. His books, DVDs and seminars were marketed to those who eagerly embraced his philosophy of personal growth by confronting and learning from their fears.

He was catapulted to prominence after appearing in the hugely popular 2006 self-help movie The Secret. Oprah interviewed him on back-to-back shows. Couples paid more than $100,000 per year to join an exclusive circle with one-on-one access to him. When he charged $9,695 apiece for clients to attend a five-day retreat in the scrublands outside of Sedona,...