Brave New Films

Brave New Films is a new media company based in Culver City, California. The brainchild of filmmaker Robert Greenwald, BNF produces feature-length documentaries and investigative videos “to educate, influence and empower viewers to take action around issues that matter.”

In 2001, Robert Greenwald was a respected film producer and director with nearly three decades of socially conscious television and theatrical credits. After September 11, he decided to turn his efforts to documentary filmmaking. He teamed up with Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler to create his first nonfiction film, Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002), about the controversial poll results from Florida.

Unprecedented was shown in theaters around the country, on cable TV, and made the round of film festivals, bringing home 11 awards. But Greenwald saw opportunities for higher viewership with experimental marketing models. He teamed with former dot-com exec Jim Gilliam to create a distribution model for his next short documentary – Uncovered: The War on Iraq (2004).Uncovered, about the government and media push for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was distributed through the websites of influential partner organizations such as MoveOn.org, the Nation and the Center for American Progress. The multi-organizational partnership model would become a keystone of Greenwald’s filmmaking approach.

The new strategy was successful beyond Greenwald’s expectations. The first two days Unprecedented was available, more than 23,000 people requested copies. MoveOn sponsored thousands of “house parties” across the country where people could gather and watch the film. Greenwald made sure that every US Senator and Congressperson was invited to a screening.

Going forward, he and Gilliam tried new approaches to traditional production models as well. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004) took on Fox News, claiming that they have a pervasive Republican bias.Outfoxed used extensive clips from Fox News under the doctrine of fair use, which allows limited use of copyrighted material for parody or criticism. Turning standard documentary wisdom on its head, Greenwald also used his future audience as active members of his production team by inviting them to work as production researchers.

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