Vice Announces Launch of Documentary Film Division
Continuing their strides to create and tell compelling real-life stories, Vice Media has announced the launch of Vice Documentary Films, a new division of Vice Films that will produce feature-length documentaries from both established and up-and-coming directors around the world.
Expanding on the adventurous storytelling that the company is known for, the new projects will focus on character-driven stories about rebels, radicals and people on the margins of society. The new division will be led by Jason Mojica, who previously served as Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer of Vice News, and Brendan Fitzgerald, who helped launch the Viceland cable channel as its Head of Development.
“You hear a lot of people saying that there’s never been a better time for documentaries, and it turns out that’s true,” said Mojica, Executive Producer of Vice Documentary Films. “Audiences are more interested than ever in non-fiction storytelling and there are more and more platforms serving it up. That gives us an incredible opportunity to broaden the scope of what Vice has already been doing in documentary filmmaking for years. Of course we’ll still be drawn to the important issues of the day as well as the more unusual aspects of modern society, but we’ll be exploring these with a different sensibility and in partnership with the most talented doc directors around.”
“We’re especially excited about being a more active participant in the documentary filmmaking community,” said FitzGerald. “We’ve got a lot to offer independent filmmakers, and we’ve also got a lot to learn from them.”
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The first two projects that will come from Vice Documentary Films will be released this year, they are: “Shot! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock,” a film about legendary music photographer Mick Rock, directed by Barnaby Clay, and “Shelter,” which follows a year in the life of homeless youth in New Orleans and directed by the Renaud Brothers. Seven other documentaries are also in production.
The launch of the new division comes after the production of several feature docs over the years, including 2007’s “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” Snoop Dogg’s 2012 film “Reincarnated” and the Writers Guild Award-nominated “Author: The JT Leroy Story,” which was released in theaters last September.
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