Prolific Canadian Director Larry Weinstein’s Latest Is A Cautionary Tale for Our Times
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 19, 2019. – Toronto, Ontario –D Films Corp. is thrilled to announce that the documentary PROPAGANDA: THE ART OF SELLING LIESwill have its World Premiere at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival on April 28thand receive a theatrical release later this spring. Directed by Award-winning filmmaker Larry Weinstein(OUR MAN IN TEHRAN, INSIDE HANA’S SUITCASE), the doc is a call to action at a precarious moment in our history. D Films Corp.’s Michael Robson serves as Executive Producer on the title.
PROPAGANDA: THE ART OF SELLING LIES asks the question: why are we so easily seduced by propaganda? It traces the history of the art of persuasion, from the remote past up to our present – we are bombarded by more propaganda than ever before. When the very concept of truth is being attacked, when knowledge is debased and ignorance lauded, when the rage within every one of us is at a boiling point,we need to stop and ask ourselves how we got here.
“I’m surprised there aren’t more films on this subject because we’re all so politically on edge at the moment. People are crackling with propaganda overload,” Weinstein observed. “We really are at a dangerous crossroads – it’s a frightening age, but strangely invigorating because we are being forced to find our own voices.”
The film features, in order of appearance, University of Toronto Media Studies professor Paolo Granata; archaeologist Alistair Pike; psychoanalyst Adam Phillips; Buzzfeed media editor Craig Silverman, who coined the phrase “Fake News”; twentieth century political propaganda expert / historian David Welch; artist / historian Colin Moore; artist Jonas Staal; Cree artist Kent Monkman(The Scream); Orwellian expert Jean Seaton; Canon of the Cathedral of Florence, Monsignor Timothy Verdon; artist Jim Fitzpatrick, of the iconic Viva Cheimage; event promoter and “authorized cultural affairs liaison” with North Korea, Morten Traavik; filmmaker/activist Astra Taylor(What is Democracy?); political guerilla street artist Sabo(She Knew anti-Hollywood poster campaign); street artist Shepard Fairey(Obama Hopeposter); artist and activist Ai Weiwei(Remembering); historian of the social and cultural life of machines, Edward Jones-Imhotep; Alexander Schmidt, Reichsparteitagsgelände (Nazi party rally grounds) historian; philosopher / author , Rebecca Goldstein(2014 National Humanities Medal recipient, presented by President Obama); 104-year-old actor Norman Lloyd(Hitchcock’s Saboteur, Spellbound); cartoonist Barry Blitt(The New Yorker); Charlie Hebdo editor-in-chief Gérard Biard; photographer and provocateur Tyler Shields (Kathy Griffin / Trump Severed Headphoto), Islamic art expert Christiane Gruber; Globe and Mail editor-in-chief David Walmsley; and the Chairman of the Motorsport Club Nürnberg, Wolfgang Schlosser.
PROPAGANDA: THE ART OF SELLING LIES is a Canada-Germany co-production, produced by Aeschylus Poulos and Bernd Wilting, with producers Sonya Di Rienzo and Mathias von der Heide and executive produced by Jane Jankovic and Natasha Negrea for TVO, Wolfgang Bergmann and Martin Pieper for ZDF/ARTE , Michael Robson for D Films and Neil Tabatznik.
It is lensed by John Minh Tran, edited by David New, written by David Mortin & Andrew Edmonds, with music composed by Raffael Seyfried and Andreas Schåfer.
The film was produced by Hawkeye Pictures and Taglicht Media with the participation of TVO and ZDF in association with ARTE, PBS International and Larry Weinstein Productions, Telefilm Canada and the Rogers Group of Funds through the Theatrical Documentary Program and the participation of Canada Media Fund, Ontario Creates, and D Films Corp.
PBS Distribution will handle worldwide sales.