The filmmakers behind a celebrated documentary about casting directors and the #MeToo movement have set their sights on another Hollywood subject: the evolution of the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA.
Director-producer Tom Donahue and producer Ilan Arboleda are making a film about the transformation of labor organizing during 2008, when the Writers Guild of America Guild of America has attacked film and television studios, while the Screen Actors Guild contemplated (but ultimately failed to realize) their union’s own shutdown, as well as 2024, after the union’s landmark 118-year days after the actor’s strike. They say the film will represent the culmination of a decade of interviews with the filmmakers, and that their project will also cover the history of the union and its long struggle to create middle-class actors. hollywood reporter.
With first two projects under CreativeChaos vmg banner, filmmaking team uses Hollywood narratives to tell larger stories about social issues in America: 2018 this changes everything explores gender inequality in the workplace, and in 2012 Casting Tapping into a female-dominated field that doesn’t get as much attention as other crafts. Donahue said that in the upcoming film, the filmmakers hope to use SAG-AFTRA to discuss “the destruction of the American middle class due to the destruction of American unions.”
Filmmakers took up the subject in 2011 after the Screen Actors Guild overhauled its leadership following a failed attempt by former president Alan Rosenberg to authorize a strike. Arboleda and Donahue began filming interviews with Rosenberg and leaders of the political faction affiliated with him, Members First, and later with his rival group, United Forces. The team then “captured the 2012 merger of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists,” Arboleda said.
The filmmakers shelved the project while moving on to other films, but picked it up again in 2023 following the actor’s strike. They plan to document how multiple contract negotiation cycles set the stage for the eventual 118-day shutdown, as well as President Fran Drescher’s influence on the union. They also plan to show how the rise of “new media” (streaming entertainment) is changing performers’ performance rates and residuals. “Time is on our side, and it’s actually almost taking time for us to take a long-term view of this,” Arboleda said of reviving the project after so many years.
Drescher and current country executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland have agreed to be interviewed by the filmmakers. Drescher said in a statement, “SAG-AFTRA’s 2023 Summer of Labor is one of the most important chapters in the history of the entertainment industry. It’s an important story that needs to be told. Crabtree-Ireland added,” Our fighting spirit for our members inspires workers around the world, and it’s a story worth telling and amplifying for decades to come. “
The filmmakers have previously interviewed former labor leaders Ken Howard, Roberta Reardon and Ed Asner, as well as union insiders and observers such as Michael Sheen, Amy Aquino, David White, Rebecca Damon, Matthew Kimbrough, David Prindle and former labor leaders hollywood reporter Journalist Jonathan Handel and others. The filmmakers are currently aiming to complete the film by mid-2026.
