from vk & associates

World Premiere engagement at the Bell Lightbox begins Friday, February 11, 2011

“Everyone has a great Harvey story……

There are those that say making a film on Harvey Weinstein is career suicide. Others have warned me that Harvey will never allow the film to get distribution. I can’t think of better reasons to have made this detailed account of one of the most intriguing and successful moguls in recent Hollywood history” – Barry Avrich

Monday, January 17, 2011: A powerful, uncensored, yet balanced account of a brilliant, feared, charming and passionate character, Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project tells a Hollywood rags to riches (and nearly back again) story though the eyes of those on the front line.

Filmmaker Barry Avrich (The Last Mogul) tackles another notorious Hollywood power broker in this feature documentary portrait of Miramax founder Harvey Weinstein. Starting out as concert promoter on the streets of Buffalo, Weinstein and his brother Bob turned their scrappy independent distribution company into a major Hollywood player, defining the North American art-house marketplace with risk-taking hits that they turned into gold such as Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Crying Game, The English Patient, Good Will Hunting, Life is Beautiful, Il Postino, Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love and Chicago to name a few.

Along with Weinstein’s success came a generous helping of controversy fuelled by his curse-filled rants, his reshaping of the annual awards season with his hard-sell campaigning, and his wholesale suppression of films he acquired from major filmmakers. Featuring interviews with numerous industry insiders and members of the Hollywood creative community including: directors Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, George Hickenlooper, Variety editor Peter Bart, author John Irving and TIFF’s Piers Handling.

Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project is distributed in Canada by Melbar Entertainment and in the U.S. by IFC who will open the film in April 2011.