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JOE BERLINGER AND BRUCE SINOFSKY IN COURT TODAY TO WITNESS THE CONCLUSION OF THEIR HBO DOCUMENTARY PARADISE LOST

Posted Friday, August 19th, 2011 - Comments Off on JOE BERLINGER AND BRUCE SINOFSKY IN COURT TODAY TO WITNESS THE CONCLUSION OF THEIR HBO DOCUMENTARY PARADISE LOST
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For Immediate Release

JOE BERLINGER AND BRUCE SINOFSKY IN COURT TODAY TO WITNESS THE CONCLUSION OF THEIR HBO DOCUMENTARY PARADISE LOST

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Filmmakers To Change Ending As Decision Is Handed Down
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Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols And Jessie Misskelly Set Free
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Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory Set To Air On HBO Jan. 2012
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JONSEBORO, ARK., Aug. 19, 2011 – Critically acclaimed HBO documentary “Paradise Lost” filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky were in court today to witness the stunning conclusion in which, after 18 years in prison, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelly, known as the West Memphis 3, were set free.
The award-winning HBO documentary series “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” (1996) and “Paradise Lost 2: Revelations” (2000) spawned a worldwide movement to free the West Memphis 3 for wrongful murder convictions. Set to debut on HBO in Jan. 2012, “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” will have its theatrical premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, with a number of prestigious festival dates to follow this fall. This film tells the entire story, from the arrests in 1993 to the growing movement, through the entire appeals process and the uncovering of new evidence, concluding with their release.
As Damien Echols notes in the film, if not for the “Paradise Lost” documentaries, “…these people would have murdered me, swept this under the rug, and I wouldn’t be anything but a memory right now.”
On May 5, 1993, the bodies of three eight-year-old boys were found next to a muddy creek in the wooded Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Ark. A month later, three teenagers, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelly, were arrested, accused and convicted of brutally raping, mutilating and killing the boys. Fraught with innuendoes of devil worship, allegations of coerced confessions and emotionally charged statements, the case was one of the most sensational in state history. The films sparked a national debate regarding the innocence or guilt of the West Memphis 3.
With the support of HBO, the filmmakers have stuck with the story over an 18-year period, making these compelling films in order to continue to shed light, raise awareness and spur debate about the events that transpired at that time and in subsequent years after the convictions.
“Eighteen years and three films ago, we started this journey to document the terrible murders of three innocent boys and the subsequent circus that followed the arrests and convictions of Baldwin, Echols and Misskelly,” said director and producer Joe Berlinger. “To see our work culminate in the righting of this tragic miscarriage of justice is more than a filmmaker could ask for.”
Added co-director Bruce Sinofsky, “Today, we, along with HBO, are humbled to be a part of this remarkable outcome.”
Premiering at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” went on to win many accolades after its HBO presentation, receiving Emmy® and Peabody Awards, and a DGA nomination, among other honors, and was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review.
“Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” is directed and produced by Joe Berlinger; co-directed and produced by Bruce Sinofsky; edited by Alyse Ardell Spiegel; director of photography, Bob Richman; producer/second unit director; Jonathan Silberberg; featuring songs by Metallica. For HBO: supervising producer, Nancy Abraham; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon