The Six Billion Dollar Man, directed by Eugene Jarecki, is the winner of a new award from the Golden Globes honouring documentary. The inaugural Globes-Artemis Rising Docu Award was presented to Jarecki ahead of the doc’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The award is a collaboration between the Golden Globes and the Artemis Rising Foundation, the film production company devoted to social issues docs, and supported by Think-Film Impact Production.
Jarecki’s film offers a new take on the story of WikiLeaks founder, publisher, and editor Julian Assange, whose persecution marks an alarming canary in the coalmine for journalistic integrity in the “post-truth” age. Described as a “high-tech international thriller,” The Six Billion Dollar Man follows Assange’s fight to hold governments accountable through fact-based reporting. The film boasts never before seen footage and participants including Naomi Klein, Pamela Anderson, Edward Snowden, and Jeremy Scahill. Jarecki’s previous docs include The King, Why We Fight, and The House I Live In, the latter two of which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
“I believe that we’re really in the golden age of documentary; it’s such an incredible platform to tell the truth, to tell stories that resonate with the audience. We felt the Globes should support that genre. It’s really the most pure form of truth-telling, elevating stories in impactful way,” says Golden Globes president Helen Hoehne in a release. “This prize represents our dedication to celebrating filmmakers who challenge perspectives and inspire audiences through powerful documentary work.”
Hoehne, along with Artemis Rising Foundation founder and CEO Regina K. Scully served as members of the inaugural jury, along with Geralyn White Dreyfous, Impact Partners co-founder and executive producer of the Oscar winning Navalny, and actress Tessa Thompson (Passing). Thompson presented the award to Jarecki and said on the jury’s behalf, as reported by Variety, “Eugene Jarecki embodies the very spirit of what this prize was created to honor. His documentaries are fearless, unflinching, and profoundly human – they don’t just inform, they transform. At a time when truth is under pressure, Eugene’s work reminds us of the power of storytelling to provoke, enlighten, and ultimately defend democracy itself.”
The award marks a return to recognizing documentary for the Golden Globes. The awards body comprised of voters from international publications gave a special doc prize in 1953 and briefly awarded docs with a category that ran from 1972 to 1976. More recently, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour scored a nomination in the Globes’ new award for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement as its juggernaut connection with audiences made a rare case for eligibility. The Globes’ announced earlier this month a new award in the regular broadcast for podcasting, a first for audio storytelling to be recognized by a major televised awards body—and a special place for non-fiction work during the star-studded night.
There’s no word yet if the documentary award will join podcasting in the Golden Globes’ broadcast proper. (A representative from the Globes said that the line-up for the awards telecast won’t be finalised for several months.) However, in an interview with Pure Nonfiction’s Thom Powers, also TIFF’s international documentary programmer, Dreyfous noted a three-year contract between the Globes and its industry partners. “It seems like a worthy roll of the dice. Not just for Artemis Rising or Golden Globes, but for our field,” Dreyfous told Powers. “We love our compatriots. We see how hard it is right now for everybody making these films to make a living. This is an entire creative economy at risk of collapse if we don’t figure out a way to support the artists.”
The Six Billion Dollar Man premieres at Cannes on May 21. Other documentaries screening in the official selection include Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 and Andrew Dominik’s Bono: Stories of Surrender. Cannes has one documentary prize, the l’Œil d’Or, administered by the independent French organization Le Scam. As per the Pure Nonfiction interview, Le Scam supports the award’s effort to increase the presence for documentaries at Cannes.
