The Production of the World

Runtime: 100'

Expected release: May 2026

Production stage: Post-production

Budget: $870,000 (40% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, buyers, gap financing

Synopsis:

The Production of the World is an archival documentary about the radical art critic John Berger, the CIA’s infiltration of the arts during “cultural Cold War,” and the ways images operate as a battleground for politics. Set against the rise of the modern superpowers and the spectre of nuclear annihilation, it pits Berger against the CIA in a nonfiction espionage thriller about art and politics.

Director’s Profile:

Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer whose work pushes the formal boundaries of political cinema. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at Sundance, CPH:DOX, and SXSW. She is the director of the feature films UNION (with Steve Maing), which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES and THE HOTTEST AUGUST, and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. In 2020 she was nominated for a Cinema Eye Award for Best Director. She is a recipient of a Chicken & Egg Award, Sundance Fellowship, and Guggenheim Fellowship.

Producer’s Profile:

Jeff Reichert is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and critic. His films as a director have won awards and screened at major festivals worldwide and include the feature documentaries Gerrymandering, Remote Area Medical, This Time Next Year, and the fiction-documentary hybrid Feast of the Epiphany. He produced American Factory which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. He is also the co–founder and editor of the online film journal Reverse Shot (est. 2003), now a publication of Museum of the Moving Image, and has written for Film Comment and Filmmaker among others.