Nancy Novack

Movies

Battleground
Writer
Heading distinctly different anti-choice organizations, three women lead the charge in their single-minded quest to overturn Roe v. Wade, as they face down forces equally determined to safeguard women’s access to safe and legal abortions.
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
Editor
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.
All In: The Fight for Democracy
Editor
Examines the often overlooked, yet insidious issue of voter suppression in the United States in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election. With the perspective and expertise of Stacey Abrams, the former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, the film offers an insider’s look into laws and barriers to voting that most people don’t even know is a threat to their basic rights as citizens of the United States.
All In: The Fight for Democracy
Co-Producer
Examines the often overlooked, yet insidious issue of voter suppression in the United States in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election. With the perspective and expertise of Stacey Abrams, the former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, the film offers an insider’s look into laws and barriers to voting that most people don’t even know is a threat to their basic rights as citizens of the United States.
Clinton: Part 2
Editor
The story of a president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. In Part 2, Clinton wins the 1996 election in a landslide, pulling off one of the greatest turnarounds in political history. But as Clinton sails buoyantly into his second term, times are good, the economy is booming, and American prestige and power internationally are at an all-time high. Clinton's dream of repairing the breach with Republicans seems within reach. But Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky -- a White House intern -- becomes public after she confides in a co-worker named Linda Tripp.
Clinton: Part 1
Editor
Clinton tells the story of a president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. Part 1 follows their bumpy road to the 1992 presidential victory, an amazing triumph over repeated scandals and setbacks followed by a tumultuous first two years that see the beginning of the Whitewater scandal, the shocking death of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster and the humiliating defeat of Hillary's healthcare bill.
Grass Is Greener
Editor
Weed. Marijuana. Grass. Pot. Whatever you prefer to call it, America’s relationship with cannabis is a complicated one. In his directorial debut, hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy presents an unparalleled look at the racially biased history of the war on marijuana. A range of celebrities and experts discuss the plant’s influence on music and popular culture, and the devastating impact its criminalization has had on Black and Latino communities. As more and more states join the push to legalize marijuana, this documentary dives deep into the glaring racial disparities in the growing cannabis market.
The Gilded Age
Editor
In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, during what has become known as the Gilded Age, the population of the United States doubled in the span of a single generation. As national wealth expanded, two classes rose simultaneously, separated by a gulf of experience and circumstance that was unprecedented in American life. These disparities sparked passionate and violent debate over questions still being asked in our own times: How is wealth best distributed, and by what process? Does government exist to protect private property or provide balm to the inevitable casualties of a churning industrial system? The outcome of these disputes was both uncertain and momentous, and marked by a passionate vitriol and level of violence that would shock the conscience of many Americans today.
Southern Rites
Editor
Southern Rites visits Montgomery County, Ga., one year after the town merged its racially segregated proms, and during a historic election campaign that may lead to its first African-American sheriff. Acclaimed photographer Gillian Laub, whose photos first brought the area unwanted notoriety, documents the repercussions when a white town resident is charged with the murder of a young black man. The case divides locals along well-worn racial lines, and the ensuing plea bargain and sentencing uncover complex truths and produce emotional revelations.
The Farm: 10 Down
Director
One decade after THE FARM: ANGOLA, USA (Oscar nominated 1999; two-time Emmy winner 1999), we go back inside Louisiana's maximum security penitentiary, to catch up with our characters' lives. While the theme of THE FARM was "to err is human, to forgive divine", we now delve more deeply and find hope for "reconciliation and release". Angola is America's oldest and largest prison, with 5,000 inmates, most of whom have received life -, or death-, sentences for violent crimes, and will never leave Angola. THE FARM continues to provide extraordinary opportunities for learning through storytelling.
Drop Back Ten
Editor
After an expose on NFL players causes a series of lawsuits, a reporter gets fired. A loyal editor nonetheless gives him a freelance story to work on. It seems that an athletic 19-year-old actor had been preparing to star in a low-budget gridiron movie when a mysterious assailant attacked him and destroyed his appearance. He was, of course, dismissed from the film. The reporter is to find out the true story of what happened. His investigation finds a history of beating his wife and a complete disinterest from the movie crew's producer.
Suits
Editor
A deodorant company with a product called "Smell No Mo" pits two rival ad agencies in a race to come up with a campaign for a new-fangled sanitary napkin called Vorcan. The advertising satire follows the New York firm of Cranston & Co. as they fight rival Hoffman & Partners. Cranston fires his creative director which puts a young copywriter with a literature degree on the front line, even though he doesn't want to be. The contest comes down to a schmaltzy campaign by Hoffman with music by Air Supply that uses the tagline "Vorcan: your own personal air supply." or a more down to earth campaign from Cranston of "The pad ain't bad!"
The Night We Never Met
Assistant Editor
Sam has a problem with his roommates: they are disgusting, and don't seem to share his views on responsibility, privacy, and basic hygine. Such is his discomfort with his living arrangements that he agrees to share the occupancy of another flat: he gets two nights a week, the owner (a sleazy frat-boy yuppie named Brian, soon to be married) and Ellen (a would-be painter seeking relief from her boring marriage) each get their seperate nights in the flat. Things go extremely well until Sam and Brian swap nights without telling Ellen, who attributes the "nice" things that happen around the place to the slob Brian, while berating the responsible Sam for his hedonistic lifestyle.
My New Gun
Assistant Editor
Debbie and Gerald's lives drastically change after they get a gun. Their mysterious neighbor, Skippy, becomes an important and transforming figure in their lives.