Case Studies

A multi-phase campaign that carried Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers's documentary short from its festival debut, through theatrical and streaming distribution with Searchlight Pictures, all the way to the Oscar stage.

• The 2050 Group — Publicity handled the publicity around the world premiere of the documentary short film The Last Repair Shop at the 50th Telluride Film Festival. The film, directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers, was covered by Deadline Hollywood and Awards Daily, among others.

• The 2050 Group — Publicity handled sales and PR services around the distribution by Searchlight Pictures of The Last Repair Shop in movie theaters, on the Los Angeles Times YouTube Channel, Disney+, and Hulu.

• The 2050 Group — Publicity handled awards publicity — campaign strategy, media relations, marketing, advertising, and outreach — around the film awards campaign that resulted in The Last Repair Shop winning the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short Film.

Publicity, web presence, and ongoing media strategy for Emmy®-winning journalist Hilke Schellmann's Hachette book The Algorithm — a shocking and illuminating exposé on how AI has quietly taken over the world of work.

• In The Algorithm (Hachette), Emmy® Award-winning Wall Street Journal and Guardian contributor Hilke Schellmann delivers a shocking and illuminating exposé on one of the most pressing civil rights issues of our time: how AI has quietly, and mostly out of sight, taken over the world of work.

• The agency handled publicity leading up to and around the launch of the book in January 2024. The multi-month project generated dozens of press hits and clips leading to book sales, speaking engagements, and greater public awareness of the issues featured in the book.

• The agency created a website to promote the author, the book, her upcoming and past appearances, and to serve as a place to receive book orders and media requests for the author.

• The Algorithm was named one of the "5 Best Books About Artificial Intelligence" by The New York Times and was featured on ABC News and CBC Radio.

• The Algorithm was featured on the Financial Times annual "What to Read" list and named one of the "Best Nonfiction Books of Winter 2024" by BookBub.

A campaign that generated press coverage across national television, wire services, and major outlets for the HBO documentary short that won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 87th Academy Awards.

• The agency handled publicity for the Academy Award®-winning HBO short subject documentary Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1. The critically-acclaimed film is directed by four-time Primetime Emmy®-winning director Ellen Goosenberg Kent (HBO's "Wartorn: 1861–2013" and "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq") and producer Dana Perry (HBO's "Boy Interrupted" which tells the story of Perry's son's life and tragic death).

• Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 is a short cinema-verite documentary about the only suicide hotline dedicated exclusively to US veterans. The call center is located in Canandaigua, New York, and the hotline receives over 22,000 calls per month from veterans of all ages in crisis. Access to the hotline's heroic responders provides a deep understanding of the kinds of challenges veterans face today, a time when their suicide rate is approximately 22 a day, almost twice that of the civilian population.

• PRESS COVERAGE — NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly. Associated Press Television. KABC-TV — "War-themed Oscar films shine a light on veterans issues". USA Today — "Oscar nomination VA documentary suicides veterans hotline". Indiewire — "Why this Oscar-nominated short documentary has been compared to American Sniper".

A wide-ranging publicity effort — anchored by major national features and an extensive regional radio push — that helped James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub, and Arnold Schwarzenegger's landmark climate series reach millions and drive DVD and digital sales.

• The agency secured national press attention for Years of Living Dangerously, winner of the Primetime Emmy® for Outstanding Nonfiction Series, including features in The New York Times, NPR's Living On Earth, Newsweek, Esquire.com, NBCNews.com and more.

• Along with a wide variety of other coverage — including a remarkable regional radio publicity effort — the agency helped the series reach an audience of millions that helped drive DVD and digital sales.

• Years of Living Dangerously combines the blockbuster storytelling styles of top Hollywood movie makers with the reporting expertise of Hollywood's brightest stars and today's most respected journalists. The series brings intimate stories into the homes of millions of Americans. It is available nationwide on DVD, iTunes, Amazon Instant streaming, and other VOD platforms.

• PRESS COVERAGE — PRI's Living On Earth. The New York Times — "Shining Star Power on a Crucial Subject". Newsweek — "Years of Living Dangerously Shows Devastating Effects of Climate Change".

From Sundance world premiere through theatrical and streaming release, a campaign that delivered national and international press for a revelatory documentary on the overlooked influence of Indigenous musicians on popular music.

• The agency handled publicity around the film's world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival — where Rumble won a Special Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling — and then led publicity for its hugely successful theatrical and streaming on-demand releases.

• The agency secured tremendous national and international press attention, including feature coverage by The New York Times and NPR. The New York Times called the film "a master class in the mixing of cultures… sharing the same spirit of '20 Feet From Stardom' and 'Searching for Sugar Man.'"

• Rumble brings to light the profound and overlooked influence of Indigenous people on popular music in North America, focusing on icons like Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Taboo (The Black Eyed Peas), Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Jesse Ed Davis, Robbie Robertson, and Randy Castillo.

• Winner of a Special Jury Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award and Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs. The film features interviews with Buddy Guy, Steven Van Zandt, Tony Bennett, Taj Mahal, Martin Scorsese, Stevie Salas, Quincy Jones, John Trudell, Steven Tyler, George Clinton, Jackson Browne, Iggy Pop, Slash, Robert Trujillo, Taylor Hawkins, Dan Auerbach, Rhiannon Giddens, Pat Vegas, and many more.

• PRESS COVERAGE — The New York Times — "An Encore for the Native Americans Who Shook Up Rock 'n' Roll". NPR: Weekend Edition — "'Rumble' Celebrates Rock 'N' Roll's Native American Roots". The New York Times — "Review: 'Rumble' Gives Due to Unheralded Native American Pop Musicians".

A campaign from Tribeca world premiere through the festival circuit and awards season that helped position the film as one of the most acclaimed documentaries of its year.

• The agency handled the publicity around the world premiere of Virunga at the Tribeca Film Festival as well as publicity at subsequent film festivals including Hot Docs and AFI Docs. The agency's efforts played a critical role in the film's sales efforts.

• Virunga went on to receive a Nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, among dozens of other awards and awards nominations in 2014–15.

• In the forested depths of eastern Congo lies Virunga National Park, one of the most bio-diverse places in the world and home to the last of the mountain gorillas. In this wild, but enchanted environment, a small and embattled team of park rangers – including an ex-child soldier turned ranger, a carer of orphan gorillas and a Belgian conservationist – protect this UNESCO world heritage site from armed militia, poachers and the dark forces struggling to control Congo's rich natural resources. When the newly formed M23 rebel group declares war in May 2012, a new conflict threatens the lives and stability of everyone and everything they've worked so hard to protect. VIRUNGA is the incredible true story of a group of courageous people risking their lives to build a better future in a part of Africa the world's forgotten and a gripping exposé of the realities of life in the Congo.

• PRESS COVERAGE — Associated Press — "Days after shooting, Virunga premieres at Tribeca". The Hollywood Reporter — Tribeca Review of Virunga. PBS POV — "Top 5 Films from Hot Docs 2014". USA Today — "Inspirational Oscar: Nominations that touch hearts".

The 2050 Group designed and led the national media relations campaign around the PBS broadcast premiere and streaming release of Driving While Black — a ground-breaking two-hour documentary chronicling the history and personal experiences of African Americans on the road from the advent of the automobile through the seismic changes of the 1960s and beyond.

• A feature documentary directed by acclaimed historian Dr. Gretchen Sorin and Emmy®-winning director Ric Burns, Driving While Black examines the history of African Americans on the road from the depths of the Depression to the height of the Civil Rights movement and beyond — exploring the deeply embedded dynamics of race, space and mobility in America during one of the most turbulent and transformative periods in American history. Executive producers: Margaret Munzer Loeb; Rula Jebreal & Arthur G. Altschul, Jr.; Geralyn White Dreyfous.

• For African Americans, travel by automobile during the 20th century posed a paradox: although cars freed them from the tyranny of the Jim Crow bus or train, they faced intimidation and even violence when they ventured out on the road. The film delves deeply into the history of The Green Book, the travel guide authored by New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green that became 'the bible for African American drivers' — expanding from a first edition focused on the Northeast to include much of the country, providing travel tips and safe, welcoming places to stop, dine and rest. 'Vacation without aggravation,' the book advised African American families planning a road trip.

• CRITICAL ACCLAIM — IndieWire : "Skip 'Green Book' and Watch This Instead. The documentary provides a far more in-depth look at the significance of the lifesaving book, which became the bible for African American drivers. Grade A." NPR : "Eye-opening. Revelatory." CNN : "An extremely rich and detailed PBS documentary, exploring the long history of restrictions on Black movement, from slavery through the present." Hollywood Reporter : "Strikes a fascinating balance between never losing track of the racism of Jim Crow and celebrating some of the Black entrepreneurship it inspired."

• The film utilizes a rich archive of material from the period — including footage, photographs, advertisements, road signs, maps, letters and legal records — and weaves together oral histories and the on-camera insights of scholars, writers, musicians and ordinary American travelers. Interview subjects include Eric Avila (UCLA), Herb Boyd, Leah Chase (Dooky Chase Restaurant), Spencer Crew (National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian), Alvin Hall, Allyson Hobbs (Stanford), Kenneth Jackson (Columbia), Candacy Taylor, Craig Steven Wilder (MIT) and many others. The soundtrack is composed by Grammy® and multiple Emmy® winner Brian Keane, with performances by Cyrus Chestnut, Joe Louis Walker, Randy Brecker and others.

• The 2050 Group designed and led the national media relations campaign around the film's PBS broadcast premiere on October 13, 2020 and its streaming release on PBS.org and the PBS Video App — coordinating long-lead features, broadcast bookings, and review coverage tied to the film's national rollout.

• PRESS COVERAGE — NPR Morning Edition — "PBS Documentary 'Driving While Black' Examines Long Road Of Racism." NPR's Here & Now — feature interview with the filmmakers. CNN — "'Driving While Black' looks at the history of racism on the road." CNN review. PBS NewsHour / Chasing the Dream. IndieWire — review of the PBS premiere.

• WATCH — Extended trailer on PBS · Full documentary on PBS · Stream on Prime Video.

The 2050 Group designed and led the national media relations campaign around the PBS American Experience broadcast and streaming premiere of The Chinese Exclusion Act — Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu's feature documentary examining the origin, history, and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and barred Chinese nationals already here from ever becoming U.S. citizens.

• Directed by Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu, The Chinese Exclusion Act tells the story of the only U.S. law ever to single out one nationality for exclusion — examining its origins in the labor and racial politics of the post-Civil War West, its enforcement at Angel Island and beyond, and its lasting impact on the shape of American immigration, citizenship, and identity.

• The film traces a sweeping arc from the Gold Rush and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad through Wong Kim Ark and the birthright citizenship fight, the Geary Act, Angel Island, and the long shadow the Act cast over American immigration policy for more than sixty years until its repeal in 1943.

• The 2050 Group designed and led the national media relations campaign around the film's PBS American Experience broadcast premiere and its streaming release — coordinating long-lead features, broadcast bookings, and review coverage tied to the national rollout.

• PRESS COVERAGE — The New York Times · Associated Press · IndieWire · HuffPost · San Francisco Chronicle · Mother Jones · Deadline.

• WATCH — Official website · American Experience film page · Full documentary on PBS · Inside Look.

A campaign supporting MTV World's first-ever Facebook premiere — and the broader rollout of Rebel Music's second season across mtvU, MTV2, Centric, Epix, and major streaming platforms.

• Rebel Music: Native America is one of a six-part series of documentary films about youth, music, and global social change, focused on youth protest movements in the most challenging and turbulent parts of the world.

• In a first for MTV, the nearly 30-minute premiere episode of Rebel Music's second season debuted exclusively on the brand's Facebook page in November 2014. This was followed by airings on mtvU, MTV2, Centric, Epix 2, and Epix.com. It also debuted for free on leading digital download and streaming platform partners including iTunes, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Verizon Flexview, and Xbox Video.

• The agency handled the publicity around the launch of this episode.

• The five subsequent episodes were released in the spring of 2015 and build on Rebel Music's first season, which debuted on mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college channel, and is now available to own on iTunes and stream on Netflix. The second season features stories from Iran, Myanmar, Senegal, Turkey, and Venezuela.

• MTV World, a division of Viacom Media Networks, is an innovation team producing cutting-edge pop culture content featured on Viacom channels and digital properties worldwide, and other platforms like Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon.

A publicity campaign for the national theatrical release of I Am Eleven that secured national and regional press attention, culminating in a red carpet premiere at Scholastic headquarters in New York City.

• The 2050 Group handled publicity for the national theatrical release of I Am Eleven, securing national and regional press attention as well as a red carpet premiere at the Scholastic headquarters in New York City.

• Australian filmmaker Genevieve Bailey traveled the world for six years talking with 11-year-olds to compose this insightful, funny, and moving portrait of childhood — from an orphanage in India to a single-parent household in inner-city Melbourne, to bathing with elephants in Thailand. The film weaves together deeply personal and at times hilarious portraits of what it means to stand on the cusp between childhood and adolescence.

• PRESS COVERAGE — The New York Times — Critics' Pick. New York Daily News. TODAY.com (NBC News). TIME for Kids. Time Out Kids. KCBS-TV (Los Angeles). Christian Science Monitor. Film School Radio.

A campaign that drove national press attention for HBO's Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words, the documentary built from Richard Nixon's own secret White House tapes — earning three News & Documentary Emmy® nominations.

• The agency handled publicity around the HBO premiere of Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words, presented in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of President Nixon's resignation. The campaign helped position the film as one of the most discussed political documentaries of the summer of 2014.

• The film was nominated for three News & Documentary Emmy® Awards in July 2015.

• On Aug. 9, 1974, Richard Milhous Nixon became the first American president to resign from office. From 1971 to 1973, he had secretly recorded his private conversations "for the purpose of historical record," but in the wake of Watergate the revelation of the tapes led to his downfall. Featuring excerpts from the tapes, original press reports, and Nixon's reflections a decade later, the documentary is directed by Peter Kunhardt (HBO's "Gloria: In Her Own Words" and the Emmy®-winning "Teddy: In His Own Words") and edited by Phillip Schopper.

• PRESS COVERAGE — The Takeaway (PRI). The Tavis Smiley Show (PRI). ABC News / Yahoo! News — Power Players.

A campaign that drove national press attention for HBO's Tales from the Organ Trade — securing features across CBS News, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, and Pacific Standard around the documentary's premiere.

• It is one of the great miracles of modern medicine — the saving of a patient's life by transplanting a body part. But with a worldwide shortage of organs, there is a flourishing black market. Tales from the Organ Trade exposes the shadowy black-market world of organ trafficking: from the street-level brokers who solicit organs, to the rogue surgeons who perform the transplants; from the impoverished donors willing to sacrifice a part of their bodies for a quick payday, to the desperate patients who face the agonizing choice of obeying the law or saving their lives.

• The agency handled publicity around the HBO premiere of the Emmy®-nominated documentary, generating coverage across national television, print, and digital outlets that helped frame a complex bioethical debate for a wide audience.

• PRESS COVERAGE — CBS News. MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry. U.S. News & World Report — "Exploring the Gray Area in Organ Trafficking". Pacific Standard.

The 2050 Group led publicity around the film's festival premieres, national theatrical release, and awards-season campaign for Peter Nicks's acclaimed feature documentary — winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.

• Award-winning director Peter Nicks moved critics and audiences with his feature documentary The Waiting Room. Winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the Independent Spirit Awards — among numerous other nominations and recognitions — the film is both cinematic and impactful.

• The Waiting Room is a character-driven documentary that uses extraordinary access to go behind the doors of an American public hospital struggling to care for a community of largely uninsured patients. Blending cinema verité with characters' voiceover, the film offers a raw, intimate, and uplifting look at how patients, staff, and caregivers cope with disease, bureaucracy, and hard choices. The ER waiting room serves as the grounding point — capturing in vivid detail what it means for millions of Americans to live without health insurance.

• PRESS COVERAGE — The Washington Post — Ann Hornaday's 10 Best Films of 2012. The New York Times. CNN. ABC News. NPR. POLITICO.

A campaign supporting the festival run and theatrical release of Point and Shoot — winner of Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, with nominations at the Gotham Awards and IDA Awards.

• Winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Tribeca Film Festival — and nominated for Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards and Best Feature at the IDA Awards — Point and Shoot follows Matt VanDyke, a timid 26-year-old with OCD who left Baltimore in 2006 on a self-described "crash course in manhood," buying a motorcycle and a video camera for a multi-year, 35,000-mile trip through Northern Africa and the Middle East.

• While traveling, VanDyke struck up an unlikely friendship with a Libyan hippie, and when revolution broke out he joined his friend in the fight against Muammar Gaddafi. With a gun in one hand and a camera in the other, he fought in — and filmed — the war until he was captured by Gaddafi forces and held in solitary confinement for six months. Two-time Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Marshall Curry tells this harrowing and sometimes humorous story of a young man's search for political revolution and personal transformation.

• PRESS COVERAGE — Los Angeles Times. IndieWire. Rogers Movie Nation. Boston Globe.

A campaign for HBO's The Lion's Mouth Opens — Lucy Walker's verité short following actress-filmmaker Marianna Palka as she learns whether she has inherited Huntington's Disease.

• This verité documentary is about confronting life's most daunting moments with purpose and grace, and about the impact of genetic bonds and genetic testing on the people we love. Stunningly courageous young filmmaker-actress Marianna Palka gathers her friends around her as she finds out whether she has inherited Huntington's Disease — an incurable degenerative disorder which took her father and now has a 50% chance of taking her body and her mind.

• Intimate, suspenseful, and emotional, with sensitive verité cinematography by Nick Higgins and a title taken from the Bob Dylan poem Marianna recites about Woody Guthrie, The Lion's Mouth Opens inspires us to find a new dream no matter what. Winner of the award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking at the Cinema Eye Honors, the film is directed by Emmy®-winning and two-time Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker.

• PRESS COVERAGE — ABC News. Good Morning America. Filmmaker Magazine.

The agency handled festival and national publicity efforts for this award-winning documentary, generating national network television and national newspaper coverage of one of the largest water-contamination incidents in U.S. history.

• Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger was a devoted Marine for nearly twenty-five years. As a drill instructor he lived and breathed the "Corps" and was responsible for indoctrinating thousands of new recruits with its motto Semper Fidelis — "Always Faithful." When Jerry's nine-year-old daughter Janey died of a rare type of leukemia, his world collapsed.

• As a grief-stricken father, Jerry struggled for years to make sense of what happened. His search for answers led to the shocking discovery of a Marine Corps cover-up of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history. Semper Fi: Always Faithful follows his mission to expose the Marine Corps and force them to live up to their motto — revealing a grave injustice at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune and a looming environmental crisis at military sites across the country.

• OFFICIAL SITE — semperfialwaysfaithful.com.

• BILL SIGNING — On August 6, 2012, President Barack Obama signed the Honoring America's Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act into law, with Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger and other Camp Lejeune families in the Oval Office. The White House.

• PRESS COVERAGE — The Washington Post. The Huffington Post. The Washington Post — Silverdocs. Gazette.

The 2050 Group handled national publicity for the theatrical and VOD release (Vimeo On Demand, iTunes, and other platforms) of John Leguizamo's feature film Fugly! — landing the Emmy®-winner across late-night, network news, and major print and digital outlets.

• Jesse Sanchez (Emmy®-winner John Leguizamo, writer/producer) is the "fugly" ghetto nerd from the Bronx in the 1970s, growing up in the shadow of his older, better-looking brother. Jesse heads off to college where he undergoes a transformation, meets Lara (Radha Mitchell, Finding Neverland), and learns to take command of the stage.

• Back in New York, a spur-of-the-moment local comedy night infused with his in-your-face bits on sex catches the eye of agent Stoddard (Ally Sheedy, The Breakfast Club), who says she has found the next Latino sensation. He meets Zowie (Rosie Perez), a Nuyorican poetess in search of a man who will take her to the top of the industry. With a rising film and television career, Jesse finds himself in competition with his ex's new beau Jeffery (Oscar®-nominated Griffin Dunne) — and director Alfredo de Villa's hilarious anti-romantic comedy takes a shocking turn.

• PRESS COVERAGE — The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (Comedy Central). CBS News. NBC News. People. Vulture. Slate. FOX News Latino. Film Journal International.

A campaign supporting Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's memoir of her years inside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal whistleblower fight that led to the passage of the Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act — the No FEAR Act, the first civil rights law of the 21st century.

• No Fear chronicles Dr. Coleman-Adebayo's experience as a senior policy analyst at the EPA, where she uncovered the agency's failure to protect South African vanadium miners and their communities from a deadly toxin — and the retaliation she faced for speaking out.

• Her whistleblower lawsuit and grassroots organizing led directly to the No FEAR Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002 — a landmark federal civil rights statute that holds government agencies publicly accountable for discrimination and retaliation against employees.

• The 2050 Group led media outreach around the book, securing interviews and features that introduced Dr. Coleman-Adebayo's story — and the No FEAR Act's legacy — to a national audience.