MSNBC FILMS ACQUIRES ‘FROM RUSSIA WITH LEV’
FIRST FILM FROM RACHEL MADDOW’S PRODUCTION COMPANY ‘SURPRISE INSIDE’
PREMIERES AT ‘MSNBC LIVE: DEMOCRACY 2024’ EVENT SEPT. 7 AND ON MSNBC LATER IN SEPTEMBER
Feature Length Documentary Is Executive Produced by Maddow and Directed by Billy Corben
(Aug. 5, 2024 – NEW YORK) – MSNBC Films today announced the acquisition of the upcoming documentary From Russia With Lev, the first film project from MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and her Surprise Inside production company. The film is directed by Billy Corben (an Edward R. Murrow Award winner for Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami) and produced in partnership with rakontur and Universal Television Alternative Studio, with Maddow serving as executive producer.
“Lev Parnas’s story is like Tom Clancy if Jack Ryan was played by Jackie Mason,” says director Corben. “This film is a continuation of rakontur’s signature subgenre of ‘Florida Men Behaving Badly with World-Changing Geopolitical Stakes.'”
The film will debut at MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024, an upcoming day-long live event on Sept. 7 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) that features more than a dozen of MSNBC’s hosts. MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024 attendees will have the opportunity to watch the film before its premiere in theaters and its broadcast debut on MSNBC later in September.
From Russia With Lev reveals the outrageous scheme that led to former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment. It follows the much, much larger-than-life journey of Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born hustler and former small-time mafia operator whose random, almost accidental association with Trump and Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani took him around the world, and ultimately to prison. Lev reveals the ham-handed workings of the furtive campaign to dredge up false but damaging allegations against then-candidate Joe Biden.
From Russia With Lev draws on more than 30 hours of new interview footage with Parnas and his close network, as well as a never-before-seen personal archive of photos, videos, documents, and secret recordings. From start to finish, the film presents a view of former President Trump that is unfiltered and unavailable anywhere else.
The collaboration with Maddow was inspired by her newsmaking one-on-one interview with a remorseful Parnas on the eve of former President Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020. The interview led to an Emmy Award nomination for The Rachel Maddow Show and drew one of the largest audiences in the show’s 15-year history.
“There should be more documentaries from an insider’s perspective about the Trump presidency. There should be a Mike Pence documentary. There should be a John Kelly documentary, or a Rex Tillerson documentary. But it takes someone like Lev Parnas to be brave enough to speak up first,” says Maddow. “Lev’s story is un-put-down-able.”
From Russia With Lev is the latest project in Maddow’s expanding multi-platform portfolio within NBCUniversal, which includes her successful MSNBC primetime show, “The Rachel Maddow Show,” four MSNBC original podcasts including “Déjà News,” “Ultra,” and “Bagman,” two feature length films, three number one New York Times best-selling books, scripted projects, and more.
From Russia With Lev is an MSNBC Films, rakontur, Universal Television Alternative Studio, a division of Universal Studio Group, and Surprise Inside production, executive produced by Rachel Maddow, Rashida Jones, Rebecca Kutler, and Amanda Spain. The film is produced by Alfred Spellman and Billy Corben.
ABOUT MSNBC FILMS
MSNBC Films, a division of MSNBC, produces and acquires documentary features and short films for distribution across the NBCUniversal News Group platforms. MSNBC Films collaborates with top filmmakers to deliver a variety of thought-provoking films that reveal the humanity beyond the headlines, combining the extraordinary journalism of NBCUniversal News Group. For more information, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/films.
ABOUT RAKONTUR
rakontur is an Emmy-, Peabody- and Edward R. Murrow Award-winning documentary production company co-founded by Florida Men Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman. Based in Miami Beach, rakontur’s credits include the Sundance Film Festival selection Raw Deal: A Question of Consent(2001), the Cocaine Cowboys franchise, including the Netflix Original Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami (2021), Dawg Fight (2015), TIFF World Premiere Screwball (2018), the HBO Original 537 Votes (2020), executive produced by Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice), and the ESPN 30 for 30s The U (2009), Broke (2012) and The U Part 2 (2014). rakontur’s latest, God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty (2022) is the most watched doc in Hulu history.
ABOUT SURPRISE INSIDE
Co-founded with former MSNBC president Phil Griffin in 2021, Surprise Inside is Rachel Maddow’s production company where she develops original documentaries and dramatic series, as well as adaptations of her chart-topping podcasts and best-selling books. For more than 15 years, Rachel Maddow has led the Emmy award-winning “The Rachel Maddow Show,” an immediate ratings sensation and one of the most influential political news shows today. She serves as lead anchor of MSNBC’s special coverage and election nights, and has written three #1 New York Times Bestsellers: “Prequel,” “Blowout,” and “Drift.” She is host and executive producer of the podcasts “Bag Man” and “Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra,” both of which ranked #1 on the Apple podcast charts. “Ultra” is in development with Steven Spielberg; “Bag Man” is in development with Ben Stiller.
ABOUT UNIVERSAL TELEVISION ALTERNATIVE STUDIO
Universal Television Alternative Studio (UTAS), a division of Universal Studio Group, is a global supplier of broad, premium unscripted programming and formats. Led by President Toby Gorman, the studio develops and produces game shows, competition programs, true crime, documentaries and docuseries. The studio is known for series with A-list talent, including the Emmy® Award-nominated competition series “Baking It,” hosted by Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler; “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning,” executive produced and narrated by Amy Poehler; and docuseries from Dick Wolf, including “Prosecuting Evil with Kelly Siegler.” Additionally, the studio creates hit formats that are replicated worldwide: longtime NBC favorite “Hollywood Game Night,” for which Jane Lynch has won two Emmy Awards as host, has been remade in 25 territories; “The Wall” has been sold into 29 territories internationally; and Emmy-nominated music and comedy event series “That’s My Jam” has options in over a dozen territories. Upcoming series include “The Americas,” a 10-part natural history show narrated by Tom Hanks with music by Hans Zimmer, and “Surviving Earth,” a docuseries that will recreate critical mass extinctions in Earth’s history.
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