Kristen, and her production company Nevermind Pictures, has joined as executive producer on documentary 'Barbara Forever'

Kristen Stewart and her production company, Nevermind Pictures, have come on board Brydie O’Connor’s documentary “Barbara Forever” as an executive producer as Strand Releasing acquires all North American rights to the film, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival followed by its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

The film, which chronicles the life and career of filmmaker Barbara Hammer, was produced by Space Time Films with Christine Vachon and Killer Films serving as executive producer. Stewart has also joined as an executive producer, alongside Dylan Meyer and Maggie McLean, with their company Nevermind Pictures.

“Their involvement reflects a dedication to Barbara Hammer’s radical legacy of experimental and inherently political filmmaking that defiantly reshapes the way we look at cinema, queerness and ourselves,” said Strand.

Nevermind Pictures said in a joint statement, “Barbara’s work has left an immeasurable imprint on us as artists and as people. She struggled to find the acknowledgement she deserved in life, and we are sick with pride to be able to help shine a spotlight on her now.”

The distribution deal was done between Jon Gerrans of Strand Releasing and Isadora Johnson of Cinetic on behalf of the filmmakers.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Brydie and the team, this is a very special project as Barbara Hammer was a dear colleague of Strand’s as we did her first theatrical release, ‘Nitrate Kisses,’ during our formative years. Barbara was and will always be one of the artists who helped define our company,” said Gerrans.

“Strand has long been a home for the kind of bold, independent, and intimately personal cinema that Barbara helped define,” said O’Connor. “We’re so excited to be partnering with a team that not only sees the vision of the film, but understands how vital it is to bring Barbara Hammer’s artistic legacy to audiences now.”

Strand Releasing and Killer Films have previously collaborated on such acclaimed films as Nigel Finch’s “Stonewall,” Cindy Sherman’s “Office Killer” and Bruce Wagner’s “I’m Losing You.”

“ ‘Barbara Forever’ is a perfect film for Strand Releasing and Killer Films to be reunited on, it weaves together so much history that has occurred during the formation of the New Queer Cinema and our long-term friendship. ‘Barbara Forever’ captures the spirit and soul of Barbara and her legacy,” said Marcus Hu, co-president of Strand Releasing.

Strand plans for a national fall release launching with a theatrical run at Film Forum in New York on Sept. 4, before going wide.

“Barbara Forever” won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award at Sundance and the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at Berlinale, and has gone on to screen at major festivals including Thessaloniki, Full Frame and Hot Docs.

It was produced by Elijah Stevens of Space Time Films, O’Connor and Claire Edelman of Killer Films. The film was co-produced by Kartemquin Films and co-executive produced by Kathryn A. Taylor and Marcela Davison Avilés of TomKat Media.

The film is represented for international sales by MetFilm Sales, who will present the title to buyers at the Marché du film at Cannes.

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NEW PROJECT: Kristen to play astronaut Sally Ride in 'The Challenger' for a limited TV series

Kristen Stewart will make her TV series-starring debut in The Challenger, a limited series in which she’ll play Sally Ride, the astronaut and physicist who became the first American woman to fly in space. She did this as part of a NASA space shuttle astronaut class of 1978 that was the first to be diversified and not comprised of all white men.  

Kyra Sedgwick’s Big Swing Productions developed and brought the project to Amblin and is executive producing with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners and Stewart through the latter’s Nevermind production label. Amblin’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey are also exec producers.

Maggie Cohn will serve as the writer and showrunner; her credits include American Crime Story, The Staircase and Narcos: Mexico. This has been the hot property on the TV auction block this week, and Amazon is close to tying it down.

The series is based on The New Guys, a book written by Meredith E. Bagby, who partners with Sedgwick and Valerie Stadler in Big Swing. They are also executive producers.

In some ways, this has the tapestry to tell the successor story to The Right Stuff, which was based on Tom Wolfe’s book about the culture clash that occurred when the cockiest world’s best fighter pilots jumped into the space race that America was engaged in with the Russians. Bagby tells the story of a group that was called by their predecessors ‘The F*cking New Guys,’ as NASA sought to diversify its pilots and crew for the space shuttle program. Ride was the first woman and the first member of the LGBTQ+ community to fly into space. Also in that program was the first Black and Asian American astronauts, and a married couple. They passed all the rigorous tests to become top of the class, and egos, ambition and romance were part of the cultural clash. They were also quite brilliant.

In 1983, Ride became the first American woman to fly on the space shuttle, and became an instant celebrity. That joy was short-lived, however, when three years later the space shuttle Challenger blew apart 73 seconds into its ascent, killing all seven members of the crew. Ride then became the only astronaut to become part of the Rogers Commission, a presidential commission to investigate the disaster, and it later came out that she pinpointed the problems with O-rings that became stiff at low temperature, and that turned out to be the reason for the explosion. Ride died from cancer at age 61 in 2012, a true American hero.

The hope will be to get this ready to time the series in proximity of the Challenger disaster anniversary. That happened 38 years ago, on January 28, 1986. For Stewart, this continues a career evolution which started after the Twilight Saga films, in which she has established herself as a most watchable actress with range.

In a moment where not a lot is selling in the marketplace, how does a plum package like this happen? Sedgwick explains this was a truly homegrown project, and not one that happened overnight:

“This is something we’ve worked on at Big Swing since 2017, me, Meredith and Valerie, about this new class of astronaut recruited by NASA in the early 1970s,” she said. “Sally Ride was among them, and the focus is this newly recruited wild, feral group of astronauts who were all very diverse. And then on an Oppenheimer track, it also tells the story of the Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger disaster that Ride took part in. Growing up in Florida, Meredith Bagby was obsessed with space and the shuttle, and she also watched the Challenger explode. Meredith got hundreds of hours of interviews with the members of that class, and we have relationships with all those living astronauts and they will be part of our brain trust on the show.

“She wrote the book and it went on the bestseller lists,” Sedgwick told Deadline. “We wanted so much to tell this story as a limited series. Our goal at Big Swing is to tell familiar stories with a new perspective and point of view. I had a relationship with Maggie Cohn, and she fell in love with the book. Valerie had this dream of having Kristen Stewart, and after more than a year of trying to get Kristen this book through back channeling, she read it and she fell in love. Getting Kristen and Maggie was incredible, for a company nobody really knows yet. We are three girls with a dream.

“Then we thought, what better than to bring in Steven Spielberg to help tell this awe-inspiring story of the astronauts who inspired space travel for a new generation? They helped us prepare the pitch that went out to the marketplace, and it has been extremely competitive and we are close to a deal.”

Making Stewart the centerpiece was also interesting in that TV was not an obsession for her.

“She has never done television, but when she read this she became obsessed with telling the story of Sally Ride from her own unique perspective that I won’t even try to paraphrase because she is so eloquent about it,” Sedgwick said. “She was so stunning in these pitch meetings and that was a huge part of why it has been so competitive. She’s so compelling and was so rabid about telling this story about an American hero who had to hide who she was, in that time.

“Who better to play Sally Ride than one of the great actors of her generation? As they say in Hollywood, passion wins the day. Her passion for being an executive producer is vast. As dogged as we were about getting the script to her, she has been that dogged about getting it sold in the marketplace.”

Even though Sedgwick herself is most closely associated with the role of the closer, it was Stewart who played that role in the pitch process.

“Right now when everyone is saying that nobody is buying anything, she would not listen and nor would we because if we had listened to all the times we were told this would be too hard, we would never have gotten this off the ground. Amblin spoke first, Maggie was great, and then they passed it to me, I was the one to pass to Kristen and was the one who got to kvell about her because I’d just seen Love Lies Bleeding. We were all in it to win it.”   

Auction was brokered by WME (which reps Stewart and Amblin) and CAA (which reps Sedgwick, Big Swing and Cohn).

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Clip of Kristen and CJ Romero for 'Living for the Dead'

Kristen and the cast of the 'Living for the Dead' Instagram Live - 15 February 2024

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Kristen on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen for 'Living for the Dead' - 26 October 2023

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Video: The "Living for the Dead' cast talk about Kristen with Too Fab

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'Living for the Dead' producers talk about Kristen with the Daily Beast

 

You may have watched ghost-hunting shows in the past, but you have never seen anything quite like Living for the Dead.

From the brilliant minds of Kristen Stewart, her friend CJ Romero, and the folks at Scout Productions that brought us Queer Eye, Living for the Dead combines all the elements we know and love from the Netflix series (the heart, the humor and, of course, the hugs) with some spooky ghost hunting in some seriously haunted places.

“We always joked from day one that this is gay Scooby-Doo,” executive producer Rob Eric, who also worked on both the original and rebooted Queer Eye, told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed.

And the Scooby gang in Living for the Dead does not disappoint. Juju Bae, Alex LeMay, Roz Hernandez, Logan Taylor, and Ken Boggle make up what I’ve dubbed the Paranormal Five (a supernatural twist on the Fab Five). They all bring unique talents (as well as an abundance of compassion) to the investigations, whether it’s communicating with the spirits, manning technical equipment, or doing deep spiritual readings of those most affected by the spirits in the place.

The first season of the unscripted series, which premieres on Hulu Oct. 18, finds the gang taking their ghost-hunting talents across the Midwestern United States to investigate some legendary haunted landmarks like the Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, as well as some lesser-known, reportedly eerie spots like the Palomino Club in Las Vegas.

Ahead of the premiere, executive producers Rob Eric and Renata Lombardo tell Obsessed how Stewart brought the idea to them, the moment they knew they found their amazing queer Scooby Gang, and why this ghost hunting show is unlike any other.

First of all, this concept is brilliant: Queer Eye, but for paranormal hunting. Love it. I know that this was an idea that Kristen Stewart and CJ Romero came up with, but how was this pitched to you?

Eric: We got a call that Kristen Stewart and CJ had an idea, and do we want to hear it? I’m like, it’s Kristen Stewart, of course, we wanna hear it! (Laughs) It was a seedling of an idea. They were at a brunch and somebody mentioned something about a gay paranormal show, like, why don’t we have one of those? And Kristen was like, “I would fucking watch that forever.”

As would I!

Eric: Kristen was very specific on how she wanted emotion and heart and humor. And so obviously they reached out to the Queer Eye guys. We started talking about it and developed the format with her, and sort of gave away some of our trade secrets of how we create emotion and heart and humor [in Queer Eye], and then shot the show. It was an amazing relationship. We’re still working together on other stuff, and she’s awesome. They’re both awesome.

Lombardo: We were excited about the Kristen Stewart call, but we had no idea truly the power of the celebrity of Kristen Stewart until she mentioned that she was developing the show with us in an interview. I think it was around Spencer, and it got picked up and there were so many articles that came our way. Everyone was like, “Is this you guys? What’s happening?” It just proved that there’s an undeniable stardom with Kristen.

You mentioned the heart and the humor of the show. At one point watching the screeners, I wrote down, “This is ghost therapy,” because it is such a unique and compassionate approach to the paranormal. Instead of going for scares you go in trying to not only heal the spirits, but those affected by them. How did you find this approach?

Eric: I think it was probably what we collectively—Kristen, CJ, and Scout [Productions]—bring to the paranormal, right? We’ve seen a million paranormal shows and for us it always seems like they go in and they sort of irritate the spirit in order to try to do something. We’re like, well, we should actually try to communicate a little bit more, like we do on Queer Eye. It’s not just going in and taking somebody and saying, “Hey, if you use this moisturizer to do this, you’re gonna be great,” and we walk away. There’s more interaction, there’s more character, and there’s more of a companionship between the characters—whether the character is a ghost or the person that’s trying to get rid of the ghost.

Much like finding the Fab Five, I’m sure it was a journey to find the Paranormal Five. Can you kind of walk me through the process of casting these five roles and what you were looking for in each role?

Eric: These were not people that we just pulled from obscurity and said, “Hey, you’re now a medium.” These were people that came to us. They were mediums, and they were people that were skeptics. Not only does Roz have her show about the world of paranormal, but she always is very clear [that] she’s a skeptic. We wanted that element in there as well, because I think the audience always approaches a paranormal show with a bit of skepticism, as well as interest.

Lombardo: We reference, from one end, it’s the heart [we were looking for], and on the other end, it’s like gay Scooby-Doo. We wanted to be able to live in both spaces, so we had to find talent that could walk both lines. One is being sort of serious about the craft and what they brought to the table. And the other one is that we have to have fun with this, because it’s gay camp that we didn’t want to lose in the process. Because they are gay ghost hunters, and [that’s] what makes this show distinctly different tonally from other ghost hunting shows as well.

Yes, there certainly hasn’t been a show like this before.

Eric: When we cast them, it wasn’t just video casting. We brought everybody out. We wanted to meet them in person, see how they can work together. But we also wanted to see their talent. And there were some really scary moments with all of them. Renata sat in when Ken did a reading of my cards and was so frighteningly accurate.

Lombardo: Oh yes. I had chills. Literally, he needed to grab Rob. He was like, “I need to read you,” and pulled him aside. I had chills multiple times because we work together every day. I know him fairly well. And the stuff he was saying, I was like, “How? What?” That was honestly what put him through for us.

Eric: My business partner David, he had a reading from Logan. That was bonkers... [Logan’s reading] was so specific that there was no doubt that there was some connection that he was having. David broke down because it was about his father who had passed away. But it was so connective that it wasn’t just like, “Oh, your dad says hi,” or, “Your dad’s super proud of you.” It was down to a moment that he had on his deathbed that no one would’ve known about and David’s never spoken about. And David had never met Logan before. So it was amazing.

And this was just the audition?!

Eric: Right? And then you got into the field with them and it was nonstop. You’ve got five people who, when they merge together, that communication is open. They’re open for everything. So therefore that world connects much easier for them.

Another character in the show is the locations. They are so fun and spooky and unique. What was the search like not only for the locations, but the people that were in them?

Lombardo: We sought out iconic haunted locations. We made it hard on ourselves because we could have probably just gone to one city and just done more of what we do with Queer Eye, where we hub out of one city and sort of branch out. We shot for the stars in Season 1, which was a hybrid of finding the most iconic spooky locations across basically like the western middle of the United States, and then also finding people that were associated with those locations.

Eric: And some of these places have been done before on other shows. We didn’t care.

Yeah, you do it your way.

Eric: We are doing it our way. And why is this reoccurring? Why does it keep happening in this place if all these people come to visit? What are they not doing that we should be doing? The one thing that we wanted in every location was visibility. We didn’t want to just go have our team stay in a hotel, then they just go visit the people and then we leave. Tonopah is a perfect example.

Lombardo: That’s the Clown Motel episode.

Eric: It’s a really weird little town. I think the population’s like maybe 1,500 people.

Lombardo: Because it’s such a small town, the town got wind that this gay something was there. Something gay is happening in town. (Laughs)

Eric: We shot a sequence in the bar where we were meeting up with some town people. This beautiful moment happened where this woman—who never told us anything about this, we had no idea—brought up the fact that she was dealing with a non-binary child. As that moment was happening, I was downstairs in front of the monitor like, “Dear, sweet baby Jesus, let’s just keep going here.” Because this is that conversation that we don't normally see in paranormal shows, but we also don’t normally see in small towns like this.

It was a really amazing moment.

Eric: And that woman who stands up [after] and she says, “I’m pansexual,” it was this coming-out party that happened and it was a really beautiful, natural thing to see. So we insisted that in every one of our shows we were having visibility in these towns. Not just for the purpose of the investigation, but also the purpose of we’re a very large crew of LGBTQIA+ people. We need to be seen.

I love Kristen Stewart’s narration. It really brings a whole fun, campy layer to the show. How did you come to the decision to include narration, and was Kristen always going to be the voice of it?

Eric: Kristen was always the voice. We talked about it. I think it was Renata’s idea actually from day one.

Lombardo: She’s got such a great voice and such a distinct voice. And we talked a lot at the beginning about, how do you get Kristen’s DNA in the series without Kristen being on the show? So, conceptually it was always sort of like Kristen’s like the Charlie of the Charlie’s Angels. So that's sort of where it started.

Eric: And she’s a perfectionist. In the booth, I remember sitting in one of the sessions where she was just like, “I don't like the way I said that. Let me say it this way. What if I say it like this? What if I bring it here?” Super collaborative. Kristen cares deeply about this show and the people that we’re helping on the show. She wanted every element to be right, and when her voice is essentially the lead thing you hear on the show, she wanted to be just perfect.

Lombardo: And keep watching. You may see her, but in the time being, you’ll hear her.

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Kristen talks about 'Living for the Dead' with People

 

Kristen Stewart has enlisted a few friends to help her conquer some fears.

Along with the creators of Queer Eye, the actress is executive-producing and narrating Hulu’s new docuseries Living for the Dead, featuring five queer ghost hunters as they investigate famed haunted locations around the U.S.

“It’s so cool and enlivening that me and my best friend CJ Romero had this funny idea and now it’s a show,” Stewart, 33, said in a statement. “It started as a bit of a hypothetical silly pipe dream and now I am so proud to have shepherded something that is as moving and meaningful as it is truly a gay old time.”

The team, including Alex Le May, Juju Bae, Ken Boggle, Logan Taylor and Roz Hernandez, “makes me laugh and cry and they had the courage and heart to take us places I wouldn’t go by myself,” said Stewart. “And it’s a super cool maiden voyage for the company I’ve started with my partners Dylan Meyer and Maggie McLean.”

In PEOPLE's exclusive sneak peek at the show’s trailer, the cast work together to investigate locations — including Copper Queen Hotel, Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the Clown Hotel, Palace Theater and the Palomino — and experience cold chills, apparitions, unseen forces and spirit attachments.

“This is just the beginning for us and for Living for the Dead,” Stewart said. “We wanna one day have traipsed across the entire spooky ass country. Maybe the world!”

The Hulu original docuseries Living for the Dead premieres Oct. 18.

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Video: The 'Living for the Dead' Official Trailer

 

The TV series, executive produced and narrated by Kristen, premieres on Hulu in the US on 18 October 2023.

The queer ghost hunting TV show 'Living for the Dead' will premiere on Hulu on 18 October 2023

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' Living for the Dead' will premiere on Hulu on 18 October. The series is executive produced by Kristen additionally it will be narrated by her.

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Kristen and CJ Romero wrap on their gay ghost hunting TV show

CJ Romero "We wrapped, but this is just the beginning….stay tuned October 2023."

Video: Kristen announces a casting call for her LGBTQIA+ ghost hunting TV show

 

If you are part of the LGBTQ+ community and are psychic, a medium or paranormal involved you can apply to be cast here.

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