Madeleine Sackler

In August of 2020, Kareem Burke, of Roc-A-Fella Records fame, took to social media to announce an Emmy nomination for "It's a Hard Truth, Ain't It". Kareem Burke co-directed and executive produced the project and it premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival alongside O.G., another film that was produced at Indiana's Pendleton Correctional Facility during the same period. "It's a Hard Truth..." documents thirteen incarcerated men as they study filmmaking while exploring a therapeutic process of how they landed in prison with lengthy sentences. The men all received directors credit for the film. Several of those thirteen men were also cast as first-time actors in O.G., having the opportunity to work with Tony, Golden Globe, and Emmy winning actor, Jeffrey Wright.[11] "It's a Hard Truth Ain't It" is the first widely released documentary to be directed by men still incarcerated in a maximum security prison.[12]

The Lottery is a documentary directed by Sackler. The film follows four families that are hoping to enroll their children in the Harlem Success Academy charter school in New York City. While the charter school has been proven to provide a superior education than public schools, there are only 475 slots and over 3,000 applicants.[5] In this film, Sackler focuses on the power politics that are embedded in public education and the controversy that follows. She argues that this charter school "lottery" is a result of corruption in the public education system.[5] Along with exposing the public education system, The Lottery places emphasis on the achievement gap between minority and white students, and the oppression minority students and families experience in public education.[5]

Duke 91&92: Back to Back is a documentary for Turner Sports produced and directed by Sackler and Amy Unell in 2012 and executive produced by Grant Hill and Christian Laettner.[13] The documentary highlighted the back-to-back National Championships the Duke University Blue Devils won in the 1991 and 1992 NCAA championships.[14]

Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus is an observational documentary directed by Sackler for HBO.[4][6] It was the winner of the 2015 Emmy for Outstanding Arts and Cultural Programming.[1] [15] Sackler began production on the film in Belarus in the summer of 2010. She gathered footage of Belarus Free Theatre, an underground theatre group that had been censored and deemed illegal by the Belarus government.[4] In the documentary, Sackler captures the theatre group's performances, as well as their everyday lives and struggles under what they consider to be totalitarian control.[6] Sackler also films tense political moments; six months into filming, Belarus experienced an election that resulted in Alexander Lukashanko, who some have called 'Europe's last dictator', winning a fourth-consecutive term as president against democratic candidate Andrei Sannikov.[4][6] Following the election there were riots with civilians clashing with police followed by arrests including opposition candidates, with some members of Belarus Free Theatre being involved and others fleeing for countries such as England and America. This turbulent election altered Sackler's documentary from themes of dictatorship, power, and censorship, to topics of exile, family, and home.[4][6]

Due to the political climate in Belarus, the footage and interviews that were created for this documentary had to be recorded in secrecy and smuggled out of the country over the border of Belarus to avoid detection and disruption from the government.[4][6]

Sackler made two films that were filmed entirely in prison. One is fictional drama titled O.G. and the second is a cinéma vérité-style documentary called It's a Hard Truth Ain't It.[8] Sackler and her production crew filmed in Pendleton Correctional Facility in Indiana. This is the first time that a fiction and non-fiction film have been filmed entirely inside a Level 4 prison.[8]

O.G. is Sackler's first fictional film; she is the director and a producer.[8] It features over one-hundred-twenty prison inmates as lead actors and extras, as well as dozens of guards.[7][8] The plot follows an older prison inmate, played by Jeffrey Wright, who on the verge of release befriends a younger inmate.[7] The role of the younger inmate was played by an actual inmate Theothus Carter, who was in prison for drug dealing and fighting.[7] The script for O.G. has been modeled after the real experiences of prison inmates. The film has been credited as not following traditional prison movie clichés, such as an evil warden, rape scene, or solitary confinement segment, but rather focusing on the prison as a village.[7] Sackler became interested in the prison system while filming her first documentary The Lottery, about the public education system. The connection between education, or lack thereof, and incarceration inspired her to create O.G.[7] O.G. is coproduced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov's company Smokehouse Pictures [8] In 2019 HBO bought the rights to the film.

It's a Hard Truth Ain't It is cinéma vérité-style documentary directed and produced by Sackler.[8] During the five-year production time of the film O.G., Sackler simultaneously recorded interviews and led a documentary filmmaking workshop for inmates at Pendleton Correctional Facility.[8] It's a Hard Truth Ain't It features inmate's footage and interviews, as well as animation by Yoni Goodman.[8]