Independent Lens, the Emmy-winning ITVS series that airs on PBS stations, has acquired TV and digital rights to Nicholas Bruckman’s latest documentary, Minted.
The film, which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival, explores the boom-and-bust fortunes of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), a market that reached a valuation of $40 billion, give or take a few billion, before crashing last year (however, the NFT market has recently experienced a resurgence).
How to explain an NFT? Digital content, by its nature, can be endlessly reproduced or copied. But leveraging blockchain technology, an NFT constitutes a unique, one-of-a-kind piece of digital content or artwork. If you have an NFT, you’ve got the only one, theoretically, and as a rare commodity it could, again theoretically, go up in value substantially. It’s a kind of asset.
Independent Lens says it will slate Minted as part of an upcoming season of the long-running show.
“Minted masterfully delves into the intricate and often perplexing world of the $40 billion NFT (non-fungible token) digital art sphere…,” notes a release about the documentary. “Filmed around the world through a combination of candid interviews, vérité footage, and powerful archival film, filmmaker Nicholas Bruckman expertly weaves together the multifaceted story of this groundbreaking and controversial phenomenon.”
“Independent Lens explores the world of digital artwork and capitalism in Minted,” said Executive Producer Lois Vossen. “Minted helps us understand how a digital work that anyone can download for free can be worth a delirious amount of money in the unpredictable relationship between technology, artistic value, and investment bubbles that can burst.”
Director Nicholas Bruckman
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Bruckman said in a statement, “I’m psyched to be working with Lois and her incredible team to bring the wild, often misunderstood world of NFTs and the artists behind them to audiences nationwide on Independent Lens.”
Minted is directed, written, and produced by Nicholas Bruckman, produced and executive produced by Rahilla Zafar, and written and produced by Shawn Hazelett. The film is a production of People’s Television, Inc., the award-winning film, TV, and branded content studio founded by Bruckman. He serves as People’s Television Inc.’s CEO.
Bruckman’s 2021 film Not Going Quietly documented the political activist Ady Barkan, who became a leading advocate for expanding health care access for all Americans even as he contended with the incurable neurodegenerative condition ALS. That film won the Audience Award at SXSW, Best Documentary Feature at the Next Generation Indie Film Awards, and the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Cordillera International Film Festival, among other prizes.
Independent Lens is celebrating a recent win of its own. Free Chol Soo Lee, the Independent Lens feature directed by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi, won Outstanding Historical Documentary at the 45th News & Documentary Emmy Awards last week.
Independent Lens, headed by founding executive producer Lois Vossen, showcases documentaries “united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement, and unflinching visions of independent filmmakers,” notes a release. IL, with 10 Oscar nominations to its credit, “has a legacy of acquiring critically acclaimed and high-profile documentaries from major festivals and markets. Past acquisitions include the highly acclaimed and award-winning Morgan Neville doc Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Academy Award-nominated and Peabody-winning Writing with Fire, Academy Award-nominated Hale County This Morning, This Evening, and Peabody Award-winning Dolores by Peter Bratt.