LOGLINE

In FIXERS, three unsung heroes of global journalism navigate danger, culture clashes, and personal ambitions, challenging the ethics of storytelling and questioning who truly owns the narratives shaping our world view.

SYNOPSIS

In FIXERS, three unsung heroes of global journalism navigate danger, culture clashes, and personal ambitions, challenging the ethics of storytelling and questioning who truly owns the narratives shaping our world view. Navigating high-risk access, unequal power dynamics, and tangled personal relationships, “fixers” labor in obscurity as they get the story for someone else who will get all the credit. Rich with detailed observations and surprising humor, the film plunges us into the life and work of these unsung heroes.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

The film will take a vérité approach in order to authentically and organically capture this story, applying full focus to our “fixer” participants. Foreign producers and journalists will be visually treated as peripheral characters in the film, and in our framing we may also incorporate ideas about the space of the “sidelines” inhabited by fixers. The cinematography will play with distinct visual styles to contrast intense, on-the-ground action in the fixers’ work with the quieter, more intimate moments in their personal lives as they spend time with their families and make plans for the future. Fieldwork will be shot with a fluid, handheld approach as we follow the action. Domestic life will be shot locked off, allowing scenes to unfold within a static frame. We also intend to juxtapose the foreign media’s more sensational or flattened portrayal of an environment with a more nuanced depiction that speaks to "fixers"’ experiences of their homelands, drawing out the richness, beauty and texture of life in these communities through patient observation. With this in mind, we build in plenty of pre-production time to get to know our “fixers” and their community without the camera. We will integrate into the community rather than parachuting in. Most importantly, the "fixers" film will make space for both the slippery humor of cultures clashing and the drama of high-stakes reporting. We see Bruno Dumont’s FRANCE as a good reference for its sardonic comedy and play with moral irony. Anchored around compelling, character-driven stories of ambition, geographical inequity and the global media industry, the series will delicately illuminate what transpires in the background of journalism and documentary production. We are eager to collaborate with each participant to tell their stories on their own terms, challenging stereotypes and refocusing the conversation about authorship and extraction. We will place cameras in the hands of the film’s protagonists and empower them to guide the narrative. Because so much of this film is about media creation, we will also lean into moments that reveal our presence behind the camera and our role as filmmakers in this process, in the vein of Kirsten Johnson’s CAMERAPERSON. For instance, instead of cutting moments when the camera is repositioned or when we’re focusing a shot, we’ll draw out some of those moments in the edit. We’ll also showcase scenes where the protagonists speak to the cameraperson. This will reveal the dynamics between “fixer” and filmmaker during this project's production. Our editing style may also emphasize the stop, start, backwards, forwards, long lulls and tensions of the messy work of fixing, contrasting with the soaring, dynamic, packaged aesthetic of the final production their work feeds into. Although we recognize that the stories being covered will feel dramatic and high-stakes, we plan to highlight humor, lightness and beauty in the film. We see David Osit’s MAYOR as a reference in the way it unearths comedy even as significant social issues inform the narrative.

KEY CREW

Ora DeKornfeld - Director

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ora DeKornfeld crafts intimate observational documentaries that examine the human cost of systemic inequality. Her work has garnered recognition at prestigious festivals including Tribeca and Sundance. Her films, from the Emmy-nominated USA V SCOTT to Disney+'s MIJA, demonstrate her commitment to patient, character-driven storytelling that reveals the complexities of contemporary American society.

J. Daniel Torres - Producer

Daniel Torres is a Brooklyn-based film producer whose work has garnered multiple News & Documentary Emmy Awards, including for The Fire That Took Her (Paramount+) and Victim/Suspect (Netflix). He has produced award-winning projects such as The Return of Tanya Tucker (Sony Pictures Classics), The Velvet Underground (Apple TV+), and Love to Love You, Donna Summer (HBO), showcasing his versatility across genres and platforms. Torres is currently developing new projects that prioritize compelling storytelling and diverse narratives.