Netflix Lines Up Casting JonBenet Doc

BEVERLY HILLS: Netflix has acquired worldwide rights for Kitty Green’s documentary Casting JonBenet, which will be available for streaming this year.

The documentary will also have a limited theatrical release in the spring. The documentary hybrid examines the legacy of murdered 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey. Casting JonBenet examines how her murder has shaped the attitudes and behavior of parents and children. It is produced by Green (Ukraine is Not a Brothel, The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul), Scott Macaulay (Raising Victor Vargas, Gummo) and James Schamus (Brokeback Mountain, The Ice Storm).

The film was financed by Meridian Entertainment through its production deal with Schamus’s Symbolic Exchange, with additional support from Screen Australia, Film Victoria, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, Cinereach, Rooftop Films and Garbo NYC. Casting JonBenet is a production of Forensic Films, Matricide Pictures and Symbolic Exchange.

“For Scott and me, working with Kitty, a visionary filmmaker whose originality is matched by her empathy, has been one of the great privileges of our careers,” said James Schamus of Symbolic Exchange.

Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films added: “We couldn’t be more excited to now have Netflix on her team, continuing their bold nonfiction roster.”

“Kitty boldly embraces the tradition of innovative risk-taking within the documentary filmmaking mode with her remarkable work on Casting JonBenet,” Netflix’s VP of original documentary programming, Lisa Nishimura, commented. “Netflix is the ideal home for showcasing Kitty’s sharply rendered vision of a mythic American tragedy to a global audience, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the crime.”