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The Conspiracy
Director Maxim Pozdorovkin, Producers Joe Bender, Dan Cogan, Caroline Hirsch, and Allison Stern
Logline
Maxim Pozdorovkin - Director
Maxim Pozdorovkin is an award-winning director and producer based in New York City. He is the director of six feature-length documentaries and numerous short films. His most recent feature, The Truth About Killer Robots, premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival and was broadcast on HBO. Our New President premiered at Sundance 2018 where it won a Special Jury Award for Best Editing. Other films include: Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer (Emmy winner), The Notorious Mr. Bout, Clínica de Migrantes (HBO). Maxim holds a PhD from Harvard University and was an artist fellow at Harvard’s Society of Fellows. His next film How to Rob Banks for Dummies, the story of video artist Joe Gibbons, is currently in post-production.
Joe Bender - Producer
Joe Bender is a producer and director of photography and co-founder of Third Party Films. He most recently lensed Persona (HBO Max, 2021), filmed and produced The Truth About Killer Robots (HBO), which premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, and The Candidates, which premiered at DOC NYC. He produced the Sundance award-winning Our New President (2018) and was named among DOC NYC’s 40 under 40 (2018). Other recent work as Director of Photography appears in documentary films and series for HBO, National Geographic, PBS and TED, among others. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Dan Cogan - Producer
Producer Dan Cogan is the Academy Award®-winning producer of Icarus and the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Impact Partners, a fund and advisory service for investors and philanthropists who seek to promote social change through film. Since its inception in 2007, Impact Partners has financed over 100 films, including Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which won the 2019 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, and The Cove, which won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Caroline Hirsch - Producer
Caroline Hirsch, founder and owner of Carolines on Broadway, is a successful entrepreneur, producer, visionary and innovator in the entertainment industry with an illustrious career spanning 40 years. Her namesake club is one of the most enduring and respected comedy brands and a leading destination for live entertainment since 1982. Caroline has produced 110 hours of A&E’s Carolines Comedy Hour, the Ms. Foundation’s Ladies of Comedy for Lifetime, Call Your Mother for Comedy Central, the 2018 feature film Ask for Jane and is producing The Conspiracy, a documentary on antisemitism. Caroline also created the New York Comedy Festival, which features 200+ comedians in 100+ shows across all five boroughs. This November marks the 18th year of the festival.
Allison Stern - Producer
Allison Maher Stern moved to New York to work as a model with the prestigious Wilhelmina agency. After modeling for several years, she began working in film and television production. She then optioned and produced the 1985 Prime Time Emmy award winning adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Displaced Person” for the prestigious American Playhouse series on PBS. In 2019, Allison and her friend Caroline Hirsch became appalled after reading of the many incidents of antisemitism that were popping up in the news, not only in America and on campuses, but around the world. They started to explore the roots of this hatred and decided to create a film about where, why, and how this began. The result of those efforts is The Conspiracy, directed by Maxim Pozdorovkin, which will close the 2022 DOC NYC Film Festival.
Project logline and bios courtesy of the grantees.