Avrich

Avrich says the film will be balanced, not a hatchet job, and that Harvey Weinstein at first advised him not to make it.

Quentin Tarantino Sued Over Kill Bill, May Make Doc About Harvey Weinstein | /Film 2010

See, Barry Avrich, who wrote and directed a documentary about Lew R. Wasserman (The Last Mogul) is angling to make a film in the same no-holds-barred vein, with Harvey Weinstein as the subject.

Quentin Tarantino Sued Over Kill Bill, May Make Doc About Harvey Weinstein | /Film 2010

"The horse and wagon were blown to bits," writes Paul Avrich, the celebrated historian of American anarchism who uncovered the true story.

The first car bomb 2006

I first discovered Avrich while an undergraduate student at the American University of Beirut.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 As'ad 2006

"Stage one Weinstein will be incredibly charming; stage two he'll try and buy the film so he can bury it, and stage three is war," Avrich recalls.

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Avrich, who reassembles the "dream team" of former Miramax executives for the doc, says more than one insider told him, based on previous experience, how his project would likely play out.

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"Hollywood is run on the 'you never know' fear factor, and even though I kept saying I wasn't doing a hatchet job, many yeses turned into nos at the last minute," Avrich says.

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In retrospect, Avrich says, the timing of the doc couldn't have been better.

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When Avrich started doing the rounds to raise financing in 2009 no one in the United States dared bite, The Weinstein Company was still struggling to hit a groove after restructuring cleared it of its massive debt.

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"Who knows, maybe I'll have to update the film again before it comes out in the U.S. this spring," laughs Avrich, 47, who has made more than a dozen documentaries, shot mostly on weekends "some people play golf, I make movies," he says.

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