Sean Penn Talks About Getting Involved with Witch Hunt

Sean Penn sat down for an extended interview with Access Hollywood's Maria Menounos to talk about Witch Hunt

Submarine, MSNBC Hitch for 'Witch' - Variety

By MICHAEL JONES MSNBC Films and Submarine Entertainment have finalized a North American television deal for Dana Nachman and Don Hardy’s “Witch Hunt,” narrated and exec produced by Sean Penn. “Witch Hunt” will have its U.S. preem at AFI Fest on Sunday. Docu follows eight parents in Bakersfield, who were wrongly convicted of child molestation.

10 Burning Questions: WITCH HUNT

In the documentary world, there are films that are interesting, fascinating, and have wonderfully original viewpoints on a world we only thought we knew…The film WITCH HUNT is exactly such a film.

Witch Hunt for Truth

By Dana Nachman and Don Hardy Jr. (co-directors of the documentary written by Nachman, Witch Hunt) (from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival) More than four years ago, in 2004, we met a man in prison. He wasn't the first person in prison blues we had interviewed and he definitely won't be the last. But this man was different - John Stoll was innocent. Half of his teeth were gone and he glanced at us with shifty eyes. But we knew this was the result of 20 years in California's meanest prisons and not the disposition of someone who would molest six little boys, one of them being his own son. Our desire is that film screenings of Witch Hunt will bring the eyes of the world to this story and help change the political landscape of Bakersfield and similar cities and communities. We want audiences to begin to realize that, through their own participation in elections and by serving on juries, they can make sure this kind of injustice never happens again.

DOWN IN Bakersfield, they have a saying: "Come on vacation, leave on probation." The city, surrounded by swaying horsehead oil rigs and spinach fields, is a bit of Texas transplanted into Southern California. And Bakersfield is known for Texas justice.

In the mid-1980s, an ambitious DA named Ed Jagels made a name for himself by prosecuting what was called a "sex ring": a group of molesters who were passing children around among themselves. Read more

Bay Area Filmmakers' Doc Goes Natl.

Not everyone behind bars is guilty.

A new documentary film by two new Bay Area-based filmmakers features the voice of Sean Penn and explores the failures of the legal system.

Documentary.org

How did you find your subject or become involved in the film? DH: It was a defining moment. When a story this good comes to you, you have to find a way to tell it or shut up about wanting to make documentaries. DN: We're television journalists and had done work with the Northern California Innocence Project before. Once we heard about this story, we couldn't stop with a three-minute television piece. Read more

Industry Buzz

"Witch Hunt": Bay Area filmmakers Dana Nachman and Don Hardy Jr. earlier this month scored a happy ending for their documentary about a sad miscarriage of justice. On the eve of its screening at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles, "Witch Hunt," narrated and executive produced by Sean Penn, got picked up by MSNBC Films. The movie will show on the cable TV outlet next spring after an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run in December. "Witch Hunt" recounts the 1980s case of eight Bakersfield parents falsely convicted of child molestation. Read more:

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