Broomfield sets his sights on Sarah Palin for Channel 4

8 August 2011

Channel 4 has commissioned award-winning documentary maker Nick Broomfield to make a feature-length documentary about Sarah Palin, in which he sets out to find the ‘real' Sarah Palin, travelling to Wasilla, Alaska in search the woman behind the headlines.

Sarah Palin - You Betcha! premieres at Toronto Film Festival before airing on Channel 4 later in the year.

Head of documentaries, Hamish Mykura, who commissioned the documentary for Channel 4, said: "From the icy snows of Alaska in mid winter, this is Nick's quest to find out about Sarah Palin from the people who know her best. Nick is one of our foremost documentary talents and this film follows in the tradition of many of his great portraits of influential figures."

Director Nick Broomfield meets school friends, family and Republican colleagues that previously backed the charismatic and charming ex-hockey mum. But Broomfield finds it's not all plain sailing, and discovers a small town fraught with feuds where close friends have become bitter enemies, and the question on everyone's lips is ‘are you with her or against her?' He adds:  "People are frightened to talk, Wasilla makes Twin Peaks look like a walk in the park. It's a devout evangelical community - 76 churches with a population of only six thousand."

Broomfield's films for Channel 4 include His Big White Self, about South-African far-right leader Eugene Terre'Blanche; Aileen:  Life and Death of a Serial Killer, the story of America's first woman serial killer Aileen Wuronos; Biggie and Tupac, a documentary on the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls and the East Coast/West Coast, hip-hop/rap rivalry that culminated in late 1996 and early 1997; Heidi Fleiss, exploring the life of the notorious Hollywood Madame; as well as drama-documentaries The Battle For Haditha, an investigation into the massacre of 24 people in Haditha, Iraq, and Ghosts, which focussed on the deaths of Chinese cockle pickers from Morecombe Bay.

Nick Broomfield is the recipient of the following awards, amongst others: Sundance first prize, Bafta awards including Lifetime Achievement, Prix Italia, Dupont Peabody Award, Grierson Award, Hague Peace Prize, Amnesty International Doen award.

 

Director: Nick Broomfield
Commissioning Editor Hamish Mykura  
Awakening (Film) Ltd