Remake 2025

Recently Released

For nearly forty years, Ross McElwee has made closely observed and profoundly subjective documentaries about how his personal life intersects with the world at large. But the sudden death of his son causes him to reassess his approach to filmmaking. Meanwhile, an effort to adapt McElwee’s feature, Sherman’s March, into a work of fiction inches along.

The Filmmakers

Ross McElwee is a widely celebrated documentary filmmaker whose work blends autobiography, cultural observation, and humor. His breakthrough film Sherman’s March won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. McElwee has made ten feature-length documentaries and received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Pennebaker Award. In 2005, MoMA presented a full retrospective of his work, later shown in Brussels, Seoul, Quito, Milan, and Moscow.

Mark Meatto is an award-winning documentary producer based in New York who began his career as Ross McElwee’s editing partner on Bright Leaves. He is a Creative Executive at Words + Pictures, where executive produced Super/man: The Christopher Reeve Story and is currently producing an eight-part series on his hometown New York Yankees for ESPN/Disney.

Awards & Recognition

Docs Ireland, Maysles Brothers Competition Award - WINNER

Festivals

Venice Film Festival - World Premiere

True/False Film Festival

IDFA

Cinéma du Réel

DOC10 Film Festival

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

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Reviews

“Possibly his masterpiece…As the title suggests, REMAKE is really about McElwee going back over a life captured on film and creating something new from it: an elegy, a gift and something of an apology to his lost son. As such, it’s devastating. As a meditation on memory and the passage of time, it is stunning.” The New York Times

“Highly recommended. Even in a film as sombre as REMAKE, one of the joys of McElwee’s method is the freedom with which he constructs his movies. The premises he begins with shift drastically as unforeseen circumstances arise. He follows his impulses about what’s interesting, what’s relevant, what’s illuminating, and he films his life and his encounters as they occur, with spontaneity and curiosity.” The New Yorker

“Five stars. A tear-stained, deeply personal and utterly singular documentary...The stunning REMAKE lays bare McElwee’s own battles, the least of which is a mooted Hollywood remake of his breakthrough doc..It’s a funny as well as brutally honest film…Emotionally shattering…Lovelorn, thoughtful and deeply moving, this is a film you’ll really want to talk about.” Time Out

“REMAKE may be the most shattering documentary of the year.... REMAKE may be a film about death and loss and grief, but it’s not one of conclusions. In the end, McElwee does something perhaps unexpected but also heartbreaking and indescribably generous: He preserves the mystery of his son’s life.” Vulture

“The best movie of the year so far. ... Arguably McElwee’s strongest movie since SHERMAN'S MARCH ... REMAKE is the masterpiece Ross McElwee never wanted to make.” Slate

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