Alexander Payne all set for his documentary directorial debut with project about 'finest film professor in world'

Washington [US], April 27 : Two-time Oscar winner Alexander Payne has found his next project and it will mark his documentary directorial debut, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Payne is now working on a documentary feature on the trailblazing cinema scholar Jeanine Basinger, which will be released in 2025.

The film will follow Basinger's journey from her days as a movie theatre usher in Brookings, South Dakota, to Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Throughout her 60-year career, she founded one of the country's first and best film studies programmes; authored 13 highly influential film books, two of which were recently named to THR's list of the 100 greatest of all time; and shaped generations of people who, in turn, shaped every segment of the American film industry.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sam Wasson, a former student of Basinger's at Wesleyan and an esteemed writer who was her co-author of the 2022 book Hollywood: The Oral History, and Brandon Millan, Wasson's partner in Felix Farmer Productions, are producing the project.

Basinger, 88, who appeared on a recent episode of THR's Awards Chatter podcast, said, "When it really matters, a midwesterner chooses another midwesterner. We grow up under an open and merciless sky no place to hideso we know how to stand up and do the job. Alexander is my Nebraska buddy, the best student I never taught, a long-time cherished friend and a great filmmaker. Who else would I choose?"

The special relationship shared by Basinger and Payne was on display last Saturday when Payne helped to honour Basinger at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, where she was feted with the fest's Robert Osborne Award. The honour recognises "an individual who has helped keep the cultural heritage of classic film alive for future generations," as per The Hollywood Reporter.

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