ABOUT THE FILM
Synopsis
The film is the shocking true story of the investigation and trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell - his 30 year killing spree and the political and media establishment that tried to cover it up. Originally investigated for illegal prescription drug sales, a raid by DEA, FBI & local law enforcement revealed crimes they could not have expected within the clinic.
Based on the NY Times Bestseller — Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer.
Crowdfunding
Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer was one of the most successfully crowdfunded films in history. It was an amazing experience for us.
Almost 30,000 people donated over $2.3m in 45 days. When it ended it was the most successful crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo website. We want to thank all of our funders who helped make this project such a success. We literally could not have done it without you. This is your movie.
Phelim
Ann
Magdalena
Story
The movie is based on The New York Times best-selling book Gosnell: The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer written by producers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer. The book became especially controversial when The New York Times initially refused to feature it on its bestsellers list despite sales figures that revealed it should be on the list.
The New York Times admitted they adjust the list as an "editorial decision".
PRODUCERS
Ann McElhinney
Ann McElhinney is a NYT best-selling author, journalist, film producer and director and one of the most successful crowdfunders in the world.
She produced and co-wrote the movie Gosnell - The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer. She and her husband, journalist Phelim McAleer wrote the NYT Best Seller Gosnell – The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer. The book debuted at #3 Amazon Best Seller and sold out in 3 days after publication.
The Gosnell project has attracted an enormous amount of media coverage on television, radio and with hundreds of articles written about the book, film and the historic crowdfunding.
McElhinney directed and produced FrackNation - A Journalist's Search for the Fracking Truth, a documentary on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the natural gas boom in the US and abroad. Variety said it was a “briskly paced…mischievous pic.”
She also produced and directed Not Evil Just Wrong (2009), a film which examines the devastating consequences of global warming hysteria. And Mine Your Own Business - the first documentary that asks difficult questions of the environmental movement. Canada's The National Post said "Mine Your Own Business is devastating because it combats prejudices and fantasies with pictures that refute thousands of weasel words.”
McElhinney has made documentaries for the BBC, CBC (Canada) and RTE (Ireland). The Search for Tristan's Mum concerned the case of Tristan Dowse, a baby who was adopted and later abandoned by an Irish man and his wife in Indonesia.
McElhinney was featured in and was the Associate Producer of the highly controversial documentary Return to Sender (2005) for CBC about the adoption of a Romanian child by a rich Canadian couple who years later sent the child back.
McElhinney is a regular columnist with TownHall. She has also written for or appeared on FOX News, CNN, BBC, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), RTE (Ireland), The Sunday Times and The Irish Times. McElhinney has worked as a journalist and filmmaker in the US, Canada, Romania, Bulgaria, Chile, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Ghana and Uganda.
She is an entertaining and sought-after public speaker. McElhinney produces and directs with her husband Phelim McAleer, they live in Venice, California with their two cats: Top Cat and Scaredy Cat.
Phelim McAleer
Phelim McAleer is a producer, veteran investigative journalist, playwright and one of the world's leading Crowdfunders.
He attended the Gosnell trial and produced and co-wrote Gosnell - The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer.
Along with his wife journalist Ann McElhinney he is the author of the New York Times best selling book Gosnell – The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer, published by Regnery and available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books A Million.
McAleer is a regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal, The Irish Times and townhall.com.
Together with his wife Ann he has raised almost $3m in five separate crowdfunding campaigns. Their Gosnell movie was the most successful film project ever on Indiegogo. It raised $2.3m in just 45 days.
Gosnell is a ripped from the headlines story about a respected doctor who ran a medical clinic in an impoverished Philadelphia neighborhood. But behind the doors of his clinic the smiling, avuncular Kermit Gosnell was also America's most prolific serial killer.
McAleer produced and directed FrackNation a documentary about fracking which was funded through a $212,000 crowdfunding campaign. The New York Times described FrackNation as "provocative and meticulously researched."
McAleer has been at forefront of popularizing Verbatim Theater in the US.
He caused a storm when his play Ferguson, about the police shooting of Michael Brown, was staged in Los Angeles. Although the play was based entirely on verbatim transcripts of eyewitness testimony to the Grand Jury actors objected to the script and nine of the 13 cast walked out before opening night. They were upset that the eyewitness testimony did not match their idea of how the shooting actually happened. Alternative newspaper LA Weekly said Ferguson was "divisive, but riveting" and "an incendiary night of theatre".
For his online series Clinton Emails On Film – writer Mark Steyn said it was an example of McAleer doing “the work you can guarantee most of the American media have no stomach for.”
He has produced documentaries for the BBC, CBC (Canada) and RTE (Ireland) and two independent feature length documentaries. Before becoming a filmmaker, Phelim was a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times in Eastern Europe. He also covered Romania and Bulgaria for the Economist. Before that he covered Ireland for the UK Sunday Times. McAleer began his career in journalism covering the Northern Ireland troubles first as a reporter in Crossmaglen (known as Bandit Country) and then for the Irish News in Belfast.
He has worked as a filmmaker and journalist in many countries including Romania, Uganda, Madagascar, Bulgaria, Chile, Indonesia, Canada and China. McAleer has appeared on or is a regular contributor to an array of international media organizations including Fox News, CNN and the BBC.
He has two cats, Scaredy Cat and Top Cat.
Magdalena Segieda
Magdalena was born in 1982 in Szczecin, a city in Poland mentioned in Churchill’s famous speech about the Iron Curtain. She is a filmmaker and one of America's most successful crowdfunders. She has broken several crowdfunding records. Magdalena is a producer of the Gosnell movie, which was at the time the most successful crowdfunding campaign for a movie on Indiegogo. It was also the biggest non-celebrity movie campaign across all platforms. To date, it has raised over $2.3m from more than 29,000 backers. Previously, Magdalena co-directed a feature documentary FrackNation which raised over $212K and was one of the most successful documentary campaigns on Kickstarter. She also ran several smaller campaigns, for a theatre play Ferguson which raised over $100K and most recently a series of online videos that raised over $52K.
Magdalena works and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their son.
John Sullivan
John is an award winning writer, director and producer. He is one of the most successful independent filmmakers of the decade with three of his films in the theatrical documentaries of all-time earning over $55mm at the box office. These include the hit films 2016 and America. He most recently produced Gosnell: America’s Biggest Serial Killer which is planned for release in 2018. He also worked with America’s favorite teacher, Ben Stein, producing the film Expelled. John just is in the middle of editing No Safe Space with Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager on free speech on college campuses and society.
One of John’s distinct opportunities is to have worked with two Academy Award winning producers; Gerald Molen (Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Rain Man) and Gray Frederickson (Apocalypse Now, Godfather, Godfather II).
DIRECTOR
Nick Searcy
A consistent presence in film and television for over 25 years, Nick Searcy has starred in independent films as well as studio blockbusters, including Moneyball, The Last Song, The Ugly Truth, The Dead Girl, Runaway Jury, Cast Away, Head Of State, and Fried Green Tomatoes, among others. In 2018, he appeared in two Academy Award Best Picture nominees, 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and the Best Picture winner, The Shape Of Water.
After completing a six-year run as Chief Deputy Art Mullen on the popular FX series Justified, he appeared as Deke Simmons in Hulu’s 11/22/63, and has also been a series regular on UPN’s 7 Days, CBS’s American Gothic, HBO’s From The Earth To The Moon, ABC’s Rodney, and CW’s Easy Money, and has guest starred on countless shows including Chicago Med, Hawaii 5-0, Mom, Hot in Cleveland, Intelligence, Archer, The Mentalist, Lie To Me, Without a Trace, The West Wing, CSI, and NCIS. He returned to the stage, his first love, in 2016 as Raymond Chandler in Billy & Ray at the Laguna Playhouse, and again in 2017 in the Geffen Playhouse production of The Legend of Georgia McBride. His first film, Paradise Falls, won 6 festival awards including the Best Feature Film award at the 1997 Hollywood Film Festival, and he continues to write and develop new works for the screen.
And historically, on Dec. 27, 2017, Mr. Searcy became the biggest Hollywood star ever to guest-host the popular Rush Limbaugh radio program, as well as the first Hollywood star to guest-host for Rush and appear in the Best Picture winner in the same year.
As of 2018, he has been in 5 films that were Oscar nominated for Best Picture: The Prince of Tides (1991), The Fugitive (1993), Moneyball (2011), The Shape of Water (2017), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). The Shape of Water is a Best Picture winner.
