Remembering Gene Wilder (2024)
Director: Ron Frank Run Time: 92 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2023
Starring: Ben Mankiewicz, Gene Wilder, Harry Connick Jr., Mel Brooks, Peter Ostrum
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
Audience Award winner, 2023 Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival
This loving tribute to Gene Wilder celebrates his life and legacy as the comic genius behind an extraordinary string of film roles, from his first collaboration with Mel Brooks in The Producers (1967), to the enigmatic title role in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), to his inspired on-screen partnership with Richard Pryor in movies like Silver Streak (1976). It is illustrated by a bevy of touching and hilarious clips and outtakes, never-before-seen home movies, narration from Wilder’s audiobook memoir, and interviews with a roster of brilliant friends and collaborators like Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, and Carol Kane. Remembering Gene Wilder shines a light on an essential performer, writer, director, and all-around mensch.
“In this loving, career-spanning documentary, Ron Frank has captured both the public Gene Wilder that we all know and love as well as the more private Gene, a funny, kind, and gentle man beloved by his family, friends, and confidants.”
—Wendy Lidell, SVP of Theatrical Distribution and Acquisitions for Kino Lorber
About the filmmaker:
Ron Frank is a accomplished documentary filmmaker whose films have screened at Kennedy Center, United Nations, N.Y., Television Academy, L.A. SXSW, AFI, MOMA, and film festivals worldwide. Notably, he was producer and editor for the Smithsonian Channel’s MLK: The Assassination Tapes (2012) for which he received the George Foster Peabody Award, and he received an Emmy nomination for his work on The Lost JFK Tapes (2009) for National Geographic Channel. Among his many collaborations, Ron has interviewed and worked with Gregory Peck, John McCain, Larry King, Robert Klein, Louis Gossett Jr., Mort Sahl, Hugh Hefner, Sid Caesar, Jerry Stiller, Jackie Mason, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, and Deepak Chopra. His latest film, the award-winning Remembering Gene Wilder (2024), is about the life of the iconic actor, writer and director.