Even before the film actually premiered at Sundance Film Festival this year HBO moved to acquire all rights to Oscar Award Winning Director James Marsh’s new ‘Project Nim’. The rights included in the deal include theatrical, video and TV broadcast. His previous work with ‘Man on Wire’ won him the Academy Award last year.
The film is set to open this year’s festival, “Project Nim” follows the life of a chimp who was raised like a human child as part of a groundbreaking experiment in the 1970s. The documentary combines archival footage and interviews with the experiment’s participants to present a look at Nim Chimpsky’s experience living in New York.
HBO has a lot of experience in the documentary department. It regularly purchases films from festivals and often shops for distribution deals at the same gatherings.