EXCLUSIVE: Newly formed production and financing company Laurel Canyon Pictures, founded by producer Dan Fried, has officially launched with a focus on financing and producing a slate of premium documentaries each year.
The company’s inaugural title, Jean-Michel, directed by Quinn Whitney Wilson and Viridiana Lieberman, will make its world premiere in the Documentary Competition at the Tribeca Festival this Friday, June 5.
The film marks the first documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat made with the full participation and approval of the Basquiat family and is told primarily through the eyes of Basquiat’s sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux. Fried serves as an executive producer on the film, which was co-financed by Laurel Canyon Pictures.
The doc explores the artist’s roots as a first-generation Puerto Rican and Haitian painter raised in Brooklyn, tracing his emergence from New York’s downtown punk scene through his meteoric rise within the international art world.
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Fried’s credits as an executive producer include Are We Good?, the SXSW and Tribeca doc about comedian, actor, and podcaster Marc Maron; The Trial of Alec Baldwin, Rory Kennedy’s documentary chronicling the actor in the aftermath of the 2021 Rust set tragedy, which premiered at DOC NYC; as well as the narrative feature Chasing Summer, directed by Josephine Decker and starring Iliza Shlesinger, which premiered at Sundance and SXSW.
“Laurel Canyon Pictures was built around the idea that the best documentaries can operate at the same cultural level as great narrative films,” said Fried. “We’re focused on filmmaker-driven projects with lasting relevance, strong creative identity, and a distinct point of view. Jean-Michel represents exactly the kind of ambitious storytelling we want to champion.”