Netflix Acquires Documentary ‘Casting JonBenet’

Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to Kitty Green’s documentary “Casting JonBenet,” which will have its world premiere in the US Documentary Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. This is the first time a nonfiction work from the company will compete. The film, produced by Green, will launch on Netflix and in limited theatrical release in spring of 2017.

The logline: “Casting JonBenet” is a sly and stylized exploration of the world’s most sensational child-murder case, the still unsolved death of six-year-old American beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey. After years of media speculation and public fascination, audiences are presented with a documentary hybrid examining the macabre legacy of this tiny starlet. Over 15 months, the filmmakers traveled to the Ramseys’ Colorado hometown to elicit responses, reflections and even performances from the local community. In doing so, Casting JonBenet examines how this crime and its resulting mythologies have shaped the attitudes and behavior of successive generations of parents and children.