EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin will self-release their acclaimed documentary Steal This Story, Please!, a feature that examines the career of famed progressive journalist and Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman.

The documentary is set to open on April 10 at IFC Center in New York City. “In the weeks to follow, Amy Goodman and the filmmakers will travel across the country to appear at theatrical openings in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Seattle, Portland, Washington, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston, Denver, Boston, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and more,” notes a release. “In tandem with this tour, the film will expand to dozens more screens across the country in April and May.”

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Deal and Lessin worked on the release plan with a group of seasoned distribution professionals including Michael Tuckman of mTuckmanMedia — the company that guided the highly successful self-release of Oscar winner No Other Land. Steal This Story, Please! has won multiple awards across the country, including audience prizes at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival DocFest, Woodstock Film Festival, Mill Valley International Film Festival, St Louis International Film Festival, and Hamptons Docfest. It won the Social Justice Film award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and at the Santa Fe International Film Festival, it won a Special Jury Award as well as the Audience Choice Award.

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“An audience of millions tune in to Amy Goodman’s daily global news hour, Democracy Now!, carried by approximately 1500 radio and television stations–more stations that NPR and PBS combined,” the release affirms. The self-distribution plan for the documentary calls for partnering with those stations, “as well as grassroots pro-Democracy groups, to help restore support for independent media in the wake of the Trump Administration’s elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the ongoing attacks on journalists, and Donald Trump’s lawsuits against NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, BBC, CBS, ABC and other news organizations.”

Deal and Lessin earned an Academy Award nomination for their 2008 documentary Trouble the Water, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance. In 2023, Lessin won the DuPont-Columbia Award and three News & Documentary Emmys for The Janes, her documentary about the underground movement to provide abortion services in the years before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Lessin and Deal produced many of Michael Moore’s films, including Fahrenheit 9/11 and Fahrenheit 11/9.

“Amy Goodman, with her distinct voice and deep humanity, and her wicked sense of humor, has been challenging authority – and authoritarians – for three decades,” Deal said in a statement. “We are thrilled to bring her story to audiences coast to coast. Her fiercely independent journalism, accountable only to viewers and listeners – not governments or corporations – feels like a vital antidote in a moment when a president has waged war on the press and on truth itself.”

“We’re excited to release the film in theaters across the country, in red states and blue alike,” Lessin commented. “The response from festival audiences has made one thing clear: people are hungry for films that speak to this moment—films that challenge the status quo, that have something to say, and that can unite people in a shared experience bigger than themselves.”

The film is produced by Karen Ranucci, Diana Cohn and Caren Spruch, and executive produced by Dominique Bravo, Julie Cohen, Rosario Dawson, Bill Haney, Jonathan Logan, Steve Silberstein, Tom Morello, and Tony Tabatznik.

Steal This Story, Please! premiered last June as the opening night film at DC/DOX in the nation’s capital. Goodman participated in a Q&A afterwards, noting the difference between her philosophy of covering the news versus large mainstream media outfits that gravitate towards power and officialdom.

“That’s how the corporate media covers issues. They go right away to the politicians,” Goodman said. “But what pushes them [politicians]? What changes their minds? What is the reason that they pass bills? It is that engine of grassroots activism that is the true story of history that is so often untold and it is our job in the media to put that on the record.”