“2012” GOES STRAIGHT TO NUMBER 1 ON ITUNES; MARKS DIRECTORIAL DEBUT OF FORMER ISRAELI ARMY VIDEOGRAPHER




LOS ANGELES, CA, January 15, 2009: While the year 2012 is still three years away, for Nimrod Erez, an Israeli-born filmmaker, it is very much proving to be his year.

Erez is the director of the new documentary film 2012: Science or Superstition, the first breakout online film of this new year, and his directorial debut after more than a decade working his way up from humble beginnings as a video producer while doing national service in the Israeli army. 2012 investigates the significance of the end date of the Mayan Long Count calendar on December 21, 2012.

Erez moved to New York City in 1999 at the age of 24 with the goal of directing movies and to make ends meet managed to find a minimum wage job as an engineer in a postproduction facility. While there he was “rescued” by a client that was making a TV series for Britain’s Channel 4.

The client, a scrappy upstart called The Disinformation Company, soon engaged Nimrod and put him to work on the series. The company moved the production and the tiny crew to Los Angeles in 2000 with Nimrod becoming the lead editor.

His contributions were invaluable and soon brought him high profile editing work, including Mark Hammil's directorial debut Comic Book: The Movie and numerous projects for US networks and film studios such as Universal, Disney, MTV, ABC and Fox. He eventually saved enough to form his own production company, N.E. Thing Films, and to outfit his own professional Avid edit bay.

But still, when his old employer came knocking with an offer to direct a new documentary film project, he leapt at the chance despite the compensation being a fraction of his going rate, not least because of his interest in the subject matter.

“From a very early age I was fascinated with ancient cultures and at times was sure I would grow up to be an explorer. I immediately recognized that this project would allow me to employ my skill and art in the service of one of my earliest interests,” said Erez.

Nimrod worked not only as director but also as the editor and main cinematographer. With Disinformation’s Gary Baddeley, who wrote and produced, he essentially crafted the movie solo in his home editing suite, bringing in colorists, composers and audio engineers only towards the end of the project, which lasted nine months.

The film’s focus on the key date of December 21, 2012 suggested a December 21st release, but knowing that it would be commercially impractical to try to release the film on DVD on that date in 2008, The Disinformation Company chose to do something it had never tried before by releasing the film exclusively on iTunes.

The film had screened successfully at several conferences devoted to discussing 2012, but neither Erez nor Disinformation had any way of gauging the digital download market. After a fairly quiet first few days, by January, 2009 the film was on the documentary sales chart and kept going up and up until it reached number 1.

And it didn’t stop there. Still lodged firmly in the top spot in documentaries, 2012: Science or Superstition is now also ranking as one of iTunes’ Top 10 New Releases.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw my film at the top of the documentaries list,” said Erez. “And when it became one of the most popular films on ALL of iTunes, competing against the top of the box office in 2008 … great movies I went to see, that we all watched: Iron Man, WALL-E, The Dark Knight … that was a real surprise.”

Nimrod’s unlikely career from army videographer to top TV editor to indie film director seems emblematic of the proverbial American dream of many immigrants. Nimrod, however, only sees his first film as director as the beginning of the dream and is developing other scripted and non-scripted film projects while already looking forward to a second 2012 film that he plans to shoot and edit in High Definition.



The Disinformation Company Ltd. is active in TV production, book publishing and home entertainment. It is most widely recognized for its distribution of opinions and facts not usually covered by the traditional media. Recent DVD exclusives from The Disinformation Company include Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising, the best-selling Robert Greenwald documentaries Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, and Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, as well as Robert Baer’s The Cult of the Suicide Bomber.


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2012: SCIENCE OR SUPERSTITION
Genre: Documentary
Street date: January 27, 2009
Sug. Retail Price: $19.95 (DVD) / $9.99 (iTunes)
Catalog #: DIS051
UPC #: 826262005191
Running Time: 78 mins. + extras