On June 19, the DGA’s Documentary Series hosted a screening of Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, Director Marina Zenovich’s follow-up to her 2008 Emmy®-winning film, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
In her new film, Zenovich explores one of the longest running sagas in California criminal justice history, the recent legal battle to bring Polanski back to the United States after more than 30 years to face charges for statutory rape. The drama plays out over two continents as the 79-year-old filmmaker fights extradition in Switzerland and a Los Angeles District Attorney is determined to bring him to trial. Zenovich also examines how the lives of Polanski and Samantha Geimer have been utterly changed by their sexual encounter in 1977, as well as other factors that may have had a hand in the resurrection of the case, including her own previous film.
Following the screening at the Guild's Los Angeles Theater, Zenovich sat down with Special Projects Documentary Subcommittee member Jon Amiel (The Borgias) to talk about the making of the film. Zenovich’s other films include: Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic (2013), Heroes Among Us (2010), Vanessa Beecroft in Berlin (2006), and Who Is Bernard Tapie? (2001). She joined the DGA in 2008.