Telluride Secret Screening Reveals Nathan Fielder Elizabeth Holmes Doc

The Secret Telluride Screening and A24 Confirmation

The speculation about the Telluride Film Festival Sunday TBA (AKA a genuinely secret screening) started before the festival began and reached a fever pitch by Sunday evening. In the days leading up its reveal, Anne has been asked countless times by countless friends and colleagues: Do you know what it is? Many suspected a documentary backed by A24. And that’s true: It’s Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s You Can See Everything about convicted Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes. In the days leading up to the premiere, IndieWire checked in with A24 about the possibility of the long-rumored Nathan Fielder documentary being the much-hyped feature, and they confirmed it, asking for us to hold off on revealing the news until the screening began. The running time was rumored to be long, and it is: the film clocks in at over two hours. In preparing for the Sunday night screening, there were security concerns. A24 took away the cell phones from every attendee at the Herzog Theatre. No phones were in the theater as the documentary was revealed to a packed house.

Oppenheim recently premiered his narrative feature Primetime at the Venice Film Festival to create acclaim. The film will arrive in theaters this October. Additional reporting by Marcus Jones. The studio set an October theatrical release for the documentary, accompanied by an official synopsis detailing its unusual genesis.

“Thirty-four days before she’s sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss. From boundary-pushing directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim comes ‘You Can See Everything.’”

Official Logline

Inside the Teaser Trailer and the Fielder Stare-Down

Coinciding with the Colorado festival premiere, A24 dropped a teaser trailer that highlights the film’s tense dynamic. The preview features an intense stare-down between Fielder and Holmes, with the pair standing inches apart as the convicted entrepreneur tries to convince the comedian of her sincerity.

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“I don’t have anything to deceive you on,” she tells him. “Of course I’m not deceiving you. I’m engaging with you as a human being. Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that.”

Elizabeth Holmes

OK. Alright. OK, good chat, Fielder replies, before adding, You’re being real right now? I’m always being real, she says.

Television Stunts Meet Silicon Valley Fraud

Canadian writer/director/actor Fielder is best-known for his lauded comedy TV series “The Curse” and “The Rehearsal.” Fielder is known for his work that blurs the line between fiction and reality and typically involves him performing in character while interacting with real people who aren’t aware he is producing comedy. The Canadian comic rose to prominence with the Comedy Central series Nathan For You, in which he visited real small businesses to pitch outrageous ideas for boosting sales and gaining publicity. One of his stunts, in which he rebranded a coffee shop as Dumb Starbucks with materials nearly indistinguishable from Starbucks’, made national news before it was known that Fielder was involved. In 2022, Fielder followed this with with HBO’s “The Rehearsal,” which begins with the comedian helping people rehearse for situations in their everyday lives before, in its second season, spiraling into a bizarre series of stunts loosely connected by a theme of airline disasters.

Holmes is the founder of Theranos, a blood-testing startup which was exposed after reporting showed that its ambitious technology did not work as had long been claimed. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, from 2013 to 2015, Holmes raised more than $700 million while deceiving investors by making it appear as if Theranos had successfully developed a commercially-ready portable blood analyzer. Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors and was sentenced to over a decade in prison. Specifically, she was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison. She’s currently serving her sentence at federal prison in Bryan, Texas, having begun her sentence in 2023.

Prior Screen Adaptations of the Theranos Saga

The new A24 documentary is not the first time Hollywood has tackled the rise and fall of Theranos. Her story was previously dramatized in the Hulu series “The Dropout,” starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes. The actress has been rumored to appear in Fielder’s film in character, adding another layer of meta-commentary to an already labyrinthine project. Holmes’ story also previously got the documentary treatment in 2019 with “The Inventor” by Alex Gibney (also known as The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley). The existence of You Can See Everything was revealed on Sept. 6, the same day that the movie held a secret world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.