Director/producer Tom Donahue and producer Ilan Arboleda, the duo behind “This Changes Everything,” are setting their sights on the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (SAG-AFTRA). Their new currently untitled documentary will look at the transformation of the performers’ union between 2008 and 2024.
In 2008, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) for film and television studios went on strike. SAG considered doing so but ultimately decided against it. However, in 2023, both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA enacted their own independent strikes, with SAG-AFTRA on the picket lines for a landmark 118 days.
This documentary will contain interviews collected over the past decade with former labor leaders Ken Howard, Roberta Reardon, and Ed Asner. Union insiders Michael Sheen, Amy Aquino, David White, Rebecca Damon, Matthew Kimbrough, David Prindle, and former Hollywood Reporter journalist Jonathan Handel.
While also covering the union’s history and its longstanding fight to make a middle class of actors. They want this film to discuss “the destruction of the middle class in America because of the destruction of the unions in America,” says Donahue.
Donahue and Arboleda are producing this new film under their CreativeChaos banner. The same production banner that created 2018’s “This Changes Everything,” an investigative look and analysis of gender disparity in Hollywood. The filmmakers featured accounts from well-known actors, executives, and artists in the Industry. As well as 2012’s “Casting By” celebrating unsung female casting directors.
A Long Road To Production
Work on this SAG documentary began in 2011 after former president Alan Rosenberg’s failed attempt at a strike authorization. Leading to a complete overhaul of the organization’s leadership. The pair began filming interviews with Rosenberg and the leaders of the political faction he was associated with, Membership First. Eventually followed by discussions with its rival group, Unite for Strength.
Starting work during such a turbulent time for SAG means they “captured the merger as it happened” between Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists in 2012, according to Arboleda. Despite shelving the project for some time, the 2023 strike provided the perfect backdrop to pick the project back up. Documenting the multiple contract negotiation cycles that led to the 118-day work stoppage. Along with how new president Fran Drescher impacted the organization. Drescher has already confirmed she is participating in interviews with Donahue and Arboleda.
This film will also examine the way streaming entertainment changed rates and residuals for performers. “Time is on our side with this, and the amount of time it took was actually almost necessary to be able to see this long-view lens of the problem,” said Arboleda
“SAG-AFTRA’s ‘Hot Labor Summer’ of 2023 is one of the most important chapters in entertainment industry history. This is a critical story that needs to be told.” says Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director for SAG. “Our fight for our members inspired workers everywhere and is a story that deserves to be told and amplified in the decades ahead.”
Donahue and Arboleda are aiming to finish the film in mid-2026. We’ll keep you posted on updates about this documentary as they become available.
