Ezra Edelman

O.J. Made in America was one of the best longform documentaries of this year, and stunned audiences with its extremely in-depth case study of O.J. Simpson as a product of the racism and prejudice of his time. Now the producer and director of that documentary, Ezra Edelman, is in talks to direct a movie based on Richard Jewell, the security guard whose life was ruined after he was reported to be a suspect of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Centennial Park bombings.

I’m a freshman in high school. After months of legal proceedings, the jury finally reaches a verdict in the O.J. Simpson case. For the only time in my four years of secondary education, everything stops. Several classes worth of kids pile into the only room on the hall with a cable television. The room is packed. Kids are literally sitting on each other's laps because there’s nowhere else for them to go. It gets quiet.