Not many filmmakers could say that they LITERALLY saved someone’s life, but Bruce Sinofsky could. Sinofsky has died at age 58 from complications of diabetes.
Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger co-directed the three Paradise Lost documentaries, which chronicled the eighteen-year ordeal of the West Memphis Three, who were wrongly convicted of child murders in Arkansas. The three were released from prison in 2011 – one of them from death row. This wouldn’t have happened without the first two Paradise Lost documentaries that Sinofsky and Berlinger made for HBO. The 1996 film is available steaming on Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video; the 2000 and 2011 films are available from those providers plus Amazon Instant Video.
Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger also co-directed the wonderful Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which was among on my top ten movies for 2004. It’s available on DVD from Netflix.