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EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has enlisted Yon Motskin (Encounters) to direct an untitled documentary feature on Connecticut native Nathan Carman, a young man who, after a fishing trip with his mother Linda off the coast of New England, survives a week on a life raft while she is lost at sea.
As highlighted in the doc, the sensational incident renews interest in the unsolved murder of Carman’s wealthy grandfather years earlier, spurring a media frenzy, a war over a vast family fortune, multiple investigations and ultimately federal charges against Carman for murder on the high seas. He died by suicide while awaiting trial last summer.
With unprecedented access to family, friends and investigators, the film currently in production is a nautical thriller that explores intimate human mysteries about family, greed, perception, mental health and the unpredictable mind of an enigmatic young man.
Motskin is producing alongside Mary-Jane Mitchell. Exec producers include Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Love Fraud, Academy Award-nominated Jesus Camp), Helen Estabrook, and Sarah Amos and Andrew Whitney (Black Twitter: A People’s History, The Secrets of Hillsong) for WIRED Studios.
Best known for helming and exec producing Netflix and Amblin Television’s UFO sighting docuseries Encounters, Motskin prior to that directed and EP’s crime doc Generation Hustle for Max. Other series credits on the producing front include How to Fix a Drug Scandal, The Age of A.I., The Family and Dirty Money. He is repped by Vanguarde Artists Management in Canada, WME, and Circle of Confusion.
If you or someone you know are struggling with mental health issues, please contact the Motion Picture & Television Fund here, the Behind the Scenes Fund here or the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation here for confidential assistance.