The Midnight Rambler // Alfred Spellman

“They’ve created a whole new audience: an alternative, youth-leaning, nonfiction-seeking core.” —Tom Quinn, Magnolia Pictures, BusinessWeek profile on rakontur

Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, both South Florida natives, formed their first production company while both were sophomores in high school. Their debut feature documentary Raw Deal: A Question of Consent premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, making Corben one of the youngest directors in Sundance history. Examining the alleged rape of an exotic dancer at a fraternity house at the University of Florida, it was hailed by critics as “one of the most controversial films of the modern day” and “one of the most compelling pieces of non-fiction ever produced” (Film Threat)

Following that success, Corben and Spellman, along with childhood friend David Cypkin, founded rakontur, a Miami Beach-based content creation company, and took on another Florida true crime story, this one closer to home. The New York Times called Cocaine Cowboys “a hyperventilating account of the blood-drenched Miami drug culture in the 1970s and 1980s.” The film tells the story of how the drug trade built Miami through firsthand accounts of some of the most successful smugglers of the era and the deadliest hitman of the cocaine wars.

After a Tribeca Film Festival premiere and a limited theatrical release via Magnolia Pictures in 2006, Cocaine Cowboys became a worldwide cult hit, inspiring several spin-offs. The sequel, Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin with the Godmother, was released by Magnolia in 2008. rakontur has partnered with Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer to develop a Cocaine Cowboys dramatic series for HBO, to be written by Emmy Award winner Michelle Ashford (The Pacific). A coffee table book entitled Cocaine Cowboys: An Explicit History of Miami’s Drug Rush will be published by MTV Books to coincide with the release of Cocaine Cowboys: Remix in 2012.

rakontur followed that success with The U, a feature documentary about the championship history of the notorious University of Miami football program, produced for ESPN’s critically acclaimed 30 for 30 series. It became the highest-rated documentary in the network’s 30 year history when it debuted on December 12th, 2009, following the Heisman Trophy presentation.

In 2011, rakontur released two feature documentaries with Magnolia. Square Grouper examined the free-wheeling pot smuggling era of South Florida in the 1970s,  After its premiere at SxSW in March, Salon described it as “a hilarious, tragic tale of Florida ganja infused with the spirit of Elmore Leonard and Jimmy Buffett.”

Limelight was released in Setember 2011 following its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Chronicling the rise and fall of New York nightclub mogul Peter Gatien set against the Giuliani transformation of New York in the 1990s, Film Journal called it a “darkly fascinating documentary; a sad, messy, fascinating tale, populated by an unusually motley cast of characters, many of whom could have stepped right out of Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas.”

rakontur’s 2012 slate includes Dawg Fight, a brutal expose on the underground backyard MMA fighting circuit in one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods, and a new feature documentary for ESPN’s 30 for 30 series examining the epidemic of pro athletes who have gone broke.

In 10 years, rakontur has become one of the influential non-fiction production companies in the world. In 2007 and again in 2010, rakontur was selected for the RealScreen Global 100, “an annual list of the most exciting and influential production companies working in non-fiction film and television.”