For nearly three decades, NYU-trained filmmakers Martin Kunert and Eric Manes have combined major-studio screenwriting discipline with pioneering production technologies—inventing new formats across television, theatrical documentary, and AI-driven historical epics to create influential entertainment that carries lasting meaning.
Born in the small Polish town of Płońsk, David Ben-Gurion achieved what modern history deemed impossible: re-establishing a sovereign nation that had not existed for 2,000 years. Drawing exclusively from verbatim historical speeches, private diaries, and declassified primary archives, I, BEN-GURION plunges audiences directly into the personal and geopolitical crucible of 1948.
Rather than relying on conventional talking-head interviews or static archival photographs, Kunert and Manes engineered a bespoke generative visual pipeline calibrated to the optical characteristics of 1960s 65mm lenses and Eastman Kodak 5250 motion picture film stock. The result grants audiences unprecedented visual access to unfilmed history—restoring historical figures to living, breathing widescreen cinema.
Important messages fail when delivered as dry lectures. Kunert and Manes forged their careers inside the major Hollywood studio system—mastering visceral pacing, high-concept tension, and emotional immersion across box-office thrillers and genre-defining television. Whenever conventional production methods stood in the way of raw intimacy or historical scale, they engineered new cinema technologies to take audiences where traditional cameras could not go.
To capture authentic psychological terror without a film crew in the room, Kunert and Manes engineered custom wearable participant camera rigs ("Clam Cams") and wired condemned locations with 10,000 feet of cable—inventing the global paranormal reality television genre.
Using the participant-filmed blueprint pioneered on FEAR to bypass embedded wartime journalism, they shipped 150 DV cameras directly into Iraq for civilians to film their own lives—creating what film historians recognize as the first "documentary swarm" theatrical feature.
To overcome the limits of static archival documentary, they united verbatim primary-source history with analog-emulated generative AI cinematography—bringing the unfilmed moments of 1948 to the screen with the visual gravitas of 1960s epic cinema.
We produced and directed the groundbreaking, feature-length documentary VOICES OF IRAQ by distributing 150 digital video cameras across Iraq so Iraqi citizens could document their own reality in the midst of war. Released theatrically in the US and internationally by Magnolia Pictures, the film screened at major international festivals and earned widespread critical acclaim.
“If this film cannot claim to represent the political truth about the war – what film could?” — The New York Times
“An authentic work that dares to let the subject speak for itself.” — The Wall Street JournalWATCH TRAILER ▶
Created for two-time Oscar-winning Moriah Films (now Moriah Media) to advance the Museum of Tolerance's mission of supporting those who challenge injustice, WOMEN OF IRAN generated over 160,000 Instagram plays, went viral across international accounts, and was officially invited to screen at the United Nations in the fall of 2023.
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We pioneered the supernatural reality genre of television by creating and executive producing FEAR for MTV. The ratings hit spun off television specials and an original young-adult book series, inspired movies and TV shows for over two decades, and sparked a modern TikTok movement of influencers filming first-person paranormal explorations.
“MTV's Fear portrayed genuine terror on television and helped give rise to a legion of ghost-hunting series that are now some of the most popular reality shows on television.” — LooperWATCH PILOT EPISODE ▶
For Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek Productions, we produced this kinetic, action-packed dark comedy heist feature starring Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Courteney Cox, and Christian Slater, filmed on location in Las Vegas and Canada.
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We wrote two original live-action adventure feature franchises—headlined by EMPEROR and MAGIC KNIGHT—for a landmark co-production between Walt Disney Pictures and The Shanghai Media Group, conducting deep cultural and historical research to architect an original Chinese mythology and fantasy world.
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We wrote, produced, and directed the cult-classic horror anthology feature CAMPFIRE TALES for New Line Cinema, helping launch the early feature careers of James Marsden, Amy Smart, Ron Livingston, and Christine Taylor. The film's innovative twist ending and narrative framing device have been widely emulated across the genre.
WATCH TRAILER ▶Additional television pilot creation, writing, and executive producing deals across NBC, Sony Pictures Television, and USA Network.
A grounded, psychologically intimate coming-of-age epic exploring Moses's evolution through personal doubt, exile, and the immense weight of historical leadership.
An immersive dramatic feature entering the turbulent life, historical upheaval, and poetic visual universe of modernist master Marc Chagall.
An authoritative historical documentary tracing Frédéric Chopin's formative youth in Poland and his deep artistic ties to the Dziewanowski family estate in Szafarnia.
Additional television pilot creation, writing, and executive producing deals across NBC, Sony Pictures Television, and USA Network.
A grounded, psychologically intimate coming-of-age epic exploring Moses's evolution through personal doubt, exile, and the immense weight of historical leadership.
An immersive dramatic feature entering the turbulent life, historical upheaval, and poetic visual universe of modernist master Marc Chagall.
An authoritative historical documentary tracing Frédéric Chopin's formative youth in Poland and his deep artistic ties to the Dziewanowski family estate in Szafarnia.
Martin Kunert has directed feature films, created groundbreaking reality and documentary formats, helmed theatrical features, and pioneered hybrid AI cinema pipelines. Along with directing and producing the works in the Kunert/Manes filmography, the Directors Guild of America showcased his music video ALL I EVER WANTED as an example of cutting-edge filmmaking, while Panasonic featured his web pilot WATERSIGNS at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention and commissioned him to direct an experimental 3D narrative film for Panasonic and DirecTV.
A member of both the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), Martin is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Dividing his time between Paris, Los Angeles, and Warsaw, he is also an accomplished medium-format analog fine-art and fashion photographer whose prints have been exhibited in New York galleries, and he serves as Director of the Institut International Dziewanowski pour Chopin in Paris.
VIEW FINE-ART PHOTOGRAPHY (@MARTINKUNERT) ↗Eric Manes is a Los Angeles-based feature film and television writer, producer, and media innovator. He co-created and executive produced MTV's landmark supernatural series FEAR; produced the Warner Bros. action feature 3000 MILES TO GRACELAND starring Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell; and produced and directed the theatrical documentary VOICES OF IRAQ, funneling digital video cameras directly to hundreds of Iraqis in the midst of war to capture unprecedented intimacy and first-person truth.
A graduate of New York University, Eric held a multi-year studio overall deal at Universal Pictures, wrote action and adventure features for Walt Disney Pictures (including two US-China co-production franchises with The Shanghai Media Group), Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Universal Studios, and created and executive produced television pilots for CBS, NBC, ABC, Sony Pictures Television, and USA Network. Most recently, alongside producing I, BEN-GURION, Eric produced a series of humanitarian documentary films for two-time Oscar-winning Moriah Films (now Moriah Media) and the Museum of Tolerance, including WOMEN OF IRAN, selected to screen at the United Nations.
