For nearly three decades, writer-director Martin Kunert and writer-producer Eric Manes have combined major-studio screenwriting discipline with pioneering visual formats—creating landmark television, theatrical documentary, and widescreen historical cinema.
An intimate historical epic exploring the creation of modern Israel through the memories, convictions, and contradictions of David Ben-Gurion—a man whose private consciousness became inseparable from the destiny of a nation.
Every spoken word is drawn verbatim from primary historical records, diaries, and original archival audio. The movie is brought to the screen with a widescreen visual language that mixes archival footage with digital recreations made in the style of 1960s cinema epics.
Throughout their career, Kunert and Manes have invented new production methodologies to bring unprecedented access and scale to the screen—from pioneering participant-filmed television formats to recreating the scale of 1960s cinema epics.
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 dramatize unfilmed moments without compromising historical truth, Kunert and Manes engineered a proprietary generative AI pipeline that seamlessly turns historical photos, films, and descriptions into widescreen cinematic reconstructions that look like classic film and not AI. This proprietary system delivers major-studio period scale at a fraction of traditional physical production budgets, enabling non-profit foundations and independent financiers to mount theatrical epics previously restricted to extreme high budgets.
Alongside I BEN-GURION, Kunert/Manes is actively developing its next slate of widescreen historical epics and theatrical documentaries—deploying its proprietary production pipeline in partnership with major studios, cultural institutions, non-profit foundations (including the Voices Of Foundation), and private financiers to bring defining chapters of world history to global audiences with unprecedented production efficiency.
Directed and produced by distributing 150 digital video cameras across Iraq so Iraqi citizens could document their own reality in the midst of war, the groundbreaking feature-length documentary VOICES OF IRAQ was released theatrically in the US and internationally by Magnolia Pictures, screening at major international festivals to 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
Directed and produced for Moriah Media and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, WOMEN OF IRAN chronicled Iranian women challenging state oppression—going viral across international platforms and earning an official invitation to screen at the United Nations.
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Created, directed, and executive produced for MTV, FEAR pioneered the supernatural reality genre of television. 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
Produced by Eric Manes for Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek Productions, 3000 MILES TO GRACELAND is a 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.
WATCH TRAILERAdditional network television pilot creation, writing, and executive producing deals across CBS, ABC, NBC, Sony Pictures Television, and USA Network.
Additional network television pilot creation, writing, and executive producing deals across CBS, ABC, NBC, Sony Pictures Television, and USA Network.
A member of both the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), Martin Kunert is a feature film director, screenwriter, and visual innovator whose work has been showcased by the DGA for cutting-edge visual direction and commissioned by Panasonic and DirecTV to pioneer new narrative formats. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, he has written major-studio features and adventure franchises for Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Universal Studios, and created and executive produced network television pilots for CBS and ABC. 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 Dziewanowski pour Chopin in Paris.
VIEW FINE-ART PHOTOGRAPHY (@MARTINKUNERT) ↗A graduate of New York University, Eric Manes is a Los Angeles-based feature film and television producer, screenwriter, and media innovator. Across three decades in the industry, Eric held a multi-year studio overall deal at Universal Pictures, wrote action and adventure features for Walt Disney Pictures (including two landmark 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. Alongside his studio feature and television work, he has produced acclaimed theatrical documentaries and historical docudramas in association with Magnolia Pictures, Moriah Media, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
