The New York Times features a story on two D.E.R. filmmakers, Julia Pimsleur and Kirsten Johnson, whose first film we both distribute and adore, Bintou in Paris. Catch their newest film, Deadline, this Friday at 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time in the United States on NBC’s Dateline. From the Times:

In a highly unusual move for a broadcast network, NBC has purchased the two-hour documentary for an undisclosed price and will present it on Friday on “Dateline NBC.” Although HBO and other cable networks buy documentaries at film festivals like Sundance, it is rare for a broadcast network like NBC to buy a documentary and present it in its entirety, because these networks have news units themselves. The filmmakers said that about 10 minutes of the documentary had been trimmed, mostly to make room for commercials.

What makes the current documentary perhaps even more unusual is that it was purchased at the behest of Robert Wright, now chairman and chief executive of NBC Universal.

According to the filmmakers, after the first screening, on a snowy Friday afternoon, Mr. Wright came up to a producer of the movie, Dallas Brennan, introduced himself and gave her his card. The filmmakers said they did not fully grasp who the speaker was. The next day Mr. Wright came up to them again at a brunch and said he found the documentary so compelling that he wanted to put it on NBC.