The Hanging of Stuart Cornfeld

2025 89:05 min, color, sound

Produced, written and directed by Joan Bofill
Executive Producer Patricia Tejeiro
Associate Producer Andrew FxS
Co-writer Joan Marimón
Music by Javier Rodero Villa
Additional Music by Antoni Comas

CAST
Stuart Cornfeld, Jack Black, Joan Bofill Amargós, Martin Brest, Mel Brooks, David Cronenberg, Guillermo del Toro, Howard Franklin, Vince Gilligan, David S Goyer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, William Horberg, Mark Johnson, Monica Levinson, David Lynch, Eric Michelson, Michael Minky, Steven Soderbergh, Jerry Stahl, Ben Stiller, Johanna Went

Synopsis
The Hanging of Stuart Cornfeld is an intimate portrait of what it means to expose oneself. At its center is the iconoclastic film producer Stuart Cornfeld (1952-2020) sharp-tongued, outspoken, irreverent, and true to himself. The film unfolds through the eyes of an artist who, in Stuart’s final years, paints multiple portraits while speaking with him and those who knew him best (friends, collaborators, actors, film directors and, film producers) tracing the life of a man who embraced misfits because he, too, never quite fit in.

Cornfeld, known for producing films like The Elephant Man, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, and The Fly, built a career championing the bizarre and the brilliant. Beneath his wit and defiance lay deep insecurities and an unwavering sense of loyalty. As illness forces him to slow down, Stuart reflects on a life defined not just by the films he helped bring to life, but by the people who shared the journey with him.

“The Hanging”, as in an exhibition, a judgment, a final surrender, becomes a metaphor for artistic courage: the willingness to be fully seen, even at the risk of being misunderstood.