Maddow's 'Kill. Bury. Print.' to receive David Carr Award at Montclair

Rachel Maddow and director Ben Klein will receive the 2026 David Carr Award for Truth in Non-Fiction Filmmaking for 'Kill. Bury. Print.'

The Montclair Film Festival will present the prize, its honour for factual filmmaking, during this year's festival in Montclair, New Jersey, according to Variety.

The film follows a standoff between a family-run newspaper and the local sheriff's department in McCurtain County, Oklahoma. It is built around events that Maddow first covered on her programme in 2023.

That coverage followed the release by the paper of secretly recorded audio. In the recordings, local officials were heard discussing killing and burying reporters.

'Kill. Bury. Print.' will debut on Peacock on Sunday, Sept. 27. It will then screen at Montclair, where Maddow and Klein will take part in a post-screening Q&A.

The session is set for Saturday, Oct. 17 at 8:00 p.m. at the Wellmont Theater. The 2026 festival runs Oct. 16-25, according to Yahoo News.

The project is a series of firsts for Maddow. It is her first true-crime documentary, meaning a documentary built around a real criminal case, her first project with Peacock and her first documentary to screen at a film festival.

It is also her third documentary produced with Surprise Inside, the production company she founded with Phil Griffin. Her earlier films were 2024's 'From Russia With Lev' and 2025's 'Andrew Young: The Dirty Work.'

Klein directed the film. It is produced by Maddow and Klein, Joshua Rofe and Steven J. Berger for Number 19, Phil Griffin and Jack Bohrer for Surprise Inside, Otis Pictures, and Universal Television Alternative Studio.

Ben Warhit and Colleen Hall serve as executive producers, the credit given to senior figures who back a production financially or creatively without day-to-day management.

What makes this stand out for viewers is the path from broadcast to longer form. A story first told in a nightly slot now returns as a feature with a cinema screening and a streaming release to follow.