Venice Film Festival 2025 — Best Documentary on Cinema
In 1977, television star David Carradine — then at the height of his fame from Kung Fu — came up with a novel way to forge a relationship with his estranged teenage daughter Calista: he would make a movie with her. His vision was extraordinary in its ambition: an epic telling of the life of Dutch courtesan and spy Mata Hari, filmed over fifteen years, with Calista literally growing up on screen in the title role.
The project was never finished. Carradine's drug-induced lifestyle, mounting financial pressures, and the increasingly turbulent dynamics between father and daughter — whose real lives began to eerily mirror the characters and events of the film — threw the production into chaos.
The film had its world premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2025, where it won the Venezia Classici Award for Best Documentary on Cinema. It subsequently screened at Doc NYC 2025 (North American premiere) and the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival 2026.
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"Finds a truly unconventional way into what, on the surface, could've been a conventional documentary." — The Playlist, Venice 2025
"A character-driven documentary about passion, father-daughter relationship and movie making... The last scene is something I won't forget in a long time." — Letterboxd Audience Reviews
"David Carradine's unfinished film Mata Hari has been film and internet lore for quite some time." — Awards Daily, September 2025
"It's thrilling to see old footage that offers a peek into his role as a filmmaker, seeing his ambitions get trampled by ineptitude and unpreparedness to take on such a daunting task." — Next Best Picture, 2025
"This exploration of his bold vision highlights the struggle of navigating familial bonds while in pursuit of creative expression." — Doc NYC, 2025