NYWIFT Blog

By Tammy Reese

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer Marcella Garcia Steingart is making waves at the 2025 Tribeca Festival with the world premiere of her latest project, Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything, directed by Jackie Jesko.

Produced in collaboration with ABC News Studios and Imagine Documentaries, the film offers a compelling and intimate look at the pioneering career of broadcast journalism icon —  and 1997 NYWIFT Muse Honoree —  Barbara Walters , the first woman to break into network evening news.

With rare archival footage and powerful insights from cultural figures like Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric, Andy Cohen, Joy Behar, Bette Midler, Connie Chung, and Cynthia McFadden, the documentary not only charts Walters’ trailblazing path but also explores deeper themes of sexism, ambition, and the high cost of public success.

A proud NYWIFT member, Steingart brings her signature emotional depth and narrative artistry to the project. Her journey as a celebrated storyteller has earned her accolades across the industry — and Tell Me Everything may be her most powerful work to date.

Still from Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everthing

Congratulations on the Tribeca premiere of Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything! What has this experience meant to you? 

The word trailblazer is constantly overused — but in Barbara Walters’ case, it genuinely fits. With a career spanning more than 50 years, she broke barriers as the first woman to co-host a network morning show, a network evening news program, and a major news magazine — 20/20. She was an actual pioneer, consistently shattering glass ceilings, redefining herself, and reshaping broadcast journalism across the decades.

Having the chance to help tell her story was both humbling and an incredible honor. The weight of that responsibility pushed us to create a complex portrait — one that celebrated her imitable career while offering a window into the woman behind the legacy.

The film was produced by Imagine Documentaries in collaboration with ABC News Studios, which have long-standing traditions of excellence in documentary storytelling. Collaborating with such heavyweights was a real privilege and career highlight for me. Just as meaningful, though, was the experience of working with the “boots on the ground” team — whip-smart, drama-free, totally dedicated, and some of the most fun fellow travelers on the Barbara journey one could wish for.

Without giving too much away before the premiere, what would you like audiences to know or feel going into this documentary?

Depending on your age or TV tastes, chances are you’ve watched Barbara Walters — whether on The Today Show, her iconic celebrity specials, decades on 20/20, The View, or even in viral clips on YouTube and TikTok. (As I write this, a scene from her 1990 interview with Donald Trump is making the rounds again.)

While some familiarity with Barbara might add to the viewing experience, we believe her story — her professional and personal struggles, and how she shaped and navigated the volatile world of TV news — will engage, provoke, and inspire audiences regardless of how much they know going in.

Still from Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everthing

What do you hope audiences take away from Tell Me Everything after seeing it for the first time?

We hope audiences leave with a sense of discovery — even if they thought they already knew Barbara Walters. From the start, Jackie’s (the director) vision was not only to showcase her singular career and meteoric rise in a male-dominated industry, but also to reveal facets of her humanity through immersive and rarely seen archival material.

Plus, we want viewers to have fun — to luxuriate in the spectacular interview moments with figures like Nixon, Putin, Castro, Gaddafi, Trump, Mike Tyson, Bette Midler, Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers, Michael Jackson. The list goes on.

As one of the producers of the film, what was the most rewarding — and perhaps the most challenging — aspect of telling Barbara Walters’ story?

Barbara Walters was a public figure in every sense — she spent over 50 years in front of the camera, was wildly successful, and at times more famous than the people she interviewed. She conducted thousands of interviews, from Castro to the Kardashians, and spoke with nearly every major figure in political and popular culture from the 1960s through her retirement in 2014.

ABC, Barbara’s home for over 40 years, gave us access to all of her interviews, including never-before-aired footage, all camera angles, and outtakes. With such a vast archive, one of the biggest challenges was deciding which narrative beats to include. We knew we didn’t want the documentary to fall into the “and then this happened, and then that happened” trap.

The most rewarding part was finding moments in the archival material that disarmed Barbara — moments that revealed her vulnerabilities, her flaws, her humor, and her inner struggles. Those discoveries made her feel more human and multidimensional.

We also cast the film very intentionally. So many people had worked with or knew Barbara, at least on a superficial level. It was a challenge to choose interview subjects who knew her more deeply and were willing to reflect honestly — to go beyond hagiography, trite sound bites, or simple exposition.

Marcella on set

You’re a celebrated producer with Emmy, Peabody, and NAACP Image Award-winning projects under your belt. Can you share a bit about your journey navigating the industry and how your career has evolved over time?

I started in the narrative space, but wasn’t getting much traction with a screenplay I wrote that seemed stuck in development after being optioned. I needed work and a friend of mine was editing at Radical Media, an incredible production company and a job opening popped up and she recommended me.

The position was an associate producer and my job entailed going out in the field and interviewing random people. I loved it. I continued working as a creative producer, taking every exciting challenging job that I could find and slowly ascended.

Marcella at the Peabody Awards

Why do you think festivals like Tribeca are so important to the documentary and independent film communities?

Festivals like Tribeca help documentary and independent filmmakers amplify the impact of their work and career through theatre screenings, distribution opportunities and industry connections. Tribeca, in particular, reflects the spirit of New York City, which has long been a breeding ground of independent storytelling. It champions bold, diverse, unconventional voices that might struggle to find visibility elsewhere.

I also want to add that Barbara Walters was so quintessentially New York — it’s where she worked, lived, and cultivated her A-list social life, so to premiere at Tribeca, feels so fortunate and fitting.

Marcella on set

What initially inspired you to become a member of NYWIFT, and what has being a part of the organization meant to you over the years?

Like many of my better decisions, I was influenced by other women whom I admire, trust and collaborate with. Two women — colleagues and dear friends, were members of NYWIFT and prodded me to join because their experience with the organization was so positive. Making movies is hard! Regardless of how much you love it, which I do. It can be exhausting, stressful and occasionally demoralizing.

For me, NYWIFT cultivates an extraordinary support system of talented women who get me –understand the pain and glory of bringing a film to life. I always feel I can reach out to the NYWIFT network for help, advice, or collaboration. Staying connected to this large diverse network of women also helps strengthen my sense of community and keeps me plugged in to crucial issues in the industry.

As someone who has excelled in both fiction and nonfiction, what advice would you offer to aspiring women producers looking to break into the documentary space?

I have three pieces of advice:

1. Watch documentaries! It sounds so obvious, but become an expert on non-fiction. Not just the latest offerings popping up on the streamers homepage, but the classics.
2. I suggest keeping a running list of project ideas that you’d like to develop.
3. Work on building and maintaining a network of other filmmakers both seasoned and contemporary. Leverage any connection you have whether through university, family, friends, etc to find work, get advice about a project, or find avenues of financing.

Connect with Marcella Steingart on her website marcellasteingart.com and follow her on Instagram at @marcellaofaventine.

Learn more about Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything at Tribeca at: https://tribecafilm.com/films/barbara-walters-tell-me-everything-2025

We also interviewed Marcella Steingart for our special Tribeca Festival episode of The NYWIFT Podcast. Listen now!

Learn more about the rest of the NYWIFT member projects at Tribeca 2025!

(Headshots and behind-the-scenes images courtesy of Marcella Steingart; film stills courtesy of Tribeca Festival)