with PAULA SCHWARTZ– Last night’s Tribeca Film Festival premiere of “In God We Trust” brought a pair of unexpected guests: Andrew Madoff and his girlfriend Catherine Hooper. The film, directed by Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson, chronicles at least in broad stokes, the ghastly misdeeds of Bernie Madoff that led to his downfall, the suicide of his son (and Andrew’s brother Mark), the splintering of their family and the whole destruction of hundreds of victims.

Andrew came in early to the SVA Theater on West 23rd and quietly took seats up front. No one recognized him because he is now bald and undergoing chemo. But I spoke to him before and after the screening. The soft spoken Madoff told me he’d been shown a “very rough cut” early on. He and Hooper sat through the entire screening and the Q&A that followed. This meant watching the entire story– his brother’s suicide, the disintegration of his mother, and his own personal undoing. He and Hooper ate popcorn, however, and laughed when there were uneasy jokes. When the film was over I asked him how it had been for him. “Tough to watch,” he said.

Madoff also told Paula Schwartz about his health:

“I’m doing well. Right now I’m in treatment for lymphoma. Just finished six rounds of chemotherapy, having a stem cell transplant in about a month.”

http://www.showbiz411.com/2011/11/08/andrew-madoff-celebrates-jlo-jennifer-aniston-at-glamour-women-of-the-year

Indeed, “In God We Trust” traces the story of Madoff’s secretary, Eleanor Squillari from 25 year loyal employee to whistleblower. Squillari maintains that she never knew what Madoff was up to, that he was running a massive international Ponzi scheme. She set out to help the government piece together the story.

The film condenses a lot of the Madoff story, and leaves a lot of questions left to be answered. The “feeder” accounts are only skirted, and there’s no mention I can remember of Ezra Merkin or many other Madoff associates. Merkin got off easy, paying just $405 million in a civil settlement with investors he brought into the Madoff mess.

The film does try to leave the impression that Madoff may not have been his own captain, and that he was somehow taking orders from Jeffry Picower, the billionaire who ultimately committed suicide. But it’s hard to believe, frankly. That dog, as they say, does not hunt.

Still, filmmakers Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson are fairly thorough. And using Squillari, who is now living in Florida with her second husband, was a coup. If she is to be believed– and I think she is– Madoff had no investment or pension plan for her. When the company collapsed, she lost her house. She sold her story to Vanity Fair but never wrote a book. Her daughter told me that she thought Andrew came to the screening to support her, and that the two remain on good terms.

But still: it was disarming to sit behind Andrew Madoff, especially during the Q&A, and hear strangers rip apart his family. I don’t know how or why he endured it. But maybe it’s some form of therapy for him, his own mea culpa.

Has Katie Holmes traded one cult for another? A year away from Scientology and she’s making a movie — filming but officially unannounced– directed by and financed by people who are devoted donors to Transcendental Meditation. And not only that, there’s a connection to sometime Scientologist Jennifer Lopez.

Everyone’s going to yell at me for calling Transcendental Meditation a cult. But it’s masses of people chanting, backed by millions and millions of dollars. And now Katie Holmes is starring in a film financed by the most ardent financier of TM, Ray Dalio, of Bridgewater Associates. His son Paul is directing the film. I’ve written about “Mania Days” before–Spike Lee is executive producer, for unknown reasons. And now Katie is in the film although no announcement that I know of has ever been made. She’s playing a depressed poet who hooks up with a depressed rapper.

“Mania Days” is an indie film, I guess, if you don’t count the director’s father running a hedge fund that invests hundreds of billions of dollars. Ray Dalio is also a big supporter of Jennifer Lopez’s 501 c 3 formerly called the Maribel Foundation but now known as the Lopez Family Foundation. Dalio’s given them $775,000 in the last three years. He’s been her major donor. Lopez is connected to Scientology through her father and through Tom Cruise. Katie was married to Tom Cruise. Is there a connection? Hmmmm….

http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/03/20/spike-lee-producing-movie-by-hedge-fund-manager-ray-dalios-son