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Why Amy J. Berg Returned to Her Adnan Syed Docuseries 6 Years Later — and Does She Believe He’s Innocent?
The Hollywood Reporter ^ | September 19, 2025 | Tony Maglio

Posted on 09/19/2025 4:05:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway

The director discusses all of that, as well as what happened to this new episode’s previously announced 2023 release date.

The case against Adnan Syed has pretty much been never-ending, so why should The Case Against Adnan Syed be any different?

Amy J. Berg’s HBO documentary series has returned with a fifth episode a mere six years after the fourth one aired. To put that half-dozen-years break into perspective, HBO Max — which premiered episode five, “The Tree Grew,” on Thursday — didn’t even exist when the docuseries debuted as a four-parter.

Syed was arrested in 1999 for the murder of his high school ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. It was basically an open and shut case until the true-crime podcast Serial, which was really the first-ever hit podcast, reopened it. Serial, and sympathy for Syed, went viral.

Today marks the third anniversary of Syed’s release from prison. Ultimately, Syed’s conviction was not dismissed, but his release was chalked up to time served.

This new installment of The Case Against Adnan Syed was actually announced for a 2023 release date, but, well, things happen — especially in this case. The Hollywood Reporter got into all of it — and then some — in a Zoom conversation with Berg, below.

***

So why did you come back to this series, and why now?

The thing that kicked this much further down the field was that Alonzo Sellers was arrested for assaulting a postal worker. Then there was a new light on this case because he’s a person who found Hae Min Lee. He’s “Mr. S” from (the popular Syed case podcast) Serial, and it was a pretty violent assault [on the postal worker] and he didn’t serve any time. But the real clincher was that when the investigators went to his house to search, they found all of these newspaper clippings from the year of the of Hae Min Lee murder and all the court cases around that time period. So we’re talking about 1999 newspapers — a stack of newspapers from that exact period of time were found under his couch. That’s kind of a shocker, and that propelled the whole thing forward.

What were you doing at the time that Sellers was arrested and the Syed case was reopened?

I was making [It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley], and I got a call about this. We sort of ran down there and captured a whole bunch of live, breaking things.

This additional episode was originally announced for a 2023 release — why was it delayed for two more years?

Oh, well, we wanted the case to fully end. There were still a few steps that needed to happen when the appeals were filed. We wanted to get to the final moment — obviously there are a couple avenues that Adnan could take in the future, but this is an ending of sorts.

Was all the starting and stopping discouraging?

Yes, there was a little bit of frustration because these appeals were taking forever, and we knew we had something great that was ready right after he got out of prison. But it’s just the way it all landed. The justice system takes their time.

A lot of docs, including Jussie Smollett’s if you choose to believe him, emphasize how the law enforcement system seems to go to great lengths to not admit that mistakes were made.

Yeah. When I was making West of Memphis (2012), I remember meeting a very prominent lawmaker in the south, in Tennessee, and he said to me, “If you don’t understand justice, Amy, just remember: just-us.”

When you have such a long gap between episodes four and five, how do you ensure that it remains a cohesive series, tonally and visually?

There’s been two looks for this film. One is telling the past story, and the other is the progressive vérité story of following the investigation. For me, it was that. We were just chasing the news, essentially, but we had inside access, as you know. So it was about letting people live in our frame and keeping it loose. But there is a look for Baltimore, and I think it’s been pretty consistent for the entire series.

But because of COVID, the in-person prison visits got moved to Skype, so I was able to record my interviews with Adnan for the first time. That was actually breaking the style, and was a whole new look. We had never seen him on camera at that point.

Did you make sure to use the same equipment (as the earlier episodes) where you could?

I didn’t, but it just turned out that was the case, because we had certain lenses we really liked and we used the C500 for all these shoots, so it was pretty consistent.

Are you still in touch with Adnan?

Yeah, yeah.

Would you say you’re friends at this point?

I mean, we’re friendly colleagues. Yes, I consider him a person where we’re colleagues who are friendly.

Do you believe he’s innocent?

Yes. I mean, there’s zero evidence. I don’t believe [Syed associate] Jay Wilds’ statement, and I believe that, based on all of the DNA testing, nothing led us to [Adnan]. I mean, you have to assume he’s innocent. [Writer’s note: Wilds told police he had helped Syed bury Lee’s body, but there have been inconsistencies in his story.]

The Case Against Adnan Syed is now streaming on HBO Max.


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Hobbies; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: adnansyed; alonzosellers; amyjberg; haeminlee; hollywoodreporter; leftistsource; podcast; serial; tonymaglio

1 posted on 09/19/2025 4:05:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
Interesting. I vaguely remember watching this back in the day.

2 posted on 09/19/2025 4:16:45 PM PDT by chud
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To: nickcarraway
I listened to the entire Serial podcast about this case along with Rabia Chaudry’s Undisclosed podcast with Susan Simpson. This is the only case I cannot definitively say, one way or the other, he's guilty or innocent. It's a real head scratcher.
3 posted on 09/19/2025 4:18:31 PM PDT by liberalh8ter ( This tagline has taken the month off to attend the inauguration.)
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