OWN recruits A-listers for feature docs

OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network has joined forces with several high-profile Hollywood actors who will produce feature docs for a monthly strand on the upcoming US cable network. The monthly documentary film club will feature one-off projects from Julia Roberts, Forest Whitaker, Goldie Hawn, Gabriel Byrne and Mariel Hemmingway.

Each of the projects will be 1x2hrs and will air in the same slot as previously announced acquisitions Life 2.0, Family Affair and Sons of Perdition.

From Julia Roberts’ Red Om Films and Creative Vision Productions there will be Extraordinary Moms, about real-life inspirational mothers.

Forest Whitaker will narrate and exec produce One Last Shot, which will be produced by Lightworks Pictures and KMPI. It tells the story of a hospice program inside a Louisiana maximum security prison in which the average prisoner is serving over a 90-year sentence. The program in question attempts to rehabilitate prisoners by getting them to care for fellow inmates who are dying.

Goldie Hawn is making a film about positive psychology and people’s search for a happy life, Searching for Happiness, which will be made in association with Creature Films.

Gabriel Byrne’s film, Tent City, will explore homelessness in Nashville, and a particular community of homeless people living under a downtown bridge.

Seven Suicides, from Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter Mariel, will look at the legacy of suicide and depression in her famous literary family and her attempts to reconnect with her sister, Muffet.

OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network launches January 11, 2011. It will take the place of Discovery Health.