DOCUMENTARIES WITH A POINT OF VIEW
film festivals
Sonjia Hyon is the Festival Director of the Asian American International Film Festival, the longest-running festival devoted to the works of Asian and Asian American filmmakers. This year the Festival celebrates its 31st year in New York from July 10th to July 19th.
I started working in Asian American film as an intern at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival in 1999. At the time, my interest in Asian American film was an extension of my interest in subculture and independent media — I was an avid reader of zines, listener of college radio, and a patron of small art house theaters. What I mostly appreciated was that I belonged to a society that advocated difference instead of conformity, and believed in unity, not uniformity. For me, this was the transformative quality of Asian American cinema: it wasn't about affirming my identity as an Asian American woman; instead, it continually unraveled what Asian American identity meant — making it more complicated, more indefinable, more ambiguous. Films by Christine Choy, Jon Moritsugu and Rea Tajiri provided a lens to challenge assumptions and question the obvious.
Almost ten years later, I've become the director of the Asian American International Film Festival in New York, and like the Festival, I've also just entered my 30s. Turning 30, you start to reprioritize, evaluate what's important and let go. Here at the Festival, it's the same. We see our 30s as a moment to break from the film festival model that embraces glamour and celebrities, and instead honor films and their filmmakers. At AAIFF, we are inspired by our founders Daryl Chin, Tom Tam and Fern Lee, all of whom believed in the importance of independent filmmakers in mobilizing different ways to imagine how to live.
In honor of officially entering our 30s, we're bringing back veteran filmmakers such Wayne Wang, director of the festival's opening night film, The Princess of Nebraska, and introducing many new vanguards such as Malaysian filmmaker Sang Tat Liew, documentary filmmakers Risa Morimoto and Derek Shimoda, and our exciting line-up of shorts directors.
I am also thrilled to announce our new series of conversations on culture and ideas — New Landscapes: Media and Its Adaptations. This series has become a pet project of the staff and our collaborators at Asia Society and the Asian/Pacific/Institute at NYU. Collectively, we wanted to put together a conference that encouraged interdisciplinary thinking and talking. The panels range in topic from an intimate conversation between female documentary filmmakers moderated by P.O.V.'s own Anne del Castillo, to a discussion on Asian aesthetics between some of the world's top artists such as architect Billie Tsien and playwright David Henry Hwang.
We love movies here at AAIFF, and if you do too, you should come visit us at the Asia Society from July 10 to 19 and watch some great cinema.
You can see our full schedule and programs at AAIFF.org.
Two major festivals have been taking place over the past two weeks, making June a time for a real feast for documentary lovers in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas.
The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival runs through June 26 at Lincoln Center. The festival showcases films from the U.S. and around the world that address critical human rights issues. But these are not just advocacy and social issue films — they are well-crafted, engaging and artful documentaries that will make you indignant, sometimes angry, but more often hopeful and inspired to action. The festival schedule is at: http://www.hrw.org/iff/.
Highlights of the festival include three upcoming P.O.V. films. Traces of the Trade has already had one screening to a packed house and sparked an emotional audience discussion on the contemporary legacy of slavery. Critical Condition by Roger Weisberg takes an unflinching look at people living without health insurance. In this election year, it's interesting to note that these issues are being addressed with more substance and nuance by documentary makers rather than mainstream news media.
Also screening is The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) by Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Pravasath which will be featured on P.O.V. in 2009. This film is garnering major acclaim and is well worth the big screen experience. Two other films to check out are The Dictator Hunter by Klaartje Quirijns and Project Kashmir by Senain Kheshgi and Geeta V. Patel.
In Silver Spring, Maryland, the sixth edition of SILVERDOCS has just come to a conclusion. Presenting over 100 films from 68 countries, SILVERDOCS has quickly risen to become one of the finest festivals in the U.S. Under the leadership of festival director Patricia Finnerman and director of programming Sky Sitney, SILVERDOCS features a mix of favorites from the festival circuit like Man on Wire and Up the Yangtze (P.O.V. 2008) with films new to U.S. audiences.
One of the difficult things about SILVERDOCS is that there was just so much to do that I didn't get to see as many movies as I wanted to. The SILVERDOCS conference (run by the dynamic Diana Ingraham) runs parallel to the festival and is chock full of panels and presentations looking at all aspects of the industry from fundraising, marketing and distribution — including a pitching workshop with P.O.V. honcho Cynthia Lopez. With so much going on at the same time, I occasionally had the feeling that I wanted to be in too many places at once — but that just speaks to a plethora of choice.
Highlight films this year included winners The English Surgeon by Geoffrey Smith, whose subject, Dr. Henry Marsh, came in from London to charm the audience at the Q&A. The Garden by Scott Hamilton Kennedy generated a lot of excited talk, as did The Red Race by Chao Gan. Megan Mylan's Smile Pinki is a lovely and very tender short. And I finally saw Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World, which is a lyrical feast of a film.
Joanna Rudnik's In the Family had its world premiere, and I had the pleasure if moderating the post-screening discussion with a sterling set of panelists. Stay tuned to P.O.V. for the film's television premiere on October 1, 2008.
The full list of this year's winners can bee seen at: http://silverdocs.com/festival/award-winners/.
Robert Bahar was the producer and writer of Made in L.A. (P.O.V. 2007). He represented P.O.V. recently at the Film Your Issue awards ceremony in Los Angeles to present the prize to the winner of the POV award.
Last week I had the privilege of presenting the P.O.V. Award at the Film Your Issue awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Film Your Issue is a competition that invites teens and young adults ages 14 to 24 from around the world to submit short films about issues that they are truly passionate about. The hope is that the competition will catalyze dialogue among young adults, and encourage potential future leaders to engage in civic discourse.
The ceremony was held at the Cary Grant Theater at Sony Pictures Studios and featured stars such as Kirk Douglas and Bill Maher, as well as business leaders including the publisher of USA Today, Craig Moon. But despite the star power, the real stars of the evening were undoubtedly the young filmmakers whose films and speeches came straight from the heart. I was there to present the P.O.V. Award to the film New Orleans for Sale, by Brandan Odums and Nik Richard (both 22) and their collective, 2-Cent Entertainment. In just 87 seconds, the film is a sharp, perceptive look at the actual paid tourism, and by extension, the voyeurism that represents a part of our national emotional response to Hurricane Katrina and the devastation left in its wake. It poses questions about why neighborhoods are not being rebuilt, and about whether there are disincentives for reviving the city as it once was. The mixture of documentary and performance techniques makes for a striking short piece:
The 2-Cent team actually brought 10 people out for the awards ceremony, so the podium was rather crowded for the awards presentation. And they got to stay up there for a while, as New Orleans for Sale also received three other prizes including the jury award, the NAACP award and the Silverdocs award! The prizes are fitting, and I'd love to see the film take off as a viral phenomenon. People absolutely need to see it, and these young voices do need to be heard.
I made my first documentary at 19, and I have always believed that films, media and especially documentaries can make a difference and lead to social change. So it was thrilling to spend an evening watching films made by young filmmakers who are fighting so hard to make a difference through these creative, powerful short pieces.
You can view all the winners at http://www.filmyourissue.com.
Maia Ermita is the director of the Media That Matters Film Festival, a project of Arts Engine. Now in its eighth year, the festival brings high-impact shorts and take-action tools to audiences around the country. This year I was lucky enough to serve on the jury of the festival, so I can say with assurance that these films are worth checking out. I invited Maia to tell us more about the festival, and this week's activities.
Hope everyone rested up over the weekend in time for all of the events happening at Arts Engine with the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival!
This year's collection includes some amazing films focusing on such issues as the essential role of youth in a democracy, the burden of war on a young boy's life, the changing face of nomadic life in Tibet and the importance of honeybees on the environment. After watching these films and meeting with the filmmakers, we are proud to provide this platform to celebrate these visions of hope through film.
The world premiere on Wednesday, May 28th will feature 12 new inspiring short films from around the world at the IFC Center in New York City at 7pm. The filmmakers from this latest collection will be participating in a Q&A soon after the premiere, so come out to meet these great new advocates for social change through film. Get your tickets quick!
In case you can't make it to our Wednesday premiere, due to popular demand, we'll be having a second screening on Friday, May 30th at Tribeca Cinemas at 7pm where you'll join many of our partners (including P.O.V.!) for a run of these same 12 films with many of the filmmakers for a follow-up Q&A session. Bring your friends to Tribeca Cinemas this Friday.
And if all of this isn't enough, join us for the official Media That Matters after-party on Saturday, May 31st as festival winner African Underground: Hip Hop in Senegal's filmmaker and featured artists spin tracks and lay down beats at the Rose Live Music center in historic Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
I hope some of you are able to attend our events — but in case you can't, the festival will officially launch online on May 29th.
Stay tuned for more screenings and events around the world with Media That Matters.
See you there!
P.O.V. executive director Simon Kilmurry attended DocAviv, a documentary film festival in Tel Aviv. He writes in with a report.
DocAviv, Israel's premiere documentary festival, wrapped up a remarkable 10th anniversary edition on April 12. I attended the festival for the first time this year, and had the pleasure of serving on the jury for the Israeli documentary competition. The festival opened with welcoming remarks by Shimon Peres, the current President of Israel, who emphasized the importance of documentaries in a democratic society. In particular, he noted the emergence of Israel as a source for some very important work.
The 2008 DocAviv Film Festival was held at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque
The opening gala featured the film My Beetle by Yishai Orien. The film has some elements that appear staged, thereby opening up the question of what constitutes a documentary. It also has a tongue-in-cheek quality, which the audience seemed to enjoy, but caused some dissent amongst regular festival-goers. Some questioned whether the film had sufficient "weight" to be an opening film, while others liked the film's Spurlock-esque tone. My Beetle was preceded by a hilarious tribute video that summed up the festival's programming as consisting solely of films on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Holocaust, and films by Avi Mugrabi. It was a nice light moment in a field that tends to take itself too seriously.
Of course, the reality of Israeli documentary is much more diverse and complex — reflecting the diversity of the region. There have been some remarkable films coming out of Israel over the past few years: Souvenirs, The Cemetery Club, Checkpoint, Stalags, Shayda, and Ido Haar's 9 Star Hotel (P.O.V. 2008, airing on July 22). While I did hear a little grumbling that some of this year's films were not up to those standards, there were some terrific films. I personally think the grumbling reflects the exceptionally high standards we have come to expect of documentaries from Israel. And certainly, the winners were some very distinguished films. Not to mention that the consistently sold-out screenings indicate that there's a real thirst for more high quality docs.
Filmmaker Jason Kohn (Manda Bala) and me in Israel.
The grand jury winner, Brides of the Desert by Ada Ushpiz, is an exceptionally intimate look at a Bedouin community and some of the women who struggle with the practice of polygamy. It was exquisitely photographed by Danor Glazer.
The winner of the Young and Promising Award, Yideshe Mama by Fima Shlick and Genadi Kuchuck, is a touching, painful and often humorous family story about Genadi's choice to marry an Ethiopian woman and his mother's fierce resistance to the marriage.
Other winners were:
My First War by Yariv Mozer — Special Jury Award
Adama by Iftach Shevach (one of my personal favorites) — Cinematography
Sixth Floor to Hell by Jonathan Ben Efrat — Editing
My fellow jury members were: Thom Powers (Toronto International Film Festival and Stranger than Fiction programmer and Cinema Eye Awards founder), Ronit Weiss-Berkowitz (a remarkable writer, producer and editor-in-chief of Keter Publishing), Laurence Hertzsberg (general director of the Forum des Images, Paris), and Eytan Harris (filmmaker of Abe Nathan: As The Sun Sets, and one of Israel's finest cinematographers).
Jury processes can be grueling, but this one was stimulating, exhausting and genuinely fun. Quite frankly, this team was one of the must stimulating groups of people I've had the pleasure to spend time with. Special mention must go to Thom for what was one of the most entertaining awards presentations in recent memory.
In the International competition, festival founder and director Ilana Tsur showcased some highlights from the international circuit: Up the Yangtze by Yung Chang (P.O.V. 2008), Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go by Kim Longinotto, Manda Bala by Jason Kohn, and Wings of Defeat by Risa Morimoto, among others. The winners in the international competition (which I have yet to see, but heard great things about) were:
Grand Jury Prize: Ironeaters by Shaheen Dill-Riaz
Special Jury Award: A Father's Music by Igor Heitzmann
Sidebar events at the festival included a tribute to Nicholas Philibert (Etre et Avoir) and a presentation by Diane Weyerman of films produced by Participant Productions (Chicago 10, Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains). Also featured was a screening of Made In L.A., the recent P.O.V. film by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, and a panel conversation between me and David Fisher, filmmaker and head of the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema & T.V., on P.O.V. and U.S. public television.
One other film in the festival that struck a chord with me was Esther Hoffenberg's Discorama — Signé Glaser, an elegiac tribute to one of France's most influential figures during a classic period of French pop music. The archival footage of Glaser with Francois Hardy, Juliette Greco, and Serge Gainsbourg is breathtaking, and the performances are out of this world.
Non-festival highlights of the week included fascinating and disturbing side trips. The first, organized by the aforementioned David Fisher, was a trip to Nazareth to meet with some filmmakers working out of Alarz TV. While the company focuses mostly on reportage for outlets such as Al Jazeera and Lebanese news, they are also producing longer-form creative projects. It was fascinating to see some of the work that is being produced by Israeli Arab and Druze filmmakers. Some of this work is being supported by The Green House Fund, which mentors filmmakers from across the Middle East. Particularly promising was a work-in-progress by Osnat Hadid which I'm eager to see more of.
The second trip included a tour of the separation barrier and a visit to Hebron, organized by Oren Yakobovich, video department director of B'Tselem. B'Tselem, an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, is the leading Israeli organization training people to use video and citizen journalism to monitor and document conflict and improve human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The situation in Hebron is very tense and far too complicated for me to explain, but it is eye-opening to witness it first hand.
This past week was a busy one in the doc world. The Full Frame Documentary Festival took place in North Carolina; Young@Heart, the first documentary acquired by distribution company Fox Searchlight in a decade was released to wide acclaim; and the upcoming release of his Standard Operating Procedure has Errol Morris all over the news.
First, to Full Frame. Our own Yance Ford was in Durham for the festivities, and she filed reports for us on the films she saw and the career award presentation to director William Greaves. Elsewhere, Still in Motion blogger Pamela Cohn offered in-depth re-caps of the festival (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, as did AJ Schnack of All These Wonderful Things, who, in addition to writing about the films, offered photos from the festival. Chuck Tryon of the Chutry Experiment was at Full Frame too, and he offers long, thoughtful reviews of many of the films he saw, including Bigger, Stronger, Faster, American Teen, At the Death House Door, and Trouble the Water. Overall, the Full Frame Festival wrapped up another successful year, its first without founder Nancy Buirski at the helm. The big award winners of the festival were Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Hurricane Katrina film Trouble the Water, and James Marh's Man on Wire, about a man who tightrope walked between the Twin Towers in 1974.
Our own Doc Soup columnist Tom Roston called Stephen Walker's Young@Heart "the tear jerker of 2008!" The film, which chronicles a senior citizen choir that sings music originally performed by the likes of Sonic Youth, Coldplay and The Clash, opened this week, and many critics were just as smitten as Tom was. The Los Angeles Times says that to see "these men and women having the time of their lives near the end of their lives couldn't be more refreshing." And although indieWire takes issue with the frequently "ingratiating" filmmaking, it points out that "what's good about the film comes through in spite of the filmmaking." The New York Times devotes a review and an article to the film in the same week, with the former lauding the film for offering "...an encouraging vision of old age in which the depression commonly associated with decrepitude is held at bay by music making, camaraderie and a sense of humor." The article, on the other hand, reports on sitting down to tea with the octogenarian singers, who are described as having "irrepressible goofiness," and who manage to "negotiate the sometimes barren landscape of old age with consummate grace."
Finally, seminal documentarian Errol Morris has been all over the internet. As his film about Abu Ghraib and photography, Standard Operating Procedure, gets ready for its limited release on April 25th, Morris is set to make appearances at Apple stores in San Francisco and New York. The Believer also published a conversation between Werner Herzog and Morris in the March/April edition of the magazine; the two masters talk about cinema verité, when they first met and took a trip to visit a serial killer in prison, and how to capture spontaneity on film. In consideration of Morris and his filmmaking techniques, Slate offers a lengthy article on his use of superslow motion in Standard Operating Procedure, and ArtForum offers an article criticizing the film's lack of insightful political discourse. Morris himself, meanwhile, considers the technique of re-enactments in his blog for the New York Times: specifically, he writes about his use of re-enactments in The Thin Blue Line, and considers the controversy around re-enactments in documentary films overall. Finally, for those who can't get enough of Errol Morris, word comes from The Hollywood Reporter (via Spout Blog) that his next project will be a fictional film: a comedy he is writing titled The End of Everything.
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival came to a close on Sunday, April 6th with the traditional North Carolina barbeque awards ceremony. The first Full Frame since Nancy Buirski stepped down as director featured a streamlined, more user-friendly ticketing process, new venues and a greater diversity of student fellows from colleges and universities around the U.S.
The Full Frame Festival took place at the Carolina Theater in Durham, NC from April 3-6, 2008.
Despite the persistent drizzle, spirits were high and many of the festival's screenings sold out. There was a general sense of camaraderie as natives and visitors alike soaked up a year's worth of docs in just four days. Some of the standouts from my perspective were: Life. Support. Music., an intense portrait of what it takes to bring a loved one back from brain injury by P.O.V. alum Eric Metzgar (Chances of the World Changing, P.O.V. 2007); City of Cranes by Eva Weber; and My Olympic Summer, a short film by Daniel Robin. My Olympic Summer pushes the boundaries of documentary pretty far. I'll discuss the film and the issues it raises in a later post.
There's quite a bit in the blogosphere already about Full Frame '08. To get a 360-degree picture of the festival, supplement your reading with a visit to All These Wonderful Things and Still in Motion. AJ Schnack and Pamela Cohen both offer incisive takes on many of the discussions around the films that were screened in Durham over the weekend. I especially think the discussion around the credits on Trouble the Water that began on these blogs ought to be continued.
One thing that hasn't received as much attention in the days since the festival wrapped up is the Full Frame Career Award presented to William Greaves (read Rachel Hall's essay here). Greaves is among the pioneers of cinema in the U.S., and one of the most accomplished African American directors of his generation. Full Frame was punctuated by screenings of his films Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and Take 2½, as well as The Fight, and The First World Festival of Negro Arts. The First World, which screened just prior to the awards ceremony, is a masterful display of cinematic prowess and just shows what a brilliant cinematographer Greaves is. His camera follows the explosive dances from around Africa as if he knew what moves were coming next. Unfortunately, The First World is not currently in distribution. The festival also screened a work-in-progress sample of his current project, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, which looks back at the Harlem Renaissance and the evolution of black culture. During his remarks, Greaves shared that the project had recently received major foundation support — good news for documentary fans everywhere.
Yance Ford is in Durham, North Carolina this weekend, where she's blogging from the 2008 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
The 2008 Full Frame Film Festival got off to an enthusiastic start in Durham last night. Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, addressed the crowd at Fletcher Hall. She spoke about the peril our democracy faces from increasing media consolidation and lauded the independent filmmakers whose documentaries offer us a glimpse into the world obscured by media monoliths. The crowd gave Edwards, a native daughter, a warm welcome.
The 2008 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival runs through April 6 at the Carolina Theater in downtown Durham, NC.
She was followed by Ariel Dorfman, professor, author and subject of Peter Raymont's 2007 film A Promise to the Dead. Dorfman introduced Nancy Buirski, founder of Full Frame and the festival's former artistic director, who received a standing ovation and an award in honor of her vision and dedication over the past ten years. Nancy was eloquent — as always — in her remarks. Not only did she thank the staff and volunteers, but she also made special mention of St. Claire Bourne, who died suddenly last December. A mentor and teacher to many, Bourne also curated a sidebar at Full Frame last year. She also announced that the 2009 Career Award will be presented to Bourne, and a program of his work will be curated by Sam Pollard at next year's festival.
The opening night film Trumbo was a portrait of the prolific screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. The film follows Trumbo's career before he was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and recounts his unwavering belief in freedom of thought even as his career was devastated. Trumbo is conventional in its structure, mixing interviews with archival footage. What I enjoyed most about the film was its liberal use of his own personal letters to friends and family, performed dramatically by well-known actors. I usually find this technique distracting, but Trumbo's words are so alive, and so energized by his convictions and his love for his family and friends that the device works. Donald Sutherland and Paul Giammatti are particularly good, and Nathan Lane's rendition of the letter Trumbo wrote to his son about masturbation brought the house down.
On my schedule today is Full Battle Rattle, by P.O.V. alum Jesse Moss (Speedo, P.O.V. 2004) and his co-director Tony Gerber; Trouble the Water by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, which played to raves at Sundance this year; and Be Like Others, another Sundance favorite by Tanaz Eshaghian. The screening of Up the Yangtze (P.O.V. 2008) nearly sold out yesterday, and filmmaker Yung Chang took questions from the audience afterwards. The Last Conquistador (P.O.V. 2008) also screened yesterday, as did Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter (P.O.V. 1995).
I'll report some more from rainy Durham soon (it's ok though, there's been a drought).
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival kicks off this week in Durham, North Carolina. Now in its eleventh year, the festival brings filmmakers and film lovers to the historic Carolina Theater for four days of documentaries — and it's become one of the most celebrated doc festivals in the country. This year's roster includes work by more than 100 filmmakers, including Werner Herzog and Chantal Akerman.
Check out the list of all the films to be presented at Full Frame at the festival's website.
P.O.V. filmmakers — past and present — will be presenting their latest projects at Full Frame. You can catch a preview of some of the films we'll be airing this summer and next, including Nerakhoon (The Betrayal) by Ellen Kuras (P.O.V. 2009), Calavera Highway by Renee Tajima-Peña and Evangeline Griego (P.O.V. 2008), Up the Yangtze by Yung Chang (P.O.V. 2008), and The Last Conquistador by John Valadez and Cristina Ibarra (P.O.V. 2008).
Films by P.O.V. alums at Full Frame this year include Beginning Filmmaking by Jay Rosenblatt (I Used to Be a Filmmaker, P.O.V. 2005), Full Battle Rattle by Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss (Speedo, P.O.V. 2004), and Life . Support . Music by Eric Daniel Metzgar (The Chances of the World Changing, P.O.V. 2007).
P.O.V. alum Lourdes Portillo (Señorita Extraviada, P.O.V. 2002) has curated a special slate of films for the festival this year, under the title of Migrations. In her essay about these films on Full Frame's website, Portillo wrotes:
...[T]hese films underscore the heritage of the unsung heroes of the open road and seas, helping us realize that we are all on this journey of discovery. It is an adventure, a trial and an exhilarating re-examination of who we ultimately are as human beings, in a state of constant movement and migration. The documentaries chosen here allow us to experience these journeys intimately, to partake in their joys and sorrows, giving us the gift of greater understanding.
Films in the Migration series include Deborah Hoffman's Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter (P.O.V. 1995), and Sewing Woman by two-time P.O.V. alum Arthur Dong (Family Fundamentals, P.O.V. 2003, and Licensed to Kill, P.O.V. 1998).
If you'll be in Durham, check out all of these films and much much more. Also, please say hello to P.O.V. series producer, Yance Ford. She'll be watching films, meeting with filmmakers and blogging about the festival.
Anne del Castillo, P.O.V.'s director of development, was in California last week for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. She saw some great films while she was there — here's her report on what to look out for.
Presented by the Center for Asian American Media, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is the nation's largest showcase for more than 120 new Asian and Asian American films. Festival director Chi-hui Yang and his team always put together an amazing lineup and events. In just the two days that I was there, I saw a range of films that reflect the broad diversity of Asian and Asian American cinema. The festival took place over 11 days, so this is just a tiny slice of what was shown there.
At P.O.V., we've had the good fortune of working with Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu on the broadcast of her stunning documentary In the Realms of the Unreal (P.O.V. 2005) about outsider artist Henry Darger, so I was eager to see her narrative feature debut. It wasn't until the film was introduced that I realized I'd been mixing up my cultural references: Ping Pong Playa is about a Chinese-American wannabe hip-hop b-ball player, and not a Latino update of Beach Blanket Bingo. Though some might say the film is predictable, for me it was reminiscent of a John Hughes film, with Jimmy Tsai as the reluctant, if not implausible, hero, "C-dub," who must cast aside his aspirations to become the first Chinese-American basketball star in order to defend his family's honor in the Golden Cock Ping Pong Tournament. Though a dramatic departure from her documentary work, Yu proves to be just as skilled at producing an off-the-wall, hilarious comedy.
On the other side of the spectrum is 19-year-old Hana Makhmalbaf's Buddha Collapsed from Shame. The beautiful, but devastating film set in Afghanistan marks the feature debut of the youngest daughter of Iranian filmmaker Moshen Makhmalbaf (Kandahar). The film opens with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, setting the atmosphere for the rest of the film, which plays like a documentary as we follow little Baktay in her quest to go to school like her friend Abbas. Along the way, she is confronted with one hurdle after another, and the film succeeds in depicting the sense of terror that years of violence and struggle have imposed on the country. The film received the Peace Prize at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.
Read more after the jump...
The documentary blogosphere weighs in with reactions to the inaugural Cinema Eye Awards held last week in New York City. Our own Yance Ford offered her reaction last week. The Reeler Blog's S.T. VanAirsdale summarizes the evening as well, calling it an evening "organized by friends for friends" and criticizing the awards for bowing to the establishment orbit. Mark Rosenberg at the Rooftop Films Blog praises the awards but also suggests improvements for future iterations of the awards, including creating an "Underexposed Award" for films that didn't get a theatrical release.
The trailer for Standard Operating Procedure, Errol Morris's much-anticipated documentary about Abu Ghraib, has been released. (via The Documentary Blog).
Cinematical reviews a number of documentaries from the recent SXSW film festival, including Some Assembly Required, about teams of middle school kids from around the country who compete in the National Toy Competition; Bama Girl, an examination of race through the Homecoming Queen competition at the University of Alabama; Intimidad, the story of a young, poor Mexican couple saving up money to buy a piece of property for themselves; and We Are Wizards, a look at Harry Potter fandom, and the "Wizard Rock" bands that have been formed by Harry Potter fans. For more reviews of SXSW films, visit Cinematical.
The Independent Blog writers were also at SXSW, and they wonder whether the films screened there will find a wider audience.
Yance Ford, P.O.V.'s series producer, attended the inaugural Cinema Eye Awards on March 18th. She writes in with some of her thoughts on what she liked and didn't like about the awards. For a complete list of winners, visit the website of the Cinema Eye Honors.
Gathered in decidedly more casual attire than the Academy Awards, the docuratti (the non-profit version of the gliterratti) celebrated the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors on Tuesday night at the IFC Center in NYC. Launched by filmmaker AJ Schnack and documentary programmer Thom Powers this past year, and sponsored by distributor Indie Pix, the Cinema Eye Honors were born out of frustration over many industry awards (like the Oscars) giving short shrift to documentary films that pushed the craft envelope.
Thom Powers strode to the podium to the Jackson Five to open the evening's festivities. He was followed shortly by AJ Schnack singing a brief song about Manda Bala, one of the nominated films, to the tune of Oklahoma by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Powers and Schnack, co-chairs of the Cinema Eye Honors, were ebullient as they welcomed many of documentary films' greatest names to the virgin outing of Cinema Eye. Working in partnership with the folks at Indie Pix and producer Pamela Cohn, Schnack and Powers pulled off a minor miracle (they planned the event in just a few months), and our congratulations go out to them.
The ceremony was energetic and punctuated by tributes to St. Claire Bourne and Tony Silver, documentary pioneers who died unexpectedly in recent months. The pre-ceremony gathering was jovial (and smartly lacked alcohol) as documentary folk from far and wide turned out in an enormous show of support for the new awards. The knowledge and experience in the IFC theater last night was incredible. Presenters included Sam Pollard, Barbara Koppel, Ross Kauffman, Molly Thompson, Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky, Marshall Curry, Alex Gibney and Alan Berliner; the groundbreaking documentaries represented by those names are astounding, never mind the rest of the audience.
For its first time out, Cinema Eye has done a tremendous service to the documentary community in the same do-it-yourself spirit that gets films made. I overheard the phrase "well, next year" often, and I'm sure that in the coming months, AJ, Thom and Indie Pix (with lots of input, no doubt) will improve upon their model for the 2009 Cinema Eye Awards. My personal suggestion would include a discussion about how films with a limited festival life that go straight to TV might be included in the awards. I'd also like to see the list of craft categories expanded to include composition, writing and sound. I know that these questions and others are on the minds of everyone at Cinema Eye, and I look forward to hearing and contributing to the coming conversations.
I know Thom Powers to be a thoughtful, passionate programmer and a great filmmaker in his own right. But his opening remarks included a remark that I found troubling. He said that "distributors don't get it, critics don't get it and the general public doesn't get it. We wanted to fill [this auditorium] with people who get it." I'll be the first to agree that independent documentary does not get the recognition it deserves, but I don't think that the problem is the fact that the general public doesn't "get it." The problem is that the general public doesn't get to see it. And as long as the documentary community prioritizes theatrical release and festival runs over broadcast, the public will continue to miss a large and dynamic body of work. I say this not just because P.O.V. is a broadcast outlet. I say this because when I looked around the IFC last night and saw the amazing collection of people in that theater, I wanted to ask everyone, what comes next? What do you do after tonight? How to you capture this energy and turn it into something sustainable?
More after the jump...
Anne del Castillo, P.O.V.'s director of development and special projects, just returned from SXSW. She reports on what it was like to return to her old stomping grounds in Austin.
I remember a conversation that I had with film bloggers Joel Heller, Agnes Varnum, and Sarah Jo Marks at SXSW last year: Joel told us that he'd stopped doing "real-time" blogging during festivals, because it was too much to balance screening, connecting and distilling all at once. This year, having attempted my first "blog report" from SXSW, I now get what he was saying. Following is a hybrid on-the-spot/look-back at my three-day, whirlwind run at the festival.
Friday: My "Secondary" Life
7:20 a.m. When I get to the security check-in at Newark Airport, I'm told by airport security that my driver's license has expired. I have no other ID on me, and my flight is in 30 minutes. "Does this mean I'm going to miss my flight?" I ask. The security agent assures me that it won't, "but it will take a little longer to board," as he streaks pink highlighter and scribbles S's all over my boarding pass. "We've got a secondary!" he hollers to his colleagues, who proceed to take turns announcing my arrival at each checkpoint — from the conveyor belt, to the puffer detector, and into the isolation booth for baggage hand-check. Finally, the secondary is cleared for passage to the gates.
Austin: Day 1.
1:30 p.m. I'm at the convention center waiting in line to pick up my badge when SXSW producer Matt Dentler walks over to give me a warm Texas welcome. He looks remarkably unfazed by the fact that it's opening day of the festival — we could just as well have been meeting for coffee, and I'm reminded of why I enjoy coming to SXSW.
Read more after the jump....
Congratulations to Tony Gerber and P.O.V. alum Jesse Moss (Speedo, P.O.V. '04) whose film Full Battle Rattle took the Special Jury Award!
They Killed Sister Dorothy by Daniel Junge won both the Grand Jury Award and the Audience Award.
Click here to see the full list of awards.
Helene Klodawsky's No More Tears Sister, a documentary about Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, a tireless crusader for human rights in Sri Lanka, aired on P.O.V. in 2006. Her latest film, Family Motel, will have its New York premiere this weekend as part of the Canadian Front series at the Museum of Modern Art.
This weekend, Helene Klodawsky's Family Motel will have its New York premiere at the Museum of Modern Art. The film follows Ayan, a Somalian refugee in Canada, and her two daughters as they struggle to cope with a sudden eviction and find themselves in a motel in a seedy neighborhood. The film is Klodawsky's first fiction feature, and it was shot on location with a nonprofessional cast.
The film has been well received in Canada, where Family Motel recently won the Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance Through Film, from one of Quebec's largest festivals, Les Rendez-vous du Cinema Quebecois. "... this is a film of great cinematographic quality that has extremely rich content and a moving and captivating story," explained the jury.
And it has already received some great reviews:
"Family Motel is one of the most important and affecting movies I've ever taken in. It speaks for the millions of marginalized refugees in the West with a degree of realism and authenticity I don't think I've ever seen on film before. Five stars for both content and cinematic art."
(Vanity Fair)
"A hard-working Somalian immigrant and her teenage girls fall victim to high rents and payments to other family members back home and slip through the Ottawa social safety net into homelessness. This gripping NFB-Instinct Films co-production resurrects the powerful fiction/documentary tradition of alternative drama and introduces the amazing non-actor family of Nargis Jibril and daughters Asha and Sagal."
(Montreal Gazette **** four stars)
If you're in New York, check out the film at one of its two screenings at MoMA:
Saturday, March 15, 2008, 2:00 p.m., MoMA Theater 1, T1
Monday, March 17, 2008, 6:00 p.m., MoMA Theater 1, T1
For more information, visit the Canadian Front, 2008 website. Family Motel is part of the Canadian Front series, organized by Laurence Kardish of the Department of Film at MoMA, and presented in association with Telefilm Canada.
Every Friday, journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the state of the documentary world in his column, Tom Roston's Doc Soup.
The Oscars are taking place this Sunday, so I'll do my best to break down who has the best shot at winning in the Documentary Feature category. First, let's just do away with Operation Homecoming and War/Dance. You know it hurts me to say it, after having advocated so strongly for both films, but their chances of winning are as good as Atonement for Best Picture. Which is to say: next to nil. Without a proper distributor, Homecoming has absolutely no muscle to get people excited about the film. And although in order to vote on this category, Academy members have to have seen all five films, I really can't see it happening without some extra push.
Speaking of pushing, ThinkFilm has released both War/Dance and Taxi to the Darkside — and because Taxi has better pedigree (director Alex Gibney's Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was nominated in 2006) and has been better reviewed, so I think the distributor will give a stronger push to that film. I'm hearing that Taxi has momentum as well, and that can sometimes be the most important factor of all. Sicko, Michael Moore's movie about the healthcare industry has one thing going for it and another going against it: Moore. How does the nation — or perhaps more to the point, the Academy voters — currently feel about Moore? There's always going to be an anti-Moore posse, and this film, although quite popular, seems to have already receded in the cultural memory. And do voters want to see Moore get back on stage and make another provocative speech (although he has said he would keep this one more humorous than the one he delivered five years ago after winning for Bowling for Columbine)? I think not. Alas, there is again the matter of pushing, and Sicko has the best pushers in the business behind it: The Weinstein Company. So between that, and the best name recognition in the bunch, it's got a good chance.
Read more after the jump....
After the hectic pace and hype of Sundance, it was a treat to go for the first time to the Big Sky Film Festival in Missoula. In fact, it was my first time in Montana — and I'll be back. I was a juror in the documentary feature category along with the delightful Skylar Browing (Arts Editor of The Missoula Independent) and Deborah Barkow (filmmaker and editor). The winner of the feature competition was Jimmy Rosenberg: The Father, The Son, The Talent by Jeroen Berkvens — an elegant and richly layered film about a guitarist who should be known better in the U.S. A special jury award for artistic vision was given to When Clouds Clear by Anne Slick and Danielle Bernstein (lovely cinematography!). For full festival results, see the festival's website.
The Wilma Theater is the home of the Big Sky Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.
The festival's artistic director is Doug Hawes-Davis (Libby Montana, P.O.V. 2007), and in just five years the team there has built Big Sky into a festival with a deservedly good reputation. The home is the wonderful historic Wilma Theatre — a lovely specimen in downtown Missoula with a main house that holds an audience of 1100 and a smaller second theatre for special programming — this year, they'll feature a retrospective of the great work by Hart and Dana Perry.
Read more after the jump....
WATCHING
MediaStorm presents Rape of a Nation, Marcus Bleasdale's photos from the D.R.C.
Growing Up Online Is the Internet changing the experience of childhood? Frontline looks at the way kids are spending their time online..
READING
Pirates of Sundance: Columbia Law prof Tim Wu recommends indie filmmakers look to BitTorrent for distribution. Via Slate.com
Rabbi "live-blogs" the PBS documentary The Jewish Americans on his blog The Unorthodox Rabbi (from PBS Engage)
AJ Schnack reflects on some of the music documentaries he saw at Sundance, including Patti Smith: Dream of Life.
This is the last of our live reports from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Cynthia Lopez is P.O.V./AmDoc's Vice President. This festival marked her eighth year attending Sundance. What follows is her personal diary of the high and low points of last week's Sundance Film Festival.
You just never know what's going to happen when you go to Sundance — and this year was no exception. As I shared past experiences with my colleague and first-time attendee Simon Kilmurry, I had no idea of the drama that lay ahead. But before I get to that, I'll start from the beginning.
Thursday, January 17:
We arrived at the Salt Lake City airport without any delays directly from PBS's annual Creative Summit held this year in San Francisco where executive producers, creative directors, marketing people and online producers come together to discuss the latest in best practices, trends in broadcasting, media research and demographic/audience information.
I picked up my industry pass at The Yarrow in record time — thank you Sundance and Cara Mertes! Later, I headed to our hotel, the Copper Bottom Inn, to return phone calls and to finalize plans for the P.O.V. annual party on Sunday.
We ate at Chez Betty, an intimate restaurant owned by Jerry Garcia. No, not the singer. If it's your first time at Sundance, then having a meal there is a must; it's often a site for celebrities, if you're into star-gazing.
Friday, January 18:
7:30 am: Finally, I was on my way to see my first Sundance Docs, a series of shorts at the Prospector Theater. Among them, I had two absolute favorites: Farewell Packets of Ten by director Ken Wardrop and Pilgrimage by Tadashi Nakamura. If you want to quit smoking you have to see these old ladies trying to have a conversation; it's a hoot! It made me laugh so hard; comedy this natural isn't easy to find. Pilgrimage, on the other hand, made me cry — which is difficult for me in 22 minutes! I am not that wound up. The film feels like an Asian hip-hop music video, and explores the tragic history of the Japanese concentration camps in California during World War II.
Read more after the jump...
Environmental issues are a hot topic this election year. David Nanasi caught up with P.O.V. alum Judith Helfand (A Healthy Baby Girl, P.O.V. 1997 and True Lives 2005, and The Uprising of '34, P.O.V. 1995) and Daniel B. Gold to hear more about what they've been doing to support their latest film, Everything's Cool.
Both Everything's Cool and your previous film, Blue Vinyl, have centered on environmental themes. What drew you to the subject?
Judith: Sometimes stories and themes choose us. Personally, my focus on the environment as a filmmaker is the result of an unnatural turn of events — when I was 25, I was diagnosed with cancer from in utero exposure to the anti-miscarriage drug and synthetic hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES), which my mom took when she was pregnant with me in 1963. Within minutes of my diagnosis, the "environment" became personal. It was not out there in "nature," but in here — in our bodies, in our homes and apartments, inextricably linked to our relationships with our mothers and fathers, in our ability or inability to reproduce, parent and protect our young.
That experience led me to make A Healthy Baby Girl, an autobiographical film that reframed the toxics issue into a story about family, and how one generation unwittingly poisoned the next.
That film naturally led to its sequel Blue Vinyl, which I was truly fortunate to co-direct and co-produce with Daniel Gold. Dan also shot the film and received a Sundance Excellence in Cinematography award. I think the cinematic and political challenges we faced with Blue Vinyl — and the great feeling that comes from making a movie that has the narrative capacity to both entertain and be in service of a movement — inspired us to tackle global warming, which Dr. Heidi Cullen, the Weather Channel climatologist who is featured in Everything's Cool calls the "mother of all environmental problems."
The challenge is at the heart of the global warming messaging problem, and is in fact at the heart of the story we tell — it is what animates our characters: how do you collapse the future (the real-life threat of an ever-warming world and our short-sighted addiction to oil) into the present and make the message urgent enough to take action before it's too late?
Read more after the jump...
Now that the big dance is over, I thought I'd take a moment to wrap things up. Once again, the biggest buzz at Sundance was generated by the documentary lineup. Nanette Burstein's American Teen was the rare exception in an otherwise sedate year for film buyers. What's nice about this of course, is that we can "focus on film," as the festival encourages — and for me, that means looking back on a few films that really stood out.
Patti Smith: Dream of Life (P.O.V. 2008-2009), Steven Sebring's hypnotic ten-year collaboration with the singer herself would land at the top of my list of films that I wish I had seen at Sundance. Yesterday, Sebring and Phillip Hunt Watch won a much-deserved Excellence in Cinematography Award for Dream of Life, with Grand Jury prizes in the doc category going to Man on Wire (World Cinema) and Trouble the Water. (A complete list of award winners is available here.)
Other docs from the festival that I'm anxious to see also got enthusiastic responses from Sundance-goers as well. I'm looking forward to catching American Teen, I.O.U.S.A., Bigger, Stronger Faster, Fields of Fuel, The Recruiter, and The Greatest Silence. Luckily, I live in New York City and will probably be able to catch these films at any of several theatres that screen indy docs. But since we're not all within arm's reach of that kind of venue, I'd like to remind you that you can see at least three of the docs from this year's Sundance Film Festival on P.O.V. — you can catch Nerakhoon, Patti Smith: Dream of Life and Traces of the Trade on your local PBS station in 2008 and 2009. Sign up for the P.O.V. newsletter for broadcast reminders and to connect to your local station.
Read more after the jump...
WATCHING
Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita Frontline looks at the stem cell research debate.
Comedian Mark Malkoff lived in an IKEA store for six days and six nights.
READING
Sundance 2008 Deals
Frequently updated list of films that have found distribution at Sundance (From Spout blog)
P.O.V. alum Alex Rivera (The Sixth Section, 2003) is one of Variety's 10 Directors to Watch.
Taxi To the Dark Side director Alex Gibney talks to The Reeler about his film, which looks at the U.S. military's use of torture.
Sundance shrinks from the web as online video explodes (from Wired)
We hosted our annual P.O.V. brunch on Sunday — a welcome relief from the hectic pace of screenings, parties and general mischief that seems to be the Sundance routine. First to arrive was Steven Sebring and Patti Smith — an artist who changed my life at a formative stage. Steven's film Patti Smith: Dream of Life is an elegiac composition that beautifully integrates Patti's life as a mother, rock musician, artist and poet, activist and ultimately, as she says, "as a worker." It's been a highlight to meet Patti and spend a few minutes with her. Some of the band — Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty — arrived a little later. The band members have yet to see the film, so the premiere will be the first time. (More on that later.)
The Smith family — Jesse, Patti and Jackson — with filmmaker Steven Sebring
The brunch is a chance to catch up with P.O.V. friends and filmmakers whose work will or has been a part of P.O.V. in the past. P.O.V. alums in attendance included Thomas Allen Harris, Yvonne Welbon, Paul Stekler, Tasha Oldham and Alex Rivera. Alex's debut feature Sleep Dealer is creating a buzz at the festival.
It was a thrill to be able to announce that Traces of the Trade, Katrina Browne's wrenching examination of the legacy of the North's leadership in the slave trade, through her own family's complicity, will be part of P.O.V.'s 2008 lineup. Katrina brought her production team, including Elizabeth Delude-Dix and Jude Ray, and several members of the family including Tom DeWolf, who has written a new memoir based on his experience in the film, Inheriting the Trade (Beacon Press).
Read more after the jump...
Filmmakers Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath premiered their film, Nerakhoon (The Betrayal), earlier today at the Sundance Film Festival. The film chronicles the epic story of a family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Kuras has spent the last 23 years chronicling the family's extraordinary journey in this deeply personal, poetic and emotional film. P.O.V. correspondent Kris Wilton was there with her camera to document the event.
Filmmakers Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath embrace after Nerakhoon screening
Nerakhoon will have its national broadcast premiere on P.O.V. later this year on PBS. View the entire photo slideshow on P.O.V.'s Flickr channel.
Every Friday, journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the state of the documentary world in his column, Tom Roston's Doc Soup.
Ah, the doc world never sleeps. There I was, slowly plotting my next blog post about the January 12 deadline for submitting Oscar nomination ballots: I was going to make an 11th hour pitch for Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, the fantastic doc based on writings by U.S. soldiers in Iraq by Richard Robbins. But along comes an exciting announcement: Doc filmmaker and blogger AJ Schnack and online indie film distributor IndiePix are creating a new nonfiction film award ceremony because, as Schnack says on his blog, "there should be awards for nonfiction that [recognize] the breadth of the genre and [include] the crafts of cinematography and editing and producing."
Awesome! It's about time. Documentaries have evolved so much that they ought to be recognized for what they are now — films. Indeed, the Oscar shortlist was a pretty uninspired one to pick from and...
But wait. Schnack and co. announced their shortlist and my little miracle baby, Operation Homecoming...isn't on the list. What the...?!?!
Read more after the jump...
Each week, we'll highlight links from the "Watching" and "Reading" sidebars on the right side of the page.
WATCHING
Michael Moore's Sicko named Best Documentary at the 17th annual Gotham Awards on Tuesday night.
The Webby Awards name 12 "most influential online videos of all time."
Watch daily reports from the International Documentary Film Festival going on this week in Amsterdam, as well as trailers and shorts on IDFA TV.
Check out Wholphin, the new DVD magazine of rare and unseen short films from McSweeney's.
A new documentary about crusader Ralph Nader comes to PBS's Independent Lens in December. Watch the trailer.
READING
University of Florida Blog: This week, the Documentary Institute hosts P.O.V. producer Yance Ford.
The nominations for the 2008 Film Independent Spirit Awards were announced on Monday morning by ceremony hosts Zach Braff and Lisa Kudrow in Los Angeles. The Spirit Awards celebrate independent (and low budget) filmmaking. Eligible films must be at least 70 minutes long, and the cost of the completed film, including post-production, must be under $20 million to qualify for consideration.
2008 Best Documentary Nominations
(Award given to the director)
Crazy Love
Director: Dan Klores
Lake of Fire
Director: Tony Kaye
Manufactured Landscapes
Director: Jennifer Baichwal
The Monastery
Director: Pernille Rose Grønkjær
The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
Directors: Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker
If you live in Milwaukee, you have two chances to catch Revolution '67 (P.O.V. 2007) this week.
Wednesday, 11/28
Milwaukee, WI
7:30 pm
docUquarium, at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee in partnership with UWM's Helen Bader School of Social Welfare will host a screening of Revolution '67. Filmmakers Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno will be in attendance for a post- screening Q&A. The event will take place at the UWM Union Theatre located at 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd. For more information please check the docUquarium website. This is not a P.O.V. event.
Thursday, 11/29
Milwaukee, WI
7:00 pm
The University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee's Cultures and Communities Programs in partnership with America's Black Holocaust Museum will host a screening of Revolution '67. The event will take place at the museum, located at 2233 North 4th Street. The museum asks for a $5 donation for adults and $3 for children. This is not a P.O.V. event.
The Starz Denver Film Festival is taking place this week and I just listened to a great podcast of a panel held yesterday about the role of documentary filmmakers in covering the war in Iraq. The festival is featuring several new non-fiction films about Iraq including Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side, Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan's Soldiers of Conscience, and Nina Davenport's Operation Filmmaker.
Former Rocky Mountain News film critic Robert Denerstein moderated a wide-ranging discussion about the war, the films being made about it, and whether doc filmmakers are filling a gap in news coverage about the war that Americans are seeing on TV. The panel included filmmakers Weimberg, Ryan, and Davenport, as well as Iraq War veteran Spc. Russell Peterson and Iraq native, retired pychatrist, and Middle East consultant Dr. David Kazzaz.
Listen to the podcast online or download it.
I just came back from the 2007 Sheffield Doc/Fest. In addition to screenings around the clock, there were a host of great panels, presentations, pitch sessions and parties. Director Heather Croall and staff should be congratulated for putting on a fantastic event.
According to the festival's website, more than 1200 delegates from around the world attended the event. Some of the highlights included the European premiere of Grant Gee's Joy Division, a Channel Four interview with acclaimed filmmaker Kim Longinotto, master classes with Louis Theroux and Brian Hill and more.
I spoke about P.O.V. and our work with Web 2.0 technologies around documentary films on the Docs 3.0 panel (part of the festival's DigiDocs 360 program) and served as one of the judges for the Crossover and Cross-Media Challenge pitch competitions. I also tried to watch as many films as I could (though I didn't see nearly as many as I wanted), and had a number of interesting conversations in the Showroom Bar, the social hub of the festival. Sheffield Doc/Fest is one of the premiere documentary festivals in the world, and for filmmakers, members of the documentary industry and documentary fans, it's five intense days of talking, watching and living docs.
