WATCHING
Indie Lens Short Film Festival
An eclectic mix of stories and storytelling with this batch of winning shorts. View. Vote. Download.
18 in '08
Nonpartisan doc and movement targeting today's 17- to 24-year-olds, many of whom will be voting in their first presidential election in 2008. Watch trailer.
Frederick Wiseman
Many of Wiseman's documentaries are finally available on DVD for the home market.
YouTube: The Gilmour Boys
What happens when novelist David Gilmour lets his 15-year-old son drop out of school on the condition that they watch three movies a week together? (Via Paper Cuts)
Independent Lens: Sisters in Law In a small courthouse in Cameroon, a tough-minded state prosecutor and court president help women in their village fight abuse.
READING
WireTap: Brother Outsider
Filmmakers talk about how the once untold story of Bayard Rustin is making waves among a new generation of organizers.
One of the questions we're asked most often here at P.O.V. is: "What do you look for in a P.O.V. film anyway?" Every year, more than 1,000 films compete for 12-15 slots on the P.O.V. broadcast schedule, so what's a documentary filmmaker to do if she wants to fill one of those coveted slots?
Yance Ford, P.O.V.'s series producer, has been working at P.O.V. since 2002. Since then, she's screened thousands of documentaries and given input on the programming for 6 seasons of P.O.V. We asked Yance to talk a little about what she's looking for when she watches a documentary film, and solicited her advice for filmmakers hoping to place their films on P.O.V.
As a series presenting documentaries on PBS, P.O.V. holds a yearly open call, welcoming any filmmaker who is interested to submit their film for possible broadcast. And when I talk to filmmakers interested in submitting, the question I am asked most often is "What type of film does P.O.V. look for?" Thankfully, the answer is a lot less complicated than most people fear.
First of all, your film should be a documentary. We get our share of dramas and comedies and performances, but we only broadcast non-fiction film. We look for films to acquire as well as select projects where we can provide co-production support.
Strong Aesthetics, Solid Craft
Considering that documentary has evolved so much since 1988, it is important to understand that P.O.V. does not look for a single aesthetic approach to non-fiction filmmaking. P.O.V. has broadcast more than 250 films, each as varied as fingerprints, and all equally a "P.O.V." Be it the wry comic persona of Ross McElwee (Bright Leaves), the iconic images of Lourdes Portillo (Señorita Extraviada), the observational elegance of Jennifer Dworkin (Love & Diane) or the master craft of Frederick Wiseman (High School) — scroll through our online film archive and you'll see that P.O.V. embraces a diversity of approaches to filmmaking. We've aired the giants of direct cinema, experimental films, vérité films, hyrbrid docs, weird films and more; you name it, we've done it. What do these films have in common? A solid command of craft, a director with a vision for their film and a unique approach to storytelling brought together by skilled editing that brings out the best in the material. The craft standards at P.O.V. are high, and for your film to have a shot at one of the 15 available slots, it has to rise above the ordinary.
Read more after the jump...
Our weekly doc roundup collects critical reactions to some current documentary releases in the theaters and on DVD.
IN THEATERS
from Billy the Kid
Billy the Kid, Jennifer Venditti's first film, is a portrait of a troubled, misfit 10th grader named Billy Price. The critic for the Village Voice says "I have seen more than 25 documentaries this year, and after a while they all start to run together, both structurally and thematically. Billy the Kid is utterly original in both respects," and TV Guide calls the film "...truly something special." The film is also getting raves from documentary filmmakers and bloggers. Filmmaker AJ Schnack rounds up some of the reactions on his blog, All these wonderful things. Variety's critic, however, found the film's portrayal of Billy an appallingly callous act of exploitation.
Judge for yourself: Billy the Kid opened in New York City on December 5th, and opens more widely in January of 2008. Watch the trailer.
