Previously, when attending a premiere heavy festival like Sundance, I was usually lucky enough to be present as part of a team of programmers. We divided the screenings between all of us to cover as many of the films as possible. (There are spreadsheets and rating systems involved.) Watching films as a freelancer, I realized over the first few days at Sundance that I was playing it safe by watching films by filmmakers I was already familiar with for the guarantee that at least the film would appear finished at the screening. For programmers working at festivals like Sundance, what […]

As I hinted at in my first dispatch, co-creation has been buzzy in documentary circles of late, with gatekeepers and filmmakers both interested in finding ways of working that challenge the decision-making processes of nonfiction filmmaking. This year’s Sundance was also chock full of filmmakers who started out in documentary and have recently moved into fiction; Canon even sponsored a panel featuring Matt Heineman on this very topic. One of these films was Yalda, a Night of Forgiveness, an ingeniously conceptualized, impeccably acted and tightly shot single location piece, it both buys into and subverts crucial elements of thriller, reality […]

Leaving Art House Convergence, I met up with some good folks from New Orleans (where I lived for three years), who were generously sharing their condo with me. We all got dropped off at the festival headquarters in Park City on “Day One” of the festival and headed in to pick up passes, though none of us walked away with one on Thursday. Industry passes issued through the Press & Inclusion Office program couldn’t be picked up until Friday, my housemates learned, while I spent my time in the line at the press office. On-site credential applications are subject to […]

Despite looming industry crises such as the DOJ moving to end the Paramount consent decrees, years of slumping box office sales and the ongoing proliferation of streaming giants offering consumers content in their own homes, arthouse cinemas and independent festivals appeared to be thriving—if one looked only at the surface of Art House Convergence. Now in its 15th year, the annual AHC convenes representatives from art house cinemas, film festivals, service providers and independent distributors for three and a half days in Midway, UT, right before Sundance. Most of the attendees are representatives from US-based organizations. Though they comprised a […]

Over the past year, various reckonings—from continued collective and individual action around #metoo to protests against institutions accepting donations from the Sackler family, Warren B. Kanders and oil giants like BP—that media and arts institutions have gone through have brought the weaponization of cultural capital via art-world philanthropy onto the front pages of newspapers. Meanwhile, in the U.S. documentary film field, the way we’re talking about who holds power and how it’s dispensed has remained narrowly focused.  Film festivals have jumped into this fray with public forums, panels and talks at which emboldened filmmakers and a new crop of festival […]