Documentary

GORDON PARKS, 1912 – 2006

Multiple sources are reporting the sad news that pioneering black director and photojournalist Gordon Parks died today in New York. He was 93. In 1969, Parks completed his first film, The Learning Tree, based on his own novel about growing up in Kansas in the 1920s. In doing so, he became the first black American to write and direct a studio motion picture. Later he would go on to achieve commercial success with the seminal “blaxploitation” film Shaft. More recently he appeared in an HBO documentary on his work, Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks. His […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 7, 2006
CURRY’S ROAD TO THE OSCARS

The Reeler has a good piece up on Marshall Curry, whose Street Fight opened today at New York’s IFC Center. From the piece: “While viewing Curry’s riveting film last week, it occurred to me that this could absolutely be the dark horse nominee come March 5. In chronicling Newark’s 2002 mayoral race between relative newcomer Cory Booker and Jersey’s reigning machine-politics king Sharpe James, Curry captures a system imploded by racism, corruption, lies and at least a few physical altercations. Perhaps more shockingly, Street Fight reflects the assured work of a first-time feature filmmaker–a guy who quit his job, bought […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 22, 2006
SEXIER THAN PARIS HILTON

Good article in The Guardian about Al Gore’s trip to Sundance with the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. From the piece: “What can a film that has helped make Al Gore sexier than Paris Hilton possibly be about? A partial list of its contents would include the greenhouse gas effect, the proliferation of carbon dioxide, the convection energy of hurricanes, the paradoxical flood-drought syndrome, melting methane in Siberia, the history of the Ice Age and the physics of solar ray absorption. It becomes no clearer why this film is having such an impact when you learn that it largely takes the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2006
“LION IN THE HOUSE” DIRECTOR BATTLES CANCER

Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez post upsetting news in Indiewire today that filmmaker Julia Reichert who, with her partner Steve Bognar (together pictured), directed Lion in the House, a Sundance Competition doc about children dealing with cancer, was herself diagnosed with lymphoma. She received the news just after arriving in Utah for the film’s premiere. After her third screening she flew back home to Ohio where she is now hospitalized and receiving treatment. Julia’s work has been covered in Filmmaker and she has a long association with IFP. We send her our best wishes for her recovery, and friends and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2006
A VISION OF SHIRLEY TEMPLE

One of the more unusual indie film stories forwarded to us as Filmmaker is that of Minnesota producer and writer Christopher Harmon. Profiled here in the Minnesota-St. Paul Star Tribune, “Harmon can’t see, but he has vision. Can’t hear, but has imagination. Can’t move, but in his mind, he can dance and sing and dream about giving the rest of us films with messages of hope and triumph.” Harmon has a rare neurological condition called spino cerebellar degeneration which prevents communication and requires his use of a respirator to breathe. With writer Doug Klozzner, however, Harmon, who communicates through interpreters, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 12, 2006
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER… AND EVER… AND EVER

Via The Reeler comes this link to Jen Cheung’s interview with Brooklyn-based filmmaker Kareem Edouard in The Gothamist. Edouard has recently made a short doc, Bling: Consequences and Repercussions that takes a look at the abuse of young African workers in the diamond minds of Sierra Leone. It’s the subject tackled by Kanye West in his hit of last year, “Diamonds are Forever,” but Edouard fills in more of the blanks, aided by a v.o. from Public Enemy’s Chuck D. The film is downloadable by clicking on the link above, and Edouard’s site even allows it to be sampled in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 7, 2006
STREET FIGHT, THE SEQUEL

I missed the event held last night at the Tribeca Cinemas by the makers of Street Fight, the engrossing documentary on the 2002 Newark mayoral race. Director Marshall Curry, one of our “25 New Faces of 2005,” followed Cory Booker as he challenged five-term mayor Sharpe James for the job and was shocked when James not only attacked Booker but also turned his ire on Curry as well. I guess the event must have been a kick-off to Booker’s 2006 campaign, but there’s no word yet on a film sequel. I hope Curry considers it. His films could be the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 7, 2006
Sundance Screenwriters Lab, 2006

The Sundance Institute has just announced the 12 projects selected for the 2006 Screenwriter’s Lab, which takes place in January the week before the Sundance Film Festival at the Sundance Resort. From the press release, here are the attendees and their projects: “Kit Hui (writer/director), U.S.A./China, A BREATH AWAY: As Typhoon Ellen approaches Hong Kong, the residents of a high-rise apartment complex struggle with their individual emotional demons, not realizing they are connected by more than the increasing swarms of flies invading their homes. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Kit Hui emigrated to the United States at age 16. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 17, 2005
HELL’S BELLS, THE COLLECTOR’S EDITION

“In 1989… at the peak of the Satanic Panic, a small media company called Reel to Real Ministries began selling a video documentary called Hell’s Bells: The Dangers of Rock and Roll,” writes Stephen M. Deusner at Pitchfork Media of the anti-rock music doc that was shown in public schools around the time of various “metal-inspired” teen killings in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “Taking its name from the AC/DC song, Hell’s Bells was produced, directed, and hosted by Reel to Real’s founder, Eric Holmberg, an amiable emcee and a mid-life convert whose self-confessed gods had once been John […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 15, 2005
THE RATING GAME

A year ago at Sundance Kirby Dick (Sick, Derrida, Twist of Faith) talked to me about his new documentary, promising that it would blow the lid off some very powerful forces within the film industry. He wouldn’t directly tell me what it was about, though. It was one of those “if I tell you I’ll have to kill you” things. Now, the film, This Film is Not Yet Rated, is headed for Sundance and then broadcast on IFC. And it’s about, yes, the MPAA. Over at Ain’t It Cool News Moriarty posts the press release detailing the film’s own twist […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 8, 2005

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