Documentary

FIGHTING MAN

David Poland has a nice appreciation up of Street Fight, the great doc about a down and dirty New Jersey mayoral campaign. He’s got the name of the filmmaker wrong — it’s Marshall Curry, not James Baxter — but his take on the film is dead on. Curry was one of our “25 New Faces” this year, and you should look for the film as it screens upcoming on P.O.V.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2005
FONDA LOOKS BACK

One of the most startling images in David Zeiger’s Sir! No Sir!, a documentary about the G.I. anti-war movement during the Viet Nam era that Filmmaker selected as one of its “Best Films Not Playing in a Theater Near You” this year, is that of Jane Fonda. Sitting regally in the amber-hued foyer of her luxurious home, coiffed to perfection and expertly lit, Fonda’s sheer visual splendor is surprising within the context of the film — most of the film’s other interviewees still visibly bear the painful hurts of the period — as well as within today’s entertainment world. With […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2005
ATTRACTIONS FROM FAR AWAY

This year Filmmaker partnered with the IFP to create a new award to be given out in a few weeks at this year’s Gotham Awards. Titled Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, the award is designed to highlight worthy films that have fallen beneath the theatrical radar. We asked 18 festival programmers to each nominate two films from their festival. From this list, our editors — myself, Matt Ross, Peter Bowen, Mary Glucksman and Ray Pride — narrowed it down to five nominees and, eventually one winner. It was an interesting exercise. The films nominated by the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2005
DIVORCE, PENGUIN STYLE

Within the licentious world of popular entertainment, one film that has been hailed by folks of all stripes is March of the Penguins. However. for some the film is more than a dramatically shot nature documentary. The right has hailed the film as a parable of traditional values as well as an argument for “intelligent design,” the anti-evolution theory du jour. So, here’s director Luc Jacquet throwing some cold water on the Michael Medveds of the world in the Times Online: “‘If you want an example of monogamy, penguins are not a good choice,’ Luc Jacquet told The Times. ‘The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 23, 2005
FACT-FINDING MISSION

Perhaps my favorite doc this year is Garrett Scott and Ian Olds’ Occupation Dreamland, which opened this weekend at the Cinema Village in New York along with screens in Portland, Boson, D.C., and Berkeley. It’s an essential piece of filmmaking for anyone wanting to learn more about the war in Iraq and its aftermath. Scott, who was one of our “25 New Faces” back in 2002, and Olds previously collaborated on Scott’s incredible short doc Cul de Sac. That earlier film used the story of one man’s mental breakdown (the tale of a San Diego man who stole a tank […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 25, 2005
INDIE FILMMAKING, IRAQ STYLE

Anybody else check out the ABC News Nightline tonight? I’m watching as I’m blogging here about Ted Koppel’s interview with Cyrus Kar, an American documentary filmmaker who was held in an American detention center in Iraq for 55 days after the cab he was riding in was pulled over. When U.S. soldiers found a collection of washing machine timers in the cab’s trunk, suddenly his camera equipment, microphone wires and the cab driver’s timers all seemed elements of potential Improvised Explosive Devices. Kar was held briefly at Abu Ghuraib before being transferred to a prison near the airport that also […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 24, 2005
BRICK BY BRICK

I was on the international jury this year at Toronto’s Hot Docs, and one of the best and most original docs I saw there, Simone Bittan’s Wall, is receiving its U.S. premiere this Friday at the Quad in New York. Paris-based Bittan, who is both an Israeli and French citizen, was born in Morocco and considers herself an Arab Jew. Employing her hybrid identity as something of a structuring device, Wall documents the construction of the “security fence” that is separating Israel from Palestine, creating a portrait not only of a region divided but of a world in which the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 22, 2005
AKERMAN REDUX

Our friends over at the essential GreenCine Daily linked to this 1995 interview between media programmer Chris Dercon and filmmaker and artist Chantal Akerman, and that gives me a chance to link back to this blog I wrote a few weeks ago about Akerman’s current gallery installation at the Marian Goodman gallery. At the time I posted it, there were no press images available of the exhibition, but now there’s one, posted here, which captures the double-screen setup onto which Akerman’s quite powerful family history is projected. And here’s Akerman from the interview: “Anyway, I don’t really believe in the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2005
PENN JILLETTE’S LONG CON

Over at his Hollywood Elsewhere (scroll down to his “Wired” section), Jeffrey Welles links to this conspiracy theory at the Slumbering Lungfish blog concerning the film The Aristocrats. Blogger Lore Sjoberg hypothesizes that the vaudeville-era dirty joke that is the sole content of the film is actually an invention of Penn Jillette: “My theory: this joke didn’t exist before circa 2001. The actual joke, really, is that they’re making up this dirty joke, having a hundred comedians tell it, and billing it as a documentary with historical significance.” I don’t know — it’s a fun theory, but Waxy.org provides a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 2, 2005
FINDING OUT THE WINNERS

Film Independent (formerly the IFP/Los Angeles) announced the winners of its 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. Mark Banning won the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature for his Jellysmoke, and the Target Best Doc Award went to Beth Bird for Everyone Their Grain of Sand. The Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know. David Zeiger’s Sir! No Sir! won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Luc Jacquet’s March of the Penguins won the Audience Award for Best International Feature. Catherine Kellner and Ebon Moss-Bachrach of Leslie McCleave’s Road […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 27, 2005

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