Documentary

CATHEDRAL IN THE SKY

While in Europe recently I heard about a documentary Martin Scorsese was making about Airbus, the European consortium of British, French, Spanish and German aircraft manufacturers formed in 1970 to rival the dominant American companies like Boeing. Of course, Scorsese recently memorialized an American aerospace pioneer with The Aviator. Today via Variety comes more details about the new project: “Scorsese will team with Spanish docu producer-director Jose Luis Lopez-Linares (Un instante en la vida ajena, Strangers to Themselves), who will take a co-director credit. Per Spanish monthly movie magazine Fotogramas, the doc will establish a parallel between the creation of […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2005
Z CHANNEL — YOU HAVE TO SEE IT

You can read about Xan Cassavetes’ doc on L.A.’s art-film cable pioneer The Z Channel (linked her via Nerve.com), but you should really watch it while it plays this month on IFC. The story of Z Prez Jerry Harvey’s murderous and suicidal demise is a captivating one, but what makes the doc really great viewing is its conveyance of a very specific brand of cinephilia that almost doesn’t exist anymore. Pre-internet, pre-DVD, the Z Channel’s generous scrambling of Euro greats, American auteurs and Euro-softcore — a mix that included everything from Berlin Alexanderplatz to Laura Antonelli festivals — undoubtedly shaped […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2005
25 NEW FACE ALUMNI WIN AT TRIBECA ALL ACCESS

As we begin putting together our annual “25 New Faces” issue of Filmmaker, in which we identify and profile the filmmakers who we believe will the independent stars of tomorrow, we also check back on the successes of our past selections. So, when a press release from the Tribeca Film Festival arrived in my in-box this morning I noticed that of the three winners of the Tribeca All Access Award, two — Dennis Lee (a member of the company Kulture Machine) and Mario de la Vega (pictured) — were directors spotlighted in last summer’s issue. From the press release: “The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 29, 2005
AFRICAN ODYSSEY

Documentaries about kids triumphing (or sometimes not) within educational endeavors have been big hits recently, from Spellbound to the current festival favorite Mad Hot Ballroom. With its SXSW Special Jury Award, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s doc The Boys of Baraka should deservedly achieve the same level of recognition. Original, visually elegant and with an uncommonly ambitious narrative sweep, The Boys of Baraka was shot over a two-year period and makes a real investment in its subjects, an investment that pays off for the filmmakers. I met Ewing and Grady, who together run the New York production company Loki Films, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 16, 2005
DANGER AFTER DARK… THE SNEAK PREVIEW v.2

Our friend Travis Crawford, who appears often in our pages, drops from view in the late winter and early spring when, as associate director of programming for the Philadelphia Film Festival he puts together his Danger After Dark program. And now, in what has become an annual tradition, he re-emerges with an e-mail in which he sneaks his program to his friends a few days in advance of the official announcement. If you are a devotee of outre genre films — and even if you don’t plan to attend the festival — check out Crawford’s program, below. His wonderfully descriptive […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 9, 2005
IN SEARCH OF SEKA

The smart and charmingly edited Fleshbot — part of the Gawker empire, a reliable source for Paris Hilton T-mobile hack links, and truly the only “adult” Web site you need to bookmark — notes today the “porn star documentary craze” and links to a doc produced by the Swedish Grindhouse pictures that tracks down the legendary ’70s pornstar Seka. Titled Desperately Seeking Seka, the pic details a trio of Swedish filmmakers trying to locate and interview perhaps the biggest female porn star of the 1970s. While I wasn’t aware that Seka had pulled a Betty Page-like disappearing act, the filmmakers […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 2, 2005
SPIRITS GO SIDEWAYS

The 2005 Independent Spirit Awards were announced this afternoon at the IFP Los Angeles’s annual ceremony on the beach in Santa Monica. For the major awards, it was a virtual sweep by Sideways — Alexander Payne’s smart comedy won six prizes. Other winners, listed below, include Garden State, The Motorcycle Diaries, Mean Creek, the filmmaker Jem Cohen, the producer Gina Kwon, and doc filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman. Here are the winners: Best PictureSideways (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Producer: Michael London Best Director Alexander Payne Sideways (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Best Screenplay Alexander Payne & Jim TaylorSideways (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Best […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 26, 2005
GET OUT OF THE VECTOR!

From an email from filmmaker Garrett Scott, who premiered his smart, sometimes surreal but always penetrating doc on a U.S. Army unit deployed in Fallujah, Occupation: Dreamland (pictured) in Rotterdam, where I got snagged in my hotel room with the Sundance flu for a couple of days: “It is widely believed that the deadly global Influenza epidemic of 1918 spread across the U.S. so rapidly because of mass troop mobilization for the First World War. No one realized what sort of by product would arise from moving all those bodies into closely compressed camps. Then, move them by train to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 8, 2005
EMERGING PARTICIPATES WITH PARTICIPANT

From a press release we received today: “Emerging Pictures announced today that it will launch its Digital Cinema Network with an investment by Los Angeles-based Participant Productions. This digital cinema initiative will establish a nationwide network for the distribution and exhibition of specialty films in such venues as prestigious museums, performing arts centers, science & technology institutions, and restored movie palaces. These venues will screen independent and international films, both dramatic and nonfiction, as well as alternate content such as film festivals, dramatic performances, concerts, and other mission-appropriate programming. “Participant Productions, founded in 2004 by eBay pioneer and philanthropist, Jeff […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2005
DEEP INSIDE PARK CITY REAL ESTATE

The enterprising and publicity-savvy filmmaking duo of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato have an entertaining Web site up for their Sundance entry Inside Deep Throat, a Brian Grazer-produced doc on the infamous porn film (number 50 on Filmmaker magazine’s “50 Most Important Independent Films” list almost a decade ago) that will hit theaters this spring. The directors post a blog on the site as well as some interesting links, the most fascinating of which is this link to local Park City paper The Park Record. Titled “Sundance documentary reveals local’s role in Deep Throat,” the article is a portrait of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2005

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