Documentary

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
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

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