Documentary
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Trailer Watch: Mitt
A couple weeks back, Netflix announced that it had acquired another “original” documentary, due for a world premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival: Mitt. Filmmaker Greg Whiteley tracked presidential hopeful Mitt Romney from Christmas 2006 up until the night of his concession speech in November 2012. With unprecedented access, Whiteley was with the Romney family through all of the campaign trail ups and downs, to provide what should be a unique and honest window into the mind of Mitt. The film will be available for viewing on Netflix beginning January 24, 2014.
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 18, 2013 -
“It’s Not Enough To Have a Good Story with a Video Camera in the Vicinity”: Lucy Walker on The Crash Reel
Depicting professional snowboarder Kevin Pearce’s rise to the top of his sport and then his struggle to recover from a monster wipe-out and traumatic brain injury, Lucy Walker’s The Crash Reel is riveting, emotional, sobering and enraging. It tells a very human story as the endearing Pearce struggles to not only physically recover from his injuries but, at such a young age, to invent a new identity for himself and his future. At the same time, the film is a provocative, well-researched takedown of the extreme sports industry, which markets vicarious danger for energy-drink consumers and sneaker-wearers at the expense […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 14, 2013 -
Documentary Shortlist Announced for 2013 Academy Awards
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the shortlist of 15 films from the five nominees for Best Documentary will be chosen. That announcement comes on January 16, but until then we can pore over a pretty strong list, featuring Gotham winner The Act of Killing plus new films from such vets as Alex Gibney, Alan Berliner, Lucy Walker and Jehane Noujaim plus crowd favorites from newcomers such as Zachary Heinzerling (Cutie and the Boxer) and Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Blackfish). There are also inevitably a number of notable absentees, such as Lana Wilson and Martha Shane’s After Tiller, […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 3, 2013 -
Gael García Bernal on Documentaries
“Let’s go back to the time when there was VHS,” says Gael García Bernal at the RIDM (Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal or the Montreal International Documentary Festival). “In those days to see a documentary in Mexico your friend would buy a movie in New York or Amsterdam or wherever [and] they would come up to you and say, ‘If you want to see this…’” Inevitably, a documentary fell into the young García Bernal’s hands. “I don’t remember which one it was, but I remember feeling there was something beyond an investigation, that it had a bigger scope, a […]
by Allan Tong on Nov 27, 2013 -
Landon Van Soest Crowdfunding for Artificial Retina Documentary Light Darkness Light
Landon Van Soest, a founder of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, is nearing the end of a Crimso campaign to fund his latest documentary Light Darkness Light, an intimate portrait of a candidate for artificial retina implants. Plotting the move from blindness to sight both narratively and visually, Light Darkness Light promises to be a revelatory examination of science and human nature. Filmmaker spoke with Van Soest about his technical plans, and how this documentary could serve legions of would-be patients in the future. Light Darkness Light‘s campaign ends in two days, on Thanksgiving, so please consider donating sooner rather than later. Filmmaker: Before we get to the film, I wanted to ask about the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 26, 2013 -
On Missing 99% of What You Need: Lucy Walker’s Advice to Documentary Filmmakers
The following is an extract from Jessica Edwards‘ book Tell Me Something, which collects together advice on non-fiction filmmaking from 50 of the world’s most prominent documentarians, in which two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Wakler shares her wisdom. Tell Me Something is also available as an e-book. This piece of advice has been my lifeline, my mantra, my toehold on sanity and encouragement, the bandage for when I am kicking myself so hard I can’t stand up. It was told to me by Barbara Kopple, the legendary two-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker. One of my greatest strokes of luck in life was that she came to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 25, 2013 -
MIT Open Documentary Lab Launches _docubase
As a consumer of new media – to say nothing of its makers – how does one go about keeping abreast of the emerging form’s constant developments? MIT Open Documentary Lab hopes to keep interested parties up to speed with _docubase, a new project that was launched yesterday at IDFA. A curated platform, _docubase will maintain an open dialogue on the “new documentary,” the fledging form that draws from interactive and community-created fact-based storytelling. “No longer must we look back at those unconstrained moments of creativity from a nostalgia-tinged distance,” reads the _docubase manifesto, referring to the unchecked and experimental early years […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 25, 2013 -
Code: Laura Hanna and Matana Roberts on NYC Stop and Frisk
Filmmaker and media activist Laura Hanna — a co-founder of the production company HiddenDriver and director of docs Gattis, James and Hammer — has directed this short documentary about composer and sound artist Matana Roberts’ recent “stop and frisk” encounter on the Williamsburg bridge. Produced by Creative Time Reports and found on their site, it is introduced thusly: As the composer, saxophone player and sound artist Matana Roberts walked across the Williamsburg Bridge one night in May, she asked herself a familiar question: “How am I going to survive as an artist in this town?” It was too enchanting an […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 19, 2013 -
The Act of Killing Takes BRITDOC’s Puma Impact Award
Last night at the Times Centre in New York, BRITDOC’s Puma Impact Award was bestowed upon the visibly shell-shocked filmmakers behind the year’s most innovative film, The Act of Killing. Director Joshua Oppenheimer, co-director Christine Cynn, and producer Signe Byrge Sørensen assumed the stage to collect their iridescent trophy – and its accompanying 50,000 Euro prize, to be split between the team and their activist efforts – from jurors Susan Sarandon, Zadie Smith, and Ricken Patel. Absent were two members of the jury, Gael García Bernal and Eric Schlosser, but, perhaps more notably, The Act of Killing’s anonymous co-director and 60 crew […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 14, 2013 -
Functional Art: Joe Angio on Revenge of The Mekons
The Mekons are the ultimate cult band. They may not have a huge audience, but their hardy host of admirers takes the British-born band and its three-and-a-half-decade history very seriously. The Mekons emerged as U.K. post-punk’s art-school pranksters in the late ’70s, and after major shifts in personnel and approach, eventually evolved into a sort of sonic polyglot encompassing folk, country, world music, and more. Throughout their rough-and-tumble career they’ve maintained a doggedly DIY modus operandi, eschewing complacency and creating more and more fodder for the intensity of their underground acclaim. At the start of 2008, another impassioned admirer, documentarian […]
by Jim Allen on Nov 14, 2013
