Documentary
-
Director Bram Van Paesschen on Empire of Dust
The vast wilderness of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a world away from the urban centers of China. Yet it is there that greater numbers of Chinese engineers are doing business. In the documentary Empire of Dust, featured in the “Panorama” section of this year’s International Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), director Bram Van Paesschen explores the fraught relationship between the Congolese and the Chinese, as shown through their efforts to build a road between two major cities in the DRC. In 2007, China and Congo signed a massive resources-for-infrastructure deal with projected revenues of $40-$120 billion. China endeavors […]
by Daniel James Scott on Dec 4, 2011 -
GREGORY BAYNE IN FINAL KICKSTARTER HOURS
Gregory Bayne, who has contributed some of the best, most rabble-rousing recent posts to this site — including the analytics-busting “When Should You Call Bulls@&T” — is in the final hours of a Kickstarter campaign for his documentary Bloodsworth, An Innocent Man. With less than 72 hours to go, he’s about 15K shy of his 25K goal. Tough numbers, but I’ve seen other campaigns pull it out. Bayne is a tough and passionate filmmaker who has the goods, as you’ll see from this demo video. Please check it out and if it interests you, consider helping by supporting his campaign. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2011 -
ACADEMY PICKS 15 DOCUMENTARY OSCAR FINALISTS
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Documentary Branch Screening Committee has announced the 15 film shortlist for the Best Documentary Oscar. The selections were culled from a list of 124 eligible titles. Some Filmmaker favorites, including films by 25 New Face Directors Danfung Dennis (Hell and Back Again) and Marshall Curry (If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front) are in the mix, as are Wim Wender’s Pina, Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky’s Battle for Brooklyn, and Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost 3. I was sad to see more experimental docs like Bombay […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 18, 2011 -
Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd Talks The Hurt Locker
Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd has shot almost 50 features with numerous directors, but when it comes time to discuss his work on Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, his collaborations with two other helmers need to be referenced. The first is Ken Loach, the director Ackroyd is most associated with. The Manchester, England-born d.p. has shot many of Loach’s films, including Raining Stones, Ladybird Ladybird, Land and Freedom, the Palme d’Or-winning The Wind That Shakes the Barley, and his upcoming Looking for Eric. In these films he developed an unadorned, naturalistic camera and lighting style that gave them an almost doc-like verisimilitude. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 14, 2011 -
BUILDING COMMUNITY… ONE PROJECT AT A TIME
As the practice of ‘crowd-funding’ has come of age over the past couple years, so has the wide array of opinion about it. Some have called it a ‘game-changer’, especially when it comes to funding films, others seem to think of it as a magical place where free money simply appears from thin air, and yet others are wholly unconvinced, if not fully disdainful, of this practice of ‘organized-begging’. I can sympathize with the latter, seeing how crowd-funding has contributed to the advent of incessant self-promotion via social media sites, and the fact that you feel like everywhere you turn […]
by Gregorybayne on Nov 14, 2011 -
Werner Herzog on Into the Abyss
In his films, Werner Herzog has traveled the Amazon, journeyed to Antarctica and, most recently, descended through time into the caves of France to uncover centuries-old cave paintings. So, his trip to a small town in Texas awaiting the capital punishment of a young murderer might have been less epic were it not for the moral dilemmas, lingering anguish and genuine strangeness he finds there. Eschewing the tropes of typical capital punishment documentaries, Herzog, with his German-accented voice jutting from behind the camera, lends an empathetic ear to the words of not only the killer but his accomplice, the victims’ […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 11, 2011 -
DOC NYC: Interview with Festival Directors Thom Powers & Raphaela Neihausen
The living room-sized lobby of the IFC Center was teeming with people over the past two weeks as DOC NYC concluded its second year. With more days, more films, more panels and more filmmakers in attendance, the festival was a veritable feast of documentaries. Among the faces passing through the crowd — including Albert Maysles, Werner Herzog, D.A. Pennebaker and Barbara Kopple — were those of festival directors Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen. Wearing the titles of artistic director and executive director, respectively, the husband and wife team conceived DOC NYC from their Manhattan apartment. Though involved in their own […]
by Daniel James Scott on Nov 10, 2011 -
Karen Mintz and Simon Egleton on Their Frank Bender Doc
Karen Mintz has just finished shooting her documentary, The Recomposer of The Decomposed, about the forensic artist Frank Bender, who died recently. She is about to move into the post-production phase. I had the opportunity to meet with her and her producer Simon Egleton and talk about her film, the pros and cons of no-budget filmmaking, and the friend that she made, and also lost, during the process. Filmmaker: Can you start by telling me a little about how you became a filmmaker and what your background is? Mintz: I started working in production 15 years ago. I just kind […]
by Alix Lambert on Nov 10, 2011 -
“BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY” | director, Constance Marks
Originally posted on Jan. 23, 2011 as part of our annual question we ask directors attending the Sundance Film Festival. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey is nominated for the Audience Award. [PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre] The most surprising thing I found while making BEING ELMO: A Puppeteer’s Journey was how insanely popular this furry red monster has become. For the past year I’ve carried a bright red Elmo messenger bag. I would get spontaneous feedback every day from almost everyone: old men, teenage girls, postal workers and especially mothers. Hundreds of times I […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 9, 2011 -
Buck — A Hammer to Nail Review
On its simplest level Cindy Meehl’s documentary Buck tells the story of the cowboy Buck Brannaman, a horseman who travels the United States conducting clinics for “horses with people problems.” First-time director Cindy Meehl met Buck at one of his clinics, and wanted to share his wisdom with a wider circle than the ardent fans he’s built among “horse people.” A wise cowboy, eh? It doesn’t help that the film opens with iconographic Western shots: a cattle herd, a yellow sun, and galloping cowboys, all underlined by David Robbins’ thrumming score. I admit I was a bit skeptical. The census […]
by Susanna Locascio on Nov 9, 2011
