Documentary
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AN INTERVIEW WITH DOC NYC CREATIVE DIRECTOR, THOM POWERS
For most curators, programming the Toronto Film Festival would be a full plate, but Thom Powers’ appetite for documentary knows no bounds. In between programming and promoting Stranger than Fiction, his weekly documentary series at the IFC, he and Raphaela Neihausen, his wife and business partner, have co-founded DOC NYC, a New York based documentary festival. It’s a festival of riches for documentary lovers — five days of documentary screenings, panels and stars (Werner Herzog and Errol Morris will be in attendance). A celebration of documentary media of all kinds, in addition to the many screenings there are also panels […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Nov 1, 2010 -
KAREN SCHMEER FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCED; DEADLINE DEC. 15
Friends of the late Karen Schmeer, the documentary film editor whose credits include Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap and Out of Control and Greg Barker’s Sergio, have honored their colleague by creating a fellowship for editors. They have partnered with ACE, SXSW, IFFBoston, the Manhattan Edit Workshop, and Powell’s books for this program intended to help-and-coming documentary editors while remembering Schmeer’s extraordinary accomplishments. Schmeer died last year when she was struck by a car fleeing a drug store robbery. From the group’s website: We are now accepting submissions for the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship. Awarded annually, the Fellowship was created […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 31, 2010 -
“ON COAL RIVER” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION
There’s an explosion. Children play on swings, unaware of a darkening cloud on the horizon. A man opens the back of his toilet only to discover it’s filled with black sludge. Just a few scenes from On Coal River, last night’s selection for Stranger Than Fiction, the weekly documentary series hosted by Thom Powers at the IFC Center. Significantly more frightening than your average horror flick, On Coal River follows a group of West Virginia activists in their fight against Massey Energy and its practice of “mountaintop removal mining,” a type of strip mining where they literally blow off the top […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Oct 28, 2010 -
“TAKING ON THE KENNEDYS” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION
Ever since the great documentarian Robert Drew turned his camera on then Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in the 1960 documentary, Primary, the campaign film has been one of the great genres of documentary filmmaking. So, it was no small compliment to director Josh Seftel when Thom Powers introduced Seftel’s 1996 film Taking on the Kennedys as “one of the great campaign documentaries” at Stranger than Fiction last night. Made when Seftel was only twenty-six years old, Taking on the Kennedys follows the Republican doctor Kevin Vigilante as he runs for Congress against Patrick Kennedy, Ted Kennedy’s youngest son. Despite […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Oct 27, 2010 -
“OPEN FIVE” WINS THE 13TH MEMPHIS FILM FESTIVAL
Congrats to Filmmaker 25 New Face Kentucker Audley for winning Best Narrative Feature at the Memphis Film Festival with his latest, Open Five. As I blogged last week, Audley has made the entire feature available for a limited time on his site (or, embedded below). Also winning awards were films by three other “25 New Face” filmmakers — The Colonel’s Wife (Brent Stewart), Mars (Geoff Marslett), and Blackmail Boys (under a pseudonym, Morgan Jon Fox). The complete awards are below. Jury Awards Announced for 13th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival Category: Uncategorized — admin @ 12:58 pm NARRATIVE FEATURE AWARDS […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 25, 2010 -
Poetry in Motion
by Peter Bowen on Oct 25, 2010
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This Gun for Hire
Both a Cannes sensation and a hit television miniseries in France, Olivier Assayas’s Carlos, an incisive and exciting look at left-wing mercenary Ilich Ramírez Sánchez and the political culture that sustained him, now comes Stateside.
by Brandon Harris on Oct 25, 2010 -
Fraud Alert
Charles Ferguson follows up his hard-hitting Iraq War documentary, No End in Sight, with another investigative look at a complicated and controversial subject: the global economic crisis. In Inside Job, Ferguson indicts the growth of the banking industry for causing the global economic crisis, asking why not a single person has gone to jail because of it. By Scott Macaulay
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 25, 2010 -
New Model Army
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 25, 2010
Making a business out of independent film is harder than ever. But still, great films are being made. In this series of short profiles, Filmmaker asked a number of leading independent producers about their producing models and how they’re finding everything from financing to material to office space. -
Culture Hacker: Rebooting the Doc Experience
by Lance Weiler on Oct 23, 2010
