Documentary

ENTRIES ACCEPTED FOR RIDENHOUR DOC FILM PRIZE

The Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation have partnered to launch the Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize, to be awarded to a film that embodies values of truth-telling, protecting the public interest, promoting social justice, or articulating the qualities of a more just society. The deadline is December 1, and the prize, which includes a $10,000 stipend, will be awarded this Fall. From the press release: October 8, New York City – The Nation Institute and The Fertel Foundation announced today the launch of the Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize. This new prize, which carries a $10,000 stipend, will be awarded alongside […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 10, 2010
DOHA TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: LUCKY STARS

So much depends upon… the position in which one reclines. Seated next to me in the elite section of a flight to Doha, Qatar, an Indian financial wizard with rings on each slim finger nodded and looked thoughtfully out the plane window. Across the aisle, Harvey Weinstein, an overstuffed teddy bear in Qatar Airways pajamas, turned another page of “My Week with Marilyn” and growled for the stewardess. Upon touchdown, a phalanx of young stewards ushered a group of remarkably well-rested travelers into private cars and whisked us away to the second annual Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Could any film […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Nov 5, 2010
DAMIEN CHAZELLE, “GUY & MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH”

Damien Chazelle’s Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is a throw back and perhaps a harbinger of things to come, a bebop tinged DIY mumblemusical that, despite its New Wavesque 16mm B&W aesthetic, is very much a movie of this time and moment. It concerns a relatively young, black and talented trumpet player named Guy and his would be, perhaps still his lover, a white grad student named Madeline (the oddly alluring Desiree Garcia). Played by real life Boston jazz scene leading light Jason Palmer, Guy engages in a series of pseudo-romances, bemoans the marginality of the relatively esoteric Jazz […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 3, 2010
“WO AI NI MOMMY” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION

While introducing Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You Mommy) at last night’s Stranger Than Fiction, programmer Thom Powers thanked the Sadowsky family for allowing director Stephanie Wang-Breal to document their experiences adopting an eight-year-old girl from China, pointing out that “it’s not an easy thing to let a camera into your life.” Startlingly intimate, Wo Ai Ni Mommy follows the Sadowsky family as they struggle to incorporate their new daughter, who speaks no English, into their family. When the girl, Faith, demands to know why her parents would even want a Chinese daughter, her parents are shocked that multiculturalism is a concept […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Nov 3, 2010
PORNFILMFESTIVAL BERLIN

As a filmmaker who makes G-rated porn I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being thoroughly excited when I learned that a festival devoted to celebrating sex onscreen had filled its opening night slot with a flick that contains not one sex scene. And writer/director/producer/editor Zach Clark’s SXSW 2009 hit Modern Love Is Automatic (pictured right), a refreshingly respectful and poignant comedy that centers around a jaded nurse who moonlights as a dominatrix and her aspiring (or rather delusional) model roommate, wasn’t the only selection to subversively screw with the very definition of porn. This year’s fifth edition, which […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 2, 2010
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

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