[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre] Making Crime After Crime was full of surprises — which in a way is not so surprising because at least on the surface the film is a legal thriller, a genre that is built on suspense, intrigue and discovery. These aspects of the genre were made all the more unpredictable because the film is a vérité documentary: I was tracking the battle to free Deborah Peagler from prison as her case unfolded so no one knew exactly how it would turn out. Sure enough, clues, twists and turns emerged that […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 9:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] My film is about 17 biracial Ukrainian orphans, mostly teenagers, and the woman who has been their foster mother for years despite all the hardships, be they financial or caused by the racist society that surrounds them. Before going on the first shoot, I had no doubts that Olga, the foster mother, can only be a saint. Unfortunately the biggest surprise was the realization that her need for power and control is really the foundation of the family and the motivation for her to become a legal guardian […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] The biggest puzzle to me was that the majority of Black Africa was celebrating 50 years of independence when we had the idea for the film An African Election and that nobody saw the potential of looking into where Africa stood after 50 years of its rebirth. The project was brushed aside as being interesting but unrealistic. Meanwhile people were talking about the silver bullet and all the failures associated with the Dark Continent. Nobody wanted to invest, and even cultural institutions whose mission statements were to preserve […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 6:00 pm — Temple Theatre] In April, I went to the newsroom at the Times with my camera, ready to film. This had been my routine for the past few months–I’d show up, not sure what story the reporters on the Media Desk would be covering that day, and attempt to be a fly on the wall. When I arrived, “a former hacker with a whistleblower website” –whom we now know as Julian Assange of WikiLeaks–had posted a [chilling] video of a U.S. military helicopter shooting down two journalists and several Iraqi civilians. Reuters had […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Temple Theatre] How to Die in Oregon tells the stories of terminally ill Oregonians as they decide when, and whether, to end their lives at the time and circumstance of their own choosing under Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. What inspired me to make the film was the desire to explore the profound choices an individual would have to make in order to take the life-ending medication. I knew that telling this story was going to be difficult because it would require extraordinary access and a willingness to participate in the film, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] “Down, down, down!” yelled a U.S. Marine as bullets whizzed overhead and machine-gun fire rattled. We had been drawn into a coordinated ambush deep behind enemy lines. In these difficult situations, I use intense concentration to keep operating my camera system. As we ducked to the next mud berm for cover, I focused on keeping my movements smooth and my distance to the Marine ahead of me constant so I would have a steady tracking shot that would remain in focus. Pinned down by incoming fire, the insurgents triggered […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] My discovery and subsequent first listen to the secretly recorded Shut Up Little Man! tapes left me gobsmacked (“surprise” seems too nice a word, although it is the theme of this discussion). Hearing Peter and Raymond’s vitriolic arguments, their foul-mouthed insults and absolute PURE hatred for one another takes you into a world most of us will never experience. It’s captivating, like traveling past a bad road accident. It presents a similar moral conundrum: Should I be fascinated? Should I look/listen? Should I be laughing at their banter? […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre] Neither of us was prepared for how much we would genuinely like Joshua Milton Blahyi. The fact that a human being can be warm, funny and endearing, yet also responsible for the deaths of thousands, is something that’s very difficult to reconcile. For five years we documented Joshua’s life and struggles. During this time we got to know him on a very personal level, not just as filmmakers, but as human beings. Navigating this relationship between filmmaker and character, and trying to stay objective throughout, can be extremely tricky. There were days […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 3:00 pm — Redstone Cinemas 8] We were really surprised by the extraordinarily wacky and absurdist humor of early filmmakers. Our documentary, These Amazing Shadows, focuses on the National Film Registry, so naturally we immersed ourselves in the incredible diversity of the 550 films on the list (Hollywood classics, avant-garde, documentaries, animation, home movies, silents and more). What quickly jumped out was that Monty Python, Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld have nothing on early filmmakers. Let’s just take two silent films as examples (I know some of you are thinking, “Silent films are boring!” but come […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 12:00 pm — Temple Theatre] The biggest surprise was that I made it at all. I had been very ambivalent about making another documentary under any circumstances, certainly not one that would be dealing with such painful subject matter. The idea to make We Were Here came from a younger boyfriend, also a filmmaker, who hadn’t lived through those years, but had heard me speak many times of my experiences in San Francisco during the AIDS epidemic. I probably wouldn’t have thought of it on my own, but once the idea came up, it made […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2011