Documentary
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DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT SLATE ANNOUNCED
Earlier today Cannes unveiled the 24 films selected for its annual sidebar, Directors’ Fortnight. Opening this year with Renaud Barret & Florent de la Tullaye’s documentary Benda Bilili!, the line-up is dominated by first-time filmmakers, 11 in all. One American standout is Cam Archer (Wild Tigers I Have Known) who will be screening his latest, Shit Year, starring Ellen Barkin. Fortnight will take place May 13-23. Full list of titles below. FEATURE FILMS Alegria (Joy), directed by Marina Méliande et Felipe Braganca (Brazil) All Good Children, directed by Alicia Duffy (UK) Alting bliver godt igen (Everything Will Be Fine), directed […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 20, 2010 -
Tribeca Film Festival
MSNBC’s nightly programs are manna, a much-needed counterbalance to the agitprop spewing from Fox News. Reading Stephen Holden’s preview of the Tribeca Film Festival in the April 16th edition of the Times, I wondered if we need more than ever an alternative print organ covering culture, in New York anyway, with the clout of the Times. Holden parrots Tribeca’s moldy marketing theme, then jumps to a questionable conclusion. “Because the festival…was born in the ashes of the World Trade Center as a community development project to revive the devastated economy of Lower Manhattan, you might say My Trip to Al-Qaeda is woven into […]
by Howard Feinstein on Apr 19, 2010 -
WHAT SHOULD A NEW DOC FESTIVAL LOOK LIKE?
That was the question asked a group of about 40 filmmakers and members of the filmmaking community at an IFC Center Friday breakfast by Thom Powers (artistic director), John Vanco (managing director) and Raphaela Neihausen (executive director) about their new event, DOC NYC. Powers, Vanco and Neihausen are teaming to present the inaugural edition of this new Gotham doc fest this November, and their first step has been to reach out to the community for opinions on what’s needed to distinguish their festival. From their initial release: “DOC NYC will fill an important void in New York City and will […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 17, 2010 -
DISCUSSING “HORSES” WITH FILMMAKER LIZ MERMIN
I’m happy to welcome Mary Anderson Casavant to the blog. I’ll let her introduce herself below, and you can look forward to a series of posts from her on the documentary scene, focusing on the films featured at the Stranger than Fiction series unspooling at the IFC Center. First up is a conversation with filmmaker Liz Mermin. — SM I’d like to start by acknowledging that I am not a disinterested observer when it comes to Stranger Than Fiction. From 2005 – 2006, I worked as a freelance researcher for its founder and curator, Thom Powers, the current documentary programmer […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2010 -
IFP ANNOUNCES DOC LINE-UP FOR LABS
The IFP has announced the ten projects selected for its Documentary Lab. The Lab will take place April 12-16 in New York City and will include five-days of intensive workshops and mentorships from working professionals. The list of projects are below. Lear more at ifp.org. 25 To Life William Brawner was infected with HIV before he turned two and kept it a secret for over twenty years. Now he seeks redemption from the women of his promiscuous past and embarks on a new phase of life with his pregnant wife, who is HIV-negative. Fellows: Michael L. Brown (Director, Producer); Yvonne […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 13, 2010 -
CINEMA IS WHERE LIFE IS
Fassbinder and Herzog from Wim Wenders’ 1982 documentary on the future of cinema, Chambre 666.
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2010 -
JENNIFER KROOT, “IT CAME FROM KUCHAR”
George and Mike Kuchar are two of the great camp experimental filmmakers of all time. They represented a pastiche heavy, less self-serious strand of the New American Cinema’s downtown explosion in the early 1960s. Evangelized by Jonas Mekas in the pages of The Village Voice, their work spans over 700 short and feature films, almost all of the executed on the flimsiest of budgets, many of them made in an almost artisanal, fiercely individualistic mode. In a Critics’ Poll of the 100 best films of the 20th century, appearing originally in the January 4, 2000 edition of The Village Voice, […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 7, 2010 -
TRIBECA GALA PREMIERES ANNOUNCED
The Tribeca Film Festival has announced that Freaknomics will serve as the closing gala of the festival on April 30. Freaknomics is a documentary that was based on the bestseller Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Exposes the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. It melds pop culture with economics, and examines economics in such diverse subject matter as legalized abotion, drug dealing, education, and naming children. The film is directed by an array of critically acclaimed documentary filmmakers: Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Rachel Grady and Heidi […]
by Melissa Silvestri on Mar 30, 2010 -
IFP ANNOUNCES DISTRIBUTION LAB; NARRATIVE LAB DEADLINE EXTENDED
In a press release sent out today, the IFP has announced that they’ve expanded their Independent Filmmaker Labs to include distribution. In collaboration with Ted Hope and Jon Reiss, the Distribution Lab will take 20 projects (10 docs, 10 narratives) and gives them a year-long fellowship to assist the filmmakers with marketing and distributing their films. Filmmakers will receive, among other things, year-round access to IFP staff and Lab leaders, one-on-one mentorship with working producers and a five-day Completion Lab. To learn more about the Lab and its benefits read the full release below. Also on the IFP front, the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 30, 2010 -
“AFGHAN STAR”
If you thought you were crazy about American Idol, imagine if you grew up in an area of the world where singing and dancing were forbidden. Well, that’s what director Havana Marking highlights in her moving documentary which follows four contestants competing in the wildly popular TV show Afghan Star. Since 1995 the Taliban have made it illegal to sing or dance in Afghanistan. But recently with the Taliban fleeing the country a freedom of expression has surfaced that’s unlike anything the country has seen in a brutal, war-torn 30 years. Starting in 2005 the TV network, Tolo TV, in […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 30, 2010
