Thom Powers
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Talking the Bigger-than-Ever Tenth Anniversary Edition of DOC NYC
Overwhelming by design — that’s the first impression offered by the 2019 edition of DOC NYC, the packed-to-the-rafters non-fiction film event currently underway in New York until November 15. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the festival boasts over 300 events, including 28 world premieres, an expanded DOC NYC PRO seminar series, and 46 doc works in progress shown to industry attendees. Says director of programming Basil Tsiokos, “It’s our tenth anniversary, and we wanted to make it bigger and better. We just kept pushing [during the programming process] to include more and more films. “Every year we’ve tried to grow the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 8, 2019 -
Premiering Docs within the New World Order: Thom Powers on DOC NYC 2017
The increasingly robust DOC NYC opens today through November 16, with over 100 documentary features unspooling in three locations in downtown New York and Chelsea. Among the 23 world and 23 U.S. premieres are new films from Barbara Kopple, Sam Pollard and Julia Bacha, whose Naila and the Uprising, about the woman of First Intifada, won the festival’s first pitch competition in 2016. Films unspool across 16 sections, including the new New World Order, focused on pictures with global news importance, and Metropolis, the competitive section featuring films from and about New York City. The DOC NYC Pro section is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 9, 2017 -
Grass Roots Marketing, Speaking Fees for Filmmakers, Publicity Tips and the Release of I Am Not Your Negro at DOC NYC’s Marketing Bootcamp
This is the third and final part of coverage of DOC NYC’s Marketing Boot Camp. (Read parts one and two here at the links.) Christie Marchese of Picture Motion, a marketing and advocacy firm for issue-driven films (Leonardo DiCaprio’s Before the Flood, Ava DuVernay’s 13TH, and Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next), gave a presentation on developing social action and grassroots marketing campaigns. She made the point that grassroots marketing and impact campaigns are two different things: grassroots marketing targets audiences who are pre-disposed to be interested in your film. Impact campaigns are geared toward those who aren’t organically interested. […]
by Audrey Ewell on Apr 24, 2017 -
Thom Powers Curates Distribution Advice for Filmmakers
Toronto International Film Festival and Stranger than Fiction programmer Thom Powers is well known for his curation of documentary film, but with the New Year he’s offering something more: documentary film distribution guidance. For filmmakers entering the festival circuit, his “Distribution Advice for 2014” is a must read. In a detailed intro, Powers discusses various distribution options, ranging from traditional to hybrid to DIY strategies. Then, he gathers specific advice from filmmakers, journalists, producers, publicists and sales agent. Below are three of those recommendations, and check out the entire post at the link to read many more. DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 9, 2014 -
“Blacklists,” Caveh Zahedi and Thom Powers
As one of the three journalists contacted by documentary film programmer Thom Powers last Spring about Caveh Zahedi’s The Sheik and I, I wanted to weigh in on the controversy that erupted this week following Zahedi’s accusation that Powers has “blacklisted” his picture, which opens today from Factory 25. After watching Zahedi’s YouTube video and then reading Powers’ response, I decided to talk to both men to explore the situation in more detail. Then, in the midst of writing this, I noticed Eric Kohn’s post at Indiewire this morning, which exhaustively discusses the film, the timeline of Powers and Zahedi’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 7, 2012 -
DOC NYC Previewed by Artistic Director Thom Powers
With their Stranger than Fiction series at New York City’s IFC Center, Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen have been curating, programming and advocating for documentary film going on eight years now. Their Tuesday-night events are typically packed, drawing audiences with not only great films but human interaction — Q&A’s with directors, collaborators, and even the film’s subjects. Three years ago, when Powers and Neihausen wondered why there wasn’t a major, all-doc festival in New York, they realized that the challenge of launching one was a natural fit for them. The resulting DOC NYC is now in its third year (November […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 7, 2012 -
JONATHAN CAOUETTE’S “WALK AWAY RENEE” TO HAVE ONLINE PREMIERE
When discussing the lineup at the upcoming BAMcinemaFEST a while back, I noted that a new cut of Walk Away Renee, Jonathan Caouette’s long-awaited follow-up to Tarnation, would be playing as part of the festival on June 27. While that’s exciting news on its own, now comes word of a very savvy move by IFC to capitalize on the interest in the film by giving the film a simultaneous online premiere on SundanceNOW’s Doc Club, the SVOD (Subscriber Video-on-Demand) series curated by documentary maven Thom Powers. “Walk Away Renee makes a perfect headliner for the June [Doc Club] theme of […]
by Nick Dawson on May 18, 2012 -
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 -
PREVIEWING DOC NYC
Since I’ve never attended the Toronto International Film Festival, or the long-running doc series Stranger Than Fiction, I was shamefully late to discover the curatorial wizard behind-the-curtain by the name of Thom Powers. But ever since Powers’s programming became, for me, the highlight of this year’s Miami International Film Festival he’s been firmly on my cine-radar. So when I noticed he’d be returning as artistic director of DOC NYC (which runs Nov. 2-10) I thought, “Oh, no.” I didn’t have time to cover DOC NYC right before I flew to Amsterdam to tackle the mother of all nonfiction fests IDFA! […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 2, 2011 -
“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
