Still in Motion

Culture Talk Network.com

My beautiful Iranian friend, Neda Sarmast (with whom I've had many surreal experiences in Dubai), sends word that she has started a new online destination for cross-cultural discourse, debate and understanding.  Once you log onto the site, you can create your own group, as well as join in on the larger chats.  Her home base lives on Facebook here. 

There's a lot of interesting stuff to dive into.  You can choose to visit Iran and talk about Persian culture, or click the USA button for discussions on American culture.  There are also existing communities for faith-based cultures, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist, with more to be added soon.  On Neda's blog, you can read more about who she is, her personal journey, and why she decided to start this venture.  Here's the link.

Orphan Film Symposium

The Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program (MIAP) at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts will present the 7th Orphan Film Symposium at the SVA Theatre in New York City, April 7 - 10.  The symposium is entitled, "Moving Images Around the World," and is being touted as something between an academic conference and a film festival, showcasing new works, newly restored prints and archival finds. 

Since its inception at the University of South Carolina in 1999, the OFS, under the direction of Dan Streible, has become a destination summit for those interested in the study, preservation and exhibition of "orphan" works--motion pictures abandoned by their owner or maker.  This includes silent films, commissioned pieces, independent films, industrials, avant-garde work, home movies, ads, etc.  More than 70 presenters from 16 countries will meet in New York to exhibit 80 works dating from 1894 (!) to 2010.  Highlights include:

Gustav Deutsch's Film ist. a Girl and a Gun (2009), a narrative collage constructed using fragments from several European film archives, as well as the Kinsey Institute.

The premiere of a new restoration by Anthology Film Archives of the independent documentary from 1959, The Cry of Jazz, with filmmaker, Edward O. Bland.

The first film by Henri Cartier-Bresson from 1938, With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain, presumed lost until it was recently discovered in NYU's Tamiment Library.

The premiere of a never-released film called The Velvet Underground Rehearses from 1965, shot by Danny Williams shortly before he disappeared.

A rare program made for British TV from 1955, Orson Welles' Sketch Book, from the Munich Film Museum.  And much more.

This year's Helen Hill Award, named in honor of the late animator, will go to filmmakers, Danielle Ash and Jodie Mack, both of whom will present recent works.  Go here for more information on the program and to purchase advance tickets.

The DeVilles

This was pretty much the best thing I saw at SXSW.  I say "best" in the sense that almost every moment of watching this piece was an enjoyable one--meaning, I was glad my butt was parked in a seat in a theater watching it.  I'm a fidgety girl, so when something holds me completely rapt, it's a big deal, 'cause not much does these days.

The DeVilles, directed by first-time feature director, Nicole Nielsen Horanyi, clocks in at a cool 56 minutes.  And yes, she's a Dane and if you've noticed by now, I love, love, love the nonfiction cinema that comes out of Denmark.  If I were ever to bother going to film school, the only place I would be interested in enrolling would be at the National Film School there. The film was programmed with an excellent 25-minute short called Control from Norwegian director, Hanne Myren; playing the two films together was a great programming call by SXSW's own Jim Kolmar.

The DeVilles tells the story of the 25-year relationship of married couple, Teri Lee and Shawn Geary, who live in a charming, but well-worn, house in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles.  Teri Lee's stage name is Kitten DeVille, and she's a big deal in the world of burlesque; she's been a headline performer for decades and still puts on a scintillating show.  (She also teaches fat housewives how to striptease in her home studio.)  Her husband, Shawn, is a rockabilly singer, who physically channels Joe Strummer, circa 1980.  He and his band still rage like young punks, rehearsing at full throttle during the day in the garage, driving all the dogs in the neighborhood crazy.

The couple, with their three daughters, lives in a nostalgic world of their own making and we soon find out that the long-standing love between Teri Lee and Shawn has fissures and cracks that erupt into full-blown crises once in a while.  While completely devoted to one another and their family, both have indulged in various infidelities over the years, and during a party one evening, Teri Lee has a major drama-queen moment in front of their guests revealing for all to see her private distress and heartache.  She's got one of those wide-mouthed glamorous smiles, that if you look closely enough, reveals a lot of pain.

The film is shot and told as a riveting narrative, the subjects never directly addressing the camera/audience, but acting out the passion play of their family drama.  There are several moments of self-consciousness even though most, if not all, of the scenes are staged explicitly for the camera.  We are always aware that we are watching real people, but neither do we ever lose sight of the fact that they are all performers (including the youngest daughter who appears to be about eleven years old and has a stunning, powerful singing voice of her own).  At the beginning of the film, I was a bit disoriented as to where I was geographically, but this is a tableau that could really only exist in Los Angeles, the city which resides under the relentless shadow of Hollywood dreams that never say die.

Teri Lee and Shawn are fascinating to watch when they're on their own, but together there is definitely "movie magic," the charisma and sexual energy between them quite powerful.  One, literally, cannot exist without the other.  The film, in turn, romanticizes this long-term love affair in all its glory, Laust Trier Mørk's cinematography shot in 16:9 HD-CAM, luscious and fulgent.  The film ends with our hero driving off into the sunset towards Vegas in his pink Cadillac DeVille to rescue and re-kindle the passion of his only true love. 

The DeVilles has no release date yet in Denmark (or anywhere else, at the moment), but is distributed worldwide by First Hand Films.

March Cinesalon

Cinesalon was introduced a couple of months ago as a monthly screening series and social hour showcasing female filmmakers.  It's held the fourth Thursday of the month at the American Association of University Women NYC Branch House at 111 East 37th Street.

This Thursday, March 25, Cinesalon will present Lisa Merton and Alan Dater's award-winning feature doc, Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, which chronicles the Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist's reforesting project in her homeland.  Co-director, Lisa Merton, will be attending.  To find out more, contact cinesalon4@gmail.com.  There's a suggested donation of $4 at the door.

Film.Sprout Presents: From the Ground Up

Caitlin Boyle, creator of Film.Sprout, will host a workshop called "Building Grassroots Distribution for Your Independent Film," Sunday, April 11th, from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Common Spaces Co-op in Brooklyn.  The workshop fee is $150. 

Boyle will lead filmmakers through the strategic steps necessary to build and maintain a grassroots audience around your film.  Participants will learn about staging successful community-oriented screenings and outreach campaigns, building alternate revenue streams, and encouraging targeted activism in support of the film's message.  Case studies will be presented outlining a range of approaches, as well as some cautionary tales.  Participants will also present their own outreach distribution plans (so you need to have one!) and receive feedback from Boyle and fellow peers.  There will be a panel of filmmakers, outreach coordinators and film programmers that will join in to offer advice and guidance.  The workshop is limited to 15 participants.  You can sign up and reserve your spot here.

Filmmakers to Watch from SXSW

[Note: There have been some corrections made for the NY Export section since this was first posted, per the producers.  I sourced incorrect information from a published article in FILMMAKER Magazine.  Apologies.]

For my SXSW wrap-up, a bit anemic as it is, I'd like to mention a few more films/filmmakers that impressed me, and the outstanding doc shorts program presented at the fest. 

I may write almost exclusively on nonfiction filmmaking (although that's changing more and more as I see work that's throwing any sort of idea of "genre" filmmaking out the window--more of this, please), but, no matter what, I still want to be thrilled when I sit and watch a film, transported, told a great yarn, be emotionally engaged and moved, etc.  I'm tired of seeing films not ready for exhibition, hurriedly "completed" to meet a festival premiere, sloppily finished, or what have you.  There's no room for that anymore, if there ever was.

Whether it's a film in the guise of what some are calling "social issue," an intimate portrait, a first-person account, or an historical treatise on a seminal event of the recent past (or some combination, thereof) the focus, intention (and the tenacious hold on that intention) of the maker's vision should be felt viscerally at every moment.

In the case of Jody Lee Lipes, Henry Joost and Matt Porterfield--these are filmmakers we celebrate at Hammer to Nail over and over again.  Why?  Because these are filmmakers who have such intense imperatives in the way they create cinema, such devotion to their craft, such expertise in the way in which they storytell.  Lipes and Joost have collaborated as co-directors on NY Export: Opus Jazz which had its début at SXSW last week.  (Lipes also shot Lena Dunham's SXSW narrative jury prize-winner, Tiny Furniture.)  The film won an audience award in the Emerging Visions category.

This re-creation of Jerome Robbins' 1958 tour-de-force dance story (written for the screen by Lipes) was shot on location in New York City and stars an ensemble of New York City Ballet dancers--all young, lithe, explosively energetic presences.  The film was conceived, created and produced by Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi, soloists in the ballet company, and it took them several years to finance the finished film after getting the rights to the piece from the Robbins Trust.  They shot a 5-minute sequence with funds raised by the producers from private donors to use for further fundraising efforts, and committed to shooting the film in anamorphic 35mm to make it as gorgeous as possible.  You can see a preview here.  Over a year later, PBS came on board and took the film on as a pre-acquisition for its Great Performances dance series.  Remaining steadfast in their vision, the first-time producers had much more fundraising ahead of them, and the finished product shows, to glorious effect, the uncompromising way in which it got made.  Aaron Hillis, writing for IFC.com News, says, it is a "jaw-droppingly gorgeous marriage of choreography and cinematography."  The 45-minute narrative, accompanied by an excellent fifteen-minute "making of" documentary directed by Anna Farrell and Matt Wolf will have its broadcast premiere on PBS' Great Performances as part of the Dance in America series this Wednesday, March 24.  Watch it on as big a screen as you possibly can.

SXSW exhibited a very strong documentary shorts program.  As I've expressed before, shorts programs (watching several short films back to back) is not my fave due to the unevenness, most times, in the quality of films shown together.  While there might be a couple of standouts, one usually has to sit through several that are rather weak, or even worse, pointless.  But the half dozen I saw in this program were all fantastic and I hope they all make many appearances on the circuit in the next couple of years, and beyond. 

Amy Grappell's 20-minute Quadrangle (which premiered at Sundance) took the jury prize, and Travis Senger's White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug (26 minutes) received a runner-up nod for his world premiere.  Quadrangle is a fascinating piece, a video art installation more than it is a traditional narrative film.  The physical manifestation of the storytelling resonates so strongly because of the subject matter, that of a family collapsing and tearing itself apart due to a well-intentioned "social experiment" that goes awry.  The reveals come tantalizingly slowly and subtly and we don't know for sure how these people are related to the filmmaker, but we know that they are.  I especially like the way she reveals and implicates herself into the piece, again very deliberately and slowly until she is fully folded into this story that has impacted her life in so many ways.  We never actually see her, but we do hear her and, at one point, see her shadow outlined on the cement as she films.  Intelligent, potent, and artfully conceived and crafted.  She is working on a feature narrative script of the story.

The other film I'll give special mention to is called 6.  Also a world premiere at the fest, this film is just a staggeringly beautiful piece of work.  In its 22 minutes (I would have been more than happy to sit through something feature-length), it shows us a complete and full universe with such intimacy and love.  6 is a portrait of a teeny, tiny town in Texas, extrapolated through its rabid devotion to its high-school football team which consists of only six players; the place is so small it cannot populate a full 11-man team.  Its maker, Jeff Bednarz, has exquisite instincts and finds storytelling soulmates in his editor, Jack Waldrip, his cinematographer, Mark Thomas (stunning work) and, in particular, his subjects, who open up to him in ways in which only an incredibly empathic artist can get subjects to reveal their hearts and souls.  I cannot wait to see more from this team of filmmakers.

The other films in the program were: The deeply personal and beautifully shot Seltzer Works by Jessica Edwards; David Wilson's Big Birding Day with breathtakingly magnificent cinematography by Wilson and Nathan Truesdell; and, Bradley Beesley's hilarious Mr. Hypnotism about the notorious Ron Dante.

War Don Don

There were eight entries in the documentary competition at SXSW with Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol taking the top jury prize.  (Jury members were Nelson George, Thom Powers, and Karina Longworth).  Rebecca Richman Cohen's War Don Don was given a special jury nod.  You can read rhapsodic reviews for Marwencol here, here and here.  Since I've yet to see it, I'll talk about the outstanding film I did see and that's Cohen's feature début. 

I first knew about this project, and heard the director speak, at Full Frame two years ago when she was one of the recipients of the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant.  (That same year, Mai Iskander, director of Garbage Dreams, was also a grantee.)  Cohen, a law school graduate and human rights activist, is a young, slight-framed, pretty woman with a powerful booming voice and a confident demeanor to match--a person of conviction.  Partnering with Academy and Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker, Francisco Bello, her producer and editor, and directors of photography, Nadia Hallgren and William Charles Moss, ensured a high-level of proficiency in the way in which this piece was put together, a cinematic dream team, if you will.  I also don't want to neglect to mention the thrilling music supplied by Bajah + the Dry Eye Crew. 

The film supplies incredible visual power, is rhythmically precise in its pace and timbre, and presents the hard-won access these filmmakers had to its very best advantage for the viewer to weigh, ponder, listen and learn.  Never outright didactic, and, thankfully not narrated by the filmmaker or anyone else, it has a lot of nuanced and, downright contradictory, information to impart.  War Don Don ("the war is over" in Krio) is one of the most intelligent, balanced, thoughtful films I've seen in a while.  It is a superb piece of work on every level. 

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, an auspicious "special court" convenes, there to try a man named Issa Sesay, accused war criminal, brought to trial by the prosecution for crimes against humanity during the country's devastating civil war.  The population was decimated, many survivors left without limbs due to rampant amputation by the young soldiers.  Sesay's defense team deems him a good soldier (in fact, a coerced one), who protected civilians and was one of the leaders who helped to bring a hard-won peace to the nation.  This was the world's first international war crimes "hybrid tribunal," created jointly by the UN and the government of Sierra Leone.  The spine of the film is the trial itself which offers quite complex questions as to how this man's life and actions are to be interpreted. 

As Cohen states, "From my seat in the gallery of the RUF-accused trial, I first observed Issay Sesay, a former rebel leader accused of crimes against humanity and a key player in the peace negotiations--and I was fascinated by the range of roles that one man could assume amidst the intensity of such a brutal conflict."  What the filmmakers also do is move from this rarefied place into the streets and small villages of Sierra Leone where the trial can be seen by any private citizen that wants to watch it, with an on-the-ground team on hand to explain the proceedings, i.e., what it all means for the people who have lost so much.  As well, all of the participants--prosecution, defense, the citizens--get to weigh in on how effective the legal system that is trying this one man "for the crimes of many" happens to be--or not to be.  Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to stage such a trial, perhaps at the expense of people who are still lacking basic necessities, clean water, enough food, a solid roof over their heads, good medical care, still living in a place where the basic infrastructure is in more of a shambles than ever.  This is highly-nuanced, thought-provoking filmmaking, providing profound sustenance for both the mind, the conscience and the heart. 

The film plays next at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival London, then moves to the Amnesty International Movies That Matter Festival at The Hague, Netherlands.  And, then, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina--coming full circle to the place where Cohen first presented it two years ago.

Next up: NY Export: Opus Jazz, the The DeVilles, and my favorite doc shorts from SXSW.

SXSW 2010

Well, the general thing I can say after my first SXSW experience is that I feel like I've gone through a blender.  I am, undoubtedly, spoiled by kinder, gentler nonfiction festivals, with manageable programs, a highly-navigable experience (meaning convenient to get from place to place, preferably on foot or plenty of free transportation to get a visitor from hotel to films, parties, etc.), and easy access to everything, especially film screenings.  (Pictured, the ultracool Highball--restaurant, bowling alley, karaoke lounge--modeled on the spot in the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski, adjacent to the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, a main festival venue.)

I would say that I spent about fifty percent of my time at this festival waiting on line.  For coffee, for food, for films, for parties, for rides, everything.  Even as a first-timer, I knew this was due to growing pains.  The staff and volunteers were trying their valiant best to accommodate the floods of people at their festival, and I mean floods.  I almost fainted when I saw the line at registration which was about a mile long.

In her intros to films, festival producer, Janet Pierson, after the event had kicked off in earnest, took to asking audiences if people were having trouble getting into films.  After hearing a resounding yes!, she courteously suggested people make an alternate plan and to really make space for line-standing time into their schedules.  Not all of the cinemas suffered from this glut, but the smaller main venues certainly did.  "A good problem to have," as Pierson said, but hard going when one is trying to see as many films as possible every day.  After desperate suggestions from guests that have been attending for a while to provide a shuttle service (which they charged for), there were only two vans making the main loop, which meant waits of up to 30-45 minutes to get to another spot in town.  The only other option was a taxi ride and a few of those a day really add up and make your pocketbook empty out pretty damn fast.

Anyway, enough bitching, it was fun and fabulous and a great new experience.  With enough sunshine, margaritas, great Tex Mex food, loads of parties, friendly, hospitable Austin-ites, music pouring out of every orifice on 6th Street, and lots of lovely programming comrades on tap, it wasn't half bad.  I'm sure they'll be better prepared for next year and I hope they get the same kinds of crowds they did this year.  It was heart-warming, I tell you, to see lines snaking around the corner for films nobody knew anything about except from a description in a catalog or on the web site.  A personal thanks to new programmer, Jim Kolmar, (also film conference coordinator and web content), a man with great taste, for including The Living Room of the Nation in the SX Global section for its North American premiere. 

I, admittedly, didn't see as much as I had planned due to above-described circumstances, but I tried my best.  And as at most festivals, I did see one film, in particular, that no one's ever heard of and that played exactly once at the smallest venue there (thanks, Mark Rosenberg)--and it's my fave, oddball that I apparently am.  I also attended panels and conferences, the trade show, etc., so I wasn't a total slacker.  Although I did spend a lot of time in the sun drinking beer and munching on chips and salsa.  I've been living in Finland; I was overdue for some sol.  So, without further ado, a few cinematic things worth mentioning:

Futurestates:  ITVS commissioned eleven filmmakers to make short narrative films that examine current events by extrapolating them into the future.  SXSW world premiered six of them, including films by Greg Pak, Garret Williams, Ramin Bahrani, Tze Chun, Aldo Velasco and Annie Howell.  Standouts were Bahrani's Plastic Bag with Werner Herzog as the rapturous, yet ultimately disenchanted, title hero; Tze Chun's Silver Sling about a struggling career surrogate--a woman who is hired to produce babies for high-ranking female workers of a corporation--who has to decide to give away yet another child or keep it, her last chance at motherhood; and Annie Howell's Tio & Marco, about a pregnant border patrol agent who finds an illegal immigrant child hiding in her house.  See more Season 1 selections here.

Tiny Furniture: This was the only film I manged to see in the narrative competition of eight films.  It also walked away with the jury prize at Tuesday night's ceremonies.  As well, its creator was bestowed with Chicken & Egg Pictures' Emergent Narrative Director award.  There is no doubt that 23-year-old filmmaker, Lena Dunham (fellow Hammer to Nail contributing writer) has a very bright future.  This accomplished feature which Dunham wrote, directed and stars in, had one of those crazy lines where not one pass holder got in since the badge holder line was so long.  Meaning the audience consisted mostly of industry supporters and friends, so there was a lot of excitement.  The story is about the recently college-graduated, heartbroken and very confused Aura, played by Dunham, returning to the nest and trying valiantly to live comfortably in the (very antiseptic) family homestead, a giant loft in Tribeca peopled only by her mother, Siri (played by Dunham's real mom, renowned photographer, Laurie Simmons in a fine performance) and her sister, Nadine (played by Dunham's real sibling, Grace).  Taking a dead-end job as a day hostess in a small restaurant around the corner from where she lives, she meets and courts two ne'er do wells, Jed (played by filmmaker, Alex Karpovsky in a sly, subtle performance) who moves into her house and refuses to touch her, and Keith (David Call who gives a superb and, oddly, endearing performance) who fucks her in a huge pipe in a playground.  Dunham creates precocious characters who interact with one another in that numb, detached way people do when all, to a person, are disaffected and lost in some way, their own pain or preoccupations making them only partway "there" for their loved ones.  Or they live a life completely in an alternate universe, like that of her "best friend" since childhood, Charlotte, played by the luminously beautiful and very quirky, Jemima Kirke, in the film's most charming performance.  Dunham has the writing chops for good television and the film has a patina that isn't really conducive to dark and depressing themes.  This left me somewhat emotionally detached, but perhaps I could also say that this is possibly the film's strongest point.  Like Woody Allen, she can easily find humor in painful angst and presents her plump, misshapen body and hangdog expression to great affect.  The scene where she sits on a deflating mattress staring off into the middle distance says it all.  You do want to cuddle her and tell her everything will be all right.  But you also want to slap her pretty hard.  Jody Lee Lipes steps in as DP and does his usual glorious work--he shot the whole film on a still camera.  This might be one of those festival breakout films that will do decent box office given the right marketing spin.  I just hope it doesn't take a bloody year or more--get it out in theaters this summer would be my recommendation.  It's a great seasonal film and millions of graduating college seniors will find the movie that speaks directly to them.

More from SXSW in a bit.

Herzog, Berliner, Philibert, Strange at 7th Planete Doc Review Festival

With extraordinary expediency and ambition, this event, which takes place in Warsaw, Poland May 7 - 16, has become a destination festival in just seven years, with intrepid leadership by the inexhaustible, Artur Liebhart.  With an extraordinary program of the best of nonfiction cinema from around the world, the Planete Doc Review Film Festival brings world-class films to a country with many top festivals, including the Krakow Film Festival, which will be celebrating its jubilee--fifty years!--just a couple of weeks after Planete, May 31 - June 6.  Many filmmaker friends have told me that Planete Doc is in their top five favorite festivals to attend.

This year offers an extraordinary array of hefty filmmaking talent.  First up will be Werner Herzog's three-hour master class for professionals taking place Saturday, May 8th at 3:00 p.m. in the Kinoteka cinema, hosted by Polish arts and culture critic extraordinaire, Michal Chacinski.  And me.  (Yes.  Me.  It's published on the website if you don't believe me.  This is how I finally realized this might really be true, as well.)  Warsaw audiences will have a chance to meet with the director on May 8th and 9th after the screenings of his films.  A DVD box set in the Planete Doc Review series, with fifteen of Herzog's documentary films and a book--a collection of essays on his cinematic art published in the Krytyka Polityczna Reader--will be published as supplements to Herzog's master class.

Last year, the fest had a very popular Animadoc film section devoted to documentary animation.  This year, another special guest will be Martin Strange Hansen from Denmark, winner of the 2003 Oscar for his short narrative, This Charming Man.  Strange Hansen, a pioneer in the use of new media, will share his experience and expertise in a lecture on May 9th.   The "Pinly and Flau" film series will be screened beforehand.  These 3-minute-long animations for mobile phones were created on the basis of one hundred intimate stories from the lives of teenagers.

Friday, the 14th, will bring a three-hour workshop with the French filmmaker, Nicolas Philibert whose To Be and To Have was honored with the European Film Prize in 2002.  His latest film, Nenette, about a 40-year-old orangutan, played at this year's Berlinale.  The festival will also screen several of his films.

Lastly (but not leastly!), Saturday the 15th, Michal Chacinski and Jean Perret, the director of the Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, France, will host a talk with Alan Berliner, renowned American filmmaker, photographer and video artist, three-time winner of the Emmy Award, and recipient of the 1997 Film Critics' Award at the Berlinale.  Berliner teaches a course entitled "Experiments in Time, Light and Movement" at the New School in New York.  All five of his wonderful films will be screened at the fest.

Quite the lineup, jestem prawo?  (I don't really speak Polish.)

The full program of the 7th edition will be published on the 5th of April and the program of workshops and panel discussions will be announced later this month.  During the first weekend of the fest, films will be screened in twenty cinemas in Poland on the same day at the same time; select films will be available by streaming straight to screening rooms around the country.  At ten of those locations, there will be panel discussions after the screening of Erik Gandini's award-winning, Videocracy.  Stay tuned for more news.

Creative Capital Workshop: Verbal Communications for Artists

As part of Creative Capital's Professional Development Program, the organization is hosting an all-day workshop in partnership with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) on Saturday, April 10 from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at NYFA in DUMBO (20 Jay Street, 7th Floor).  It's limited to 24 participants, so those that attend will get lots of attention.  Their workshops sell out pretty quickly, so go here to register now. 

Kirby Tepper, an LA-based communications specialist with extensive experience training artists in public speaking and leadership skills, will lecture and lead small group activities, including role-playing and other exercises to enhance individual communication styles.  The workshop is designed for artists of all disciplines. 

You can visit the Creative Capital site for more information on the PDP, and other upcoming events, by clicking here.  Or send an email to Negin Salmasi, workshop manager at negin@creative-capital.org.

The Conversation

On Saturday, March 27th, at Columbia University, there will be an all-day seminar on Social Media, Digital Distribution and The Future of Film.  The Conversation will bring together a group of filmmakers, social media experts and industry execs to continue to explore the new and ever-changing ways we tell cinematic and multi-platform stories, how we can continue to successfully connect with audiences, and, perhaps, how we can make a bit of dough in the process. 

In various panel discussions and workshops, co-hosts Scott Kirsner (CinemaTech), Tiffany Shlain (The Tribe) and Lance Weiler (The Workbook Project) will lead talks that address what's of utmost concern to both new and experienced media makers working in the field today.  Speakers include Steve Savage of New Video, Fred Seibert of Next New Networks, Cory McAbee of "Stingray Sam," Thomas Woodrow of "Bass Ackwards," and Richard Lorber of Kino Lorber.  There should be some spots left, but they're probably going fast; you can register here now to hold a space.

Film Program Submissions Now Open for Doc/Fest 2010!!

Programmer, Hussain Currimbhoy, sends word that you (wherever you happen to be in the world) are hereby invited to enter your new films for this year's Doc/Fest at Sheffield, UK--shorts, features and in-betweens.  Last year's Youth Jury, Special Mention and Innovation Award winners were all chosen from the 1400 submissions received last year. 

This year, the fest will be accepting film submissions on DVD and, for the first time, via online platforms like Vimeo and Daily Motion.  Special strands in the program include music, sports, LGBT, and arts docs, as well as the "Anti-Docs" category (you figure out what that's supposed to be).  As well, the programmers are especially on the lookout for innovative cross-platform nonfiction projects. 

Plenty of prizes and competitions to enter.  Get the full skinny on the website and keep checking back here for updates in the next couple hundred days.  This is a significant marketplace, growing in importance every year--don't miss this essential destination.

Festival Express: Can the Fest Circuit Empower Your Film's Distribution Stategy?

The Spring 2010 issue of Documentary magazine, the publication of the International Documentary Association, focuses on festivals and film distribution--two things of which I know a thing or two. 

But only a thing or two.  Now on newsstands, the issue also features articles by associate editor, Tamara Krinsky, producer, David Becker, filmmaker, Adrian Belic, and curator, Kathy Brew.  Documentary.org has kindly reprinted my article that leads the section called "Rethinking the Film Festival" where I talk to many of the top programmers about the current fest landscape.

So having just returned from True/False (coverage on Hammer to Nail in a bit, as soon as my jet lag abates--from Europe still, I think!) and heading to SXSW next week, and also working on distribution strategies and theatrical runs for a few more films this season, it's something with which I occupy a great deal of my time.  Why we don't know; but I like it.  So enjoy--here's the link.  Unfortunately, the web version doesn't include all the pretty pictures, but happy reading, anyway.