Still in Motion

Tribeca Presents "Docs on the Shortlist" Screenings

On January 8th and 9th, 2010, Tribeca will present a weekend screening series of six films shortlisted for the 82nd edition of the Oscars.  The series is hosted by Tribeca Film Institute's Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund at the Tribeca Cinemas.  Curated by the film festival's programming team, the series will enable New Yorkers to see a selection of the documentary contenders shortlisted for the Best Feature Documentary prize.  Tickets go on sale today; you can call the cinemas for more info at 212 941 2001, or click here. 

On Friday, Rebecca Cammisa's Which Way Home, which world premiered at Tribeca, will screen at 6:30 p.m. and Cammisa will be there for a post-screening Q&A.  At 9:00 p.m., Robert Kenner's Food, Inc. will screen.  The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Saturday at 1:00 p.m., Mark Hopkins' Living in Emergency will play (world premiered at the Venice Film Festival).  At 3:30 p.m., Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's Soundtrack for a Revolution (still from film, pictured) will screen.  This film also had its world premiere at Tribeca.  At 6:00 p.m., Louis Psihoyos' The Cove will play with Psihoyos in the house for a discussion with the audience afterward; The Cove world premiered at Sundance.  Lastly, Andy Abrahams Wilson's Under Our Skin plays at 8:30 p.m., another Tribeca world premiere.

Don't miss this chance to see these films before the big night.

2009 Adrienne Shelly Director's Grant

Last night here in New York, the 2009 Adrienne Shelley Director's Grant was bestowed on writer / director / actor, Christina Beck for her feature début, Perfection.  Christina and I became friends at the IFP week back in 2007.  She was at the market with the project for which she just received this honor and I, personally, am very, very proud of her.  (That's her looking sassy for her step-and-repeat moment.)   

The grant is given in memory of actor and filmmaker, Adrienne Shelly and is a competitive award that provides $5,000 from the Adrienne Shelly Foundation to a female director alum of IFP's Independent Filmmaker Labs.  I got to take Christina out for a celebratory lunch yesterday before the ceremony where she told me that she will use this prize, in part, to release some developed film footage (donated by Kodak) that's been held in captivity at FotoKem in Los Angeles, where she resides. 

She was presented with the grant at the US premiere of Serious Moonlight, starring Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, the feature directorial début of actor Cheryl Hines with a script written by Shelly.

This is the third year this award has provided support to a first-time female director.  Previous grantees were Dia Sokol whose Sorry, Thanks world-premiered at SXSW in 2008, and Eunhee Cho whose Inner Circle Line world premiered at Rotterdam in 2006.  This year's jury members were Andy Ostroy of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, executive producer, Adam Brightman, director, Annie Sundberg, actor Jeremy Sisto and actor Kevin Corrigan.  Applications for this year's IFP Independent Filmmaker Labs will be available January 4, 2010. 

Congratulations, Christina--all right, girl!

FIDLAB 2010

The folks at FIDMarseille send word that their call for applications for the FIDLab is now open until the 15th of February.  The FIDLab is an international platform for co-production support and was developed just last year to promote film works at any stage of development from any place in the world.

The second edition of the Lab will be held July 8th and 9th, 2010 during the 21st edition of FID Marseille (July 7 - 12), and they invite projects with no particular requirements in terms of format, length and subject matter--fiction, documentary, or something in between--making this a wide open opportunity.

They will choose 10 projects whose creators will get to meet with co-producers, distributors, production funding entities and other fund providers for post-production and finishing.  A visual presentation of all the chosen projects will be exhibited before an audience of industry professionals, along with an awards presentation.

Visit the website for more details and application documents.  You can also contact the FIDLab's director with any questions at fabiennemoris@fidmarseille.org.

The Big 10 for the Media That Matters Film Festival

The 10th Annual Media That Matters Film Festival just opened its call for entries with a deadline of January 22.  With community screenings throughout the world for one year and a constantly-streaming online festival of the films that are chosen by a jury to be part of the fest, it's a chance for work by young filmmakers to get some really great exposure.  In 2010, Arts Engine, the creator of the festival, will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of presenting this premiere showcase for "short films with big messages."  Your audience will consist of hundreds of thousands of educators, activists and nonprofit organizations and they, in turn, will use this collection of films for their own outreach work.  It's one of the most successful distribution scenarios out there and now is your chance to be a part of that.

Finished films should not have a longer running time than 12 minutes, with an ideal running time of between 8 and 10 minutes.  The array of issues is very broad and this year, they are focusing on media literacy, human rights, LGBTQ issues and sexual identity, youth activism and international affairs.  You can submit works of nonfiction, animation, a PSA, a fiction story (drama or comedy), a music video or any combination thereof--they are looking for creative and innovative messaging.  And, oh yeah, it should be entertaining, too.  Check the website for more details and the application form.  You can also watch collections from previous years.  Good luck!

Mother and Child Reunion

There is a Yiddish proverb that goes:  Little children disturb your sleep; big ones, your life. 

Last week, Jenna Rosher's nonfiction feature directorial début, Junior, took the Audience Award at the Sheffield Doc / Fest, its international premiere.  (It also won Best Feature Doc at this year's Woodstock Film Festival in New York last month, following its world premiere at SILVERDOCS.)

Junior profiles the complex and intertwined relationship of 75-year-old Eddie Belasco and his 98-year-old mother, Josephine.  Despite three failed marriages, and three lovely daughters, the alpha woman in "Junior's" life has always been "Ma," and Rosher deftly stitches together crackling and vibrant direct cinema scenes between the two of them, sweet archival family footage, and luminous glimpses of the larger world of the city of San Francisco where they reside, to create a nuanced and deeply moving look at this most primal of human connections.  (Pictured, Eddie standing proudly by Josephine's side as she receives her high-school diploma.)

If at first Junior appears to be some Grand Guignol-style Punch and Judy show with Junior and Ma barking at one another and sniping and fussing about, it soon turns into a story of two people connected by a decades-long bond helping one another find his or her way through illness, debility, and critical life (and death) decisions.  We watch as Eddie turns from a screaming goomba with a cutting tongue into a vulnerable and frightened man who is losing his sight, and a lost little boy who is about to lose his precious mother.  Josephine, like most people who make it to 98 years of age, is her own woman, taking shit from no one and living life on her own terms.  And she deals with her own mortality in much the same way.  Once Eddie expresses to her that he will be okay without her, she embarks on her own journey to meet her maker with him by her side.  Rosher's camera lingers  patiently and persistently as they gently and lovingly say goodbye after sharing a lifetime together.  Really beautiful stuff.

Belasco was Rosher's mother's first husband and she first met Eddie when she was nine years old.  At that time, he was a sharp-suited showman, promoting the all-girl topless rock band, the Ladybirds,  and raising havoc in Vegas with his polyester-suited, cigar-chomping cronies.  Twenty years later, Rosher finds him in the last couple of seasons of heading up a musical theater for children in San Francisco, aging quickly, going blind from complications caused by a woefully lax healthcare regime for his diabetes (he still drinks like a fish and doesn't eat right), but still full of piss and vinegar, viscerally angry at his own degenerating face and body, and looking into the maw of a potentially very lonely dotage.  Instead of a mother bringing him a piping-hot plate of freshly-cooked pasta and paper-thin veal cutlets, he's got a very pissed-off daughter shoving a candy bar into his mouth when he goes into diabetic shock during a rehearsal after a night of drinking.

Rosher, a long-time producer and cinematographer (Jesus Camp), has a keen eye for the telling detail and is adept at creating an intimacy with her subjects that provides a level of insight and understanding that makes this piece resonant and rich.  Her shooting mixed with Mark Binder's nuanced and layered sound design and Mark Wike's fantastic score, along with deft editing by Johnnie Spence, makes for a delightful, memorable and heartwarming story of a son's undying love for his mother.

Another prize-winner at Sheffield tells a story of yet another mother/son bond that just won't quit, even though from the beginning of the piece, the mother, Jolana Remová (the filmmaker's grandmother) expresses a bit of concern that at the age of 40-something, her son, Lubomír, still shows no signs of joining the real world, let alone considering doing anything remotely normal for a man his age like making a living or looking for a wife.  Miro Remo's 24-minute Arsy-Versy is an exceptionally accomplished (and hilarious) piece of work and walked away with the Wallflower Press Student Doc Award at Sheffield (among a very strong group of films.)  It also recently garnered a Special Jury Prize at Jihlava in Czech Republic this past month.

Remo is a student in the Film and Television program at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia and for this film he profiles a man who has decided to forgo the day-to-day world of meaningless work and robo-people that he finds so full of hypocrisy and banality, and decides to live in nature's world, flying away to a land "where only butterflies live."  What's so brilliant about Remo's style is that he also invites himself and his crew into Lubos' world and, together, they cinematically create this alternate universe with its upside-down point of view for the rest of us.  You can see a bit of it here.

Being the mother of an anarchist, no matter how mild and goofy, can be a trial, but Jolana perseveres in her hope that one day Lubos will normalize somehow and join the rest of us in our robo-world.  But it's not very likely, and she's more or less okay with that. 

I'll have more from Sheffield's great program in later posts.

Sheffield Awards

This morning at 10:30, fueled by sweet rolls and pastries, an audience gathered in one of the Showroom cinemas here in Sheffield to attend the awards ceremony that officially closes this edition of the Sheffield Doc/Fest. 

Once again, it was said, as it has been many times, that since taking over the running of this market, festival director Heather Croall has done an incredible job of putting Sheffield on the map as a highly important destination for media makers and media professionals.  Croall, in turn, celebrated the programming work of Hussain Currimbhoy, by saying that she heard from many jury members how appreciative they were to be able to judge such across-the-board inspiring and important work. 

Roger Graef hosted the ceremonies, assisted by the lovely AJ Schnack, where members of the juries presented the nominated films and the award-winners.  Halfway through, at 11:00 a.m., there was a two-minute silence to honor soldiers everywhere in observance of Remembrance Day.

The Sheffield Green Award honors the documentary from the program that best addresses major environmental challenges on our planet.  Nominees were The Blood of the Rose, The Cove, Earth Days, Haynesville, Petropolis, Shelter in Place, and A Time Comes.  The Blood of the Rose received the award.

The Wallflower Press Student Doc Award was given to the best student documentary made as part of course work from UK and other international universities.  I took the time to see most of these films (I make it a point to check out student work at any festival or film event) and everything I saw was exciting, exceedingly well-crafted, original storytelling.  Arsy-Versy, a 24 minute film from Slovakia directed by Miro Remo won the prize.  I absolutely adore this film.  It is imaginative, funny, and artfully told.  I was astounded at the proficiency and sophistication of the shooting.  The rest of the selections, particularly, Presidio Modelo, Time Within Time and Tsirk, were impressive.

The Sheffield Innovation Award, given to a film that exhibits originality in approach to form and radical manifestations in story delivery presented pieces ranging from art installations to solely web-residential work, running the gamut from video mapping in Palestine to the stunning and singular cinematic passion plays of Finnish filmmaker Jukka Kärkkäinen's The Living Room of the Nation.  An honorable mention was given to The Big Issue from France, and the award was given to LoopLoop from Canada.

The Sheffield Youth Jury Award is given to a film that engages a young audience judged by a jury consisting of young adults from 16 - 21.  In extremely eloquent fashion, they gave the award to Andrew Lang's gorgeous Sons of Cuba.  I did do a really wonderful interview with Andrew several months ago for the Shooting People site and it's gone missing, somehow, which we're both a bit puzzled by.  I hope it gets published somewhere soon.  Lang just won another well-deserved prize at the Rome International Fest in October, as well.  A theatrical distributor should grab this straight away.

The Special Jury Award, Sheffield's very first, honors a film that displays excellence in style, substance and approach.  The jury consisted of US filmmaker,  AJ Schnack, ITVS's Claire Aguilar (US), UK filmmaker, Kim Longinotto, UK filmmaker, Nick Broomfield, and US filmmaker, RJ Cutler.  The nominees were Horses, I'm Dangerous With Love, Junior, Men of the City, October Country, Petition, Until the Next Resurrection, and the prize-winner, Erik Gandini's Videocracy.

The Sheffield Doc/Fest Inspiration Award, again an inaugural honor here, celebrated the work of journalist, Adam Curtis, a man who has championed documentary (although he never really considered himself a documentary filmmaker until recently) and his decades-long contribution to groundbreaking television work.  A filmmaker who is embracing the digital future utilizing a multi-platform approach to projects, his latest is a collaboration with Punchdrunk called "It Felt Like A Kiss."  He gave a very short, but eloquent, speech on the muddy terrain between journalism and documentary filmmaking, and how the ascendancy of nonfiction storytellers is usurping a once robust, but now dangerously ineffectual, news media.

The Audience Award will be announced tomorrow, Monday the 9th.  I will, unfortunately, be in that disorienting twilight zone of all-day travel getting myself back to the States for an onslaught of work.  I'm looking forward to posting more about Sheffield--look for more impressions, film reviews and articles over the coming months. 

Finally, I'd like to express personal (big!) thanks to Charlie Phillips and Rachel Smith.

LOOT Has a Sneak-Peek at IFC Tomorrow

Darius Marder's award-winning début nonfiction feature has a one week run planned at the IFC Center starting November 20, but if you're fast on your feet, you can grab a ticket for tomorrow's sneak peek at 8:00 p.m. courtesy of Stranger Than Fiction.  Marder will be in the house for a Q&A and post-screening fest at MacDougall Street's own 99 Below, home to many a drunken doc lover.

Loot won the grand jury prize for best documentary feature at last year's Los Angeles Film Festival, a fine validation for a new artist on the scene--one this writer hopes will make many more films.  Marder's past incarnation as a chef served him well in making his first film, for Loot serves up a really complex and memorable (narrative) dish, resonant with ingredients and flavors that one recognizes, certainly--the eccentric characters, the quixotic quests, haunted pasts, and the serendipitous meeting of souls from different generations that resonate so strongly with one another that viewers intuit that an emotional crescendo of some import is likely.  But what Marder is really adept at capturing (along with his cinematographer, Anson Call) are the nuanced ways in which his subjects deal with shaky memory, denial of epic proportion and unbearable emotional pain, each helpless in the face of their guilt and remorse for what transpired in a time when they were young and brash WWII soldiers trying to do anything they could not to get killed.  And in finding themselves all in one piece at the end of a long and brutal time of it, they rewarded themselves with war booty. 

Darrel stole 20 pounds of jewels, hid them in the attic of an Austrian farmhouse and returned home to Utah. Andy looted Samurai swords and jewels, burying them in the Philippines before returning to Arizona. Sixty years later, infirm and facing the end of their lives, Lance Larson comes into the picture.  Larson is a Utah-based, Mormon used-car salesman, inventor, entrepreneur and second-generation treasure hunter; in two separate storylines, he offers to help them recover their long-ago buried treasures, despite the apparent apathy and ambivalence both men feel about going back to uncover, or re-cover, that part of their lives.  In the interim, the ferociously violent, inhuman memories of war rise to the surface and we slowly realize the toll that all of that inherent, irrevocable and life-altering damage has had on these men and what finding this elusive treasure will bring to the surface--a recapitulation of their lives, a true reckoning with their mortality and, above all, the confrontation of the wounded love they have for their lost sons, both victims of mortal drug addictions. 

It is a compelling, poignant and universally relevant moral fable that will surprise you and move you deeply.

MUHAMMAD AND LARRY Premieres on ESPN Tomorrow

Tune in tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 27, to the broadcast premiere of a new film by Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan on ESPN as part of the network's 30 for 30 series.  Muhammad and Larry combines never before seen footage from 1980 with newly-produced conversations with those who were at the famous fight between Ali and Holmes, including experts, luminaries, cornermen and trainers.

The documentary captures both champions at sparring matches and intimate moments at home in the days leading up to their match in October of 1980.  Check local listings for times on ESPN and ESPNHD.

REPORTER Plays at The Paley Center for Media and the Maysles Cinema

New Yorkers will have two opportunities to see Eric Daniel Metzgar's latest nonfiction film before it has its national broadcast on HBO in early 2010. (The Paley screening is, in fact, in association with HBO Documentary Films.)  This Friday, October 23, at 6:30 p.m. Metzgar will be appearing in person with producer Mikaela Beardsley, and author and film subject, New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, Nicholas Kristof, at the Paley Center in midtown as part of its annual DocFest. 

Director Metzgar profiles Kristof as he travels to Congo to turn a spotlight on one of the longest and most brutal of civil wars the continent has ever seen, a conflict that has claimed over 5.4 million lives over the last decade.  In attempting to profile the story in a human-scale way, Metzgar explores how news is disseminated these days and how our consciences can be mobilized (or not) by one person's story.  You can read what I wrote about the film here after seeing it at this year's True / False Fest, and you can read some of Metzgar's thoughts on the Paley website by clicking here.

Then on Saturday, the 24th, up in Harlem, the film will screen at the Cinema at the Maysles Institute at 7:30 p.m. preceded by WITNESS' A Duty to Protect as the cinema continues their "Congo in Harlem" series.  Metzgar will be joined by Mohamed Keita of the Committee to Protect Journalists, journalist, Makeda Crane, Sasha Lezhnev of the ENOUGH Project (they are co-presenting the screening), and Bukeni Waruzi of WITNESS (the other co-presenter).  There will be a series' closing night reception featuring music by Deja Bella.

I hosted a panel yesterday at the Royal Flush Festival ("Skullie" Awards tonight!) in the East Village with Metzgar, Laura Poitras, Ross Kauffman and Andrew Berends.  It was a really fabulous talk and because my fellow juror, Ingrid Kopp of Shooting People, is such a mega-rock star, she recorded it in its entirety, so we'll be able to share the audio file with you soon, both here on SIM and on her own splendid blog, From the Hip.  Don't miss this chance to see Reporter on the big screen and hear the eloquent Metzgar speak of his experiences making it.

Union Docs Rocks This Weekend: Deborah Stratman, Mamadou Niang, and More

This weekend, UnionDocs in W'burg, Brooklyn, will present two great programs.  On Saturday the 17th, guest curator, Rachael Rakes of Doctruck, will bring three wonderful pieces on contemporary China: the marginalized Turkic-Muslim community of Ughyurs in Deborah Stratman's Kings of the Sky from 2004, Sam Green's haunting short film, Utopia: Part 3, The World's Largest Shopping Mall (2009), and Yin-Ju Chen and James T. Hong's 11-minute, Dogs of Straw (still from film, pictured), a profile of the streets of Taiwan right before the 2008 elections.  Great filmmakers, great films!  Special guests will be on hand; the screening will begin at 7:30 p.m. 

On Sunday the 18th also at 7:30, UnionDocs is partnering with the African Film Festival New York to bring in documentary filmmaker, Mamadou Niang to present a short work-in-progress cut of his new piece on Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema.  Following this, the multiple award-winning Pray the Devil Back to Hell will play.  Devil presents the story of the powerful struggle of a group of Liberian women who band together to end a violent and long-standing civil war in their country.  Their methods of peacemaking are a sight to behold.  After the screening, I will moderate a conversation with the film's producer, Johanna Hamilton, and its cinematographer, Kirsten Johnson. 

It's supposed to rain for the next several days, so it's the perfect weekend to get your ass to a movie.  Come join us!

Call for Submissions: 2010 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund

You have until January 11, but since holiday season is fast upon us (yikes!), and the deadline is just after the new year, a reminder that the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund is seeking feature-length documentaries that are in production or post-production with the intention of a premiere exhibition in 2010.

Eligible films should concentrate on people and populations who are ignored, ostracized, or otherwise marginalized and people fighting for social or political change.  They are looking for films that also highlight broad social movements.  Film works should focus on stories that challenge the status quo while pushing the form of nonfiction storytelling--in other words, a theatrical-ready movie.  Click here to take a look at the '08 and '09 list of films the GTDF has funded, more info on rules and regs and the application form.  Submissions should be postmarked no later than 01/11/10.

We've Drunk the Kool-Aid: The CIFF Experience

Following hot on the heels of AJ Schnack's laudatory post about the Camden International Film Festival today, I'll weigh into the mix, too.  Thom Powers introduced me to festival founder, Ben Fowlie, and festival producer, Leah Hurley, this past spring when they came to New York to co-host a screening of Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly's crowd-pleasing and deeply moving documentary, The Way We Get By, with Stranger Than Fiction and P.O.V. 

This film had been a work-in-progress screening at last year's CIFF.  Realizing that they had the burgeoning programming chops and the potential to nurture important films such as this one, Fowlie and Hurley were intent on upping the ante a bit and really putting their small, regional nonfiction festival on the map as a circuit destination.  I heard from many local supporters during the fest this year that, indeed, they were well on their way to doing just that; it was a thrilling event for the whole community to have access to a such a powerful slate of films.  Man, the people are friendly there!  (Pictured, still of downtown Camden from the film Peyton Place, shot on location there in 1957.)

For the first time this year, they had juried competitions with cash prizes, starting with a best feature category and an emerging vision category.  Next year, they will also include an Audience Award, a truly meaningful prize to any filmmaker.  Fowlie and Hurley also brought on producer, Dominic Musacchio, to help put on the inaugural Points North forum, bringing a few select industry guests and independent filmmakers together to talk about the current state of things.  It was informal and it was real and it was pertinent.  But more than that, it was fun.  I'm one of those who think the panel presentation format should be put out to pasture.  I have come to loathe the words "paradigm shift" and other phrases of that ilk that have nothing to do with a filmmaker's daily existence.  There was an engaged, smart local audience and we let them into the conversation.

So this year CIFF caught fire and I'm so glad I got to be a part of that.  It's exciting to have another domestic nonfiction fest in such a beautiful spot, run by such talented people.  I call "the princess room" at The Inn at Camden Place.  The ducks and swans are awaiting my return next year.

Icarus Films Acquires Fanlight Productions

In major distribution news, Jonathan Miller sends word today that his company, Icarus Films, has acquired the 28-year-old educational distributor, Fanlight Productions, and its collection of 350 award-winning films and DVDs on health, mental health, aging and disability issues.  Fanlight is one of the leading distributors of independent documentary films on these issues in North America. 

Miller's plan is to maintain Fanlight as a free-standing label, but most of their titles will be integrated into the Icarus Films collection.  You can visit the Icarus site to see the first fourteen titles, listed under New Releases, by clicking here.

CIFF '09 Jury Selections

At the '09 Camden International Film Festival award ceremonies this evening at the beautiful Camden Opera House (which preceded the closing night film, Robert Stone's Earth Days), the recipients of the Harrell Award for Best Documentary Feature and the CIFF Award for Emerging Cinematic Vision were announced, with prizes of $1,000 each.  The CIFF Award winner also receives a free course at the Maine Media Workshops. 

The Harrell Award went to Jean-Pierre Duret and Andrea Santana's Because We Were Born (Puisque Nous Sommes Nés).  Camden was the French-Brazilian film's US premiere and it's about to launch its theatrical run in France in a few days.  Here's what I and fellow jurors, Ryan Harrington and Dana Rae Warren, had to say about Duret and Santana's exquisite work:  "The jury gives Jean-Pierre Duret and Andrea Santana's Because We Were Born the Harrell Award for Best Documentary Feature for its excellence in cinematic craft and for its rigorously pure vérité aesthetic.  The filmmakers have created a work that challenges the viewer on many levels.  Told with a quiet intensity and deep love and respect for their subjects, in our opinion, this piece represents the best of what nonfiction cinema has to offer." 

The CIFF Award went to Patrick Shen's The Philosopher Kings, a journey through the corridors of the most prestigious colleges and universities in America to learn profound life lessons from the custodians that clean and maintain these hallowed halls of academe.  You can watch the trailer here.

I will have much more from CIFF in the coming days, along with several film reviews from the outstanding program.  Congratulations to Ben Fowlie, Leah Hurley, Dominic Musacchio and the entire festival team for putting on a really magical event.  We were duly impressed and look forward to visiting again in the years to come. 

OCTOBER COUNTRY at Stranger Than Fiction

Still deep into this jewel of a festival called Camden International in Maine and will be writing more in the days to come, but wanted to mention that Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri's award-winning film will be screening at a special Stranger Than Fiction evening on Monday night, the 5th. 

Palmieri and Mosher will be there for a Q&A and drinks gathering in the West Village afterward .  Do not miss this opportunity to see one of the best films of the year.

Doxita Season II at IFC Center Tonight

Programmer extraordinaire, Karen Cirillo, is bringing her little bag of tricks to the IFC Center tonight at 8:00 p.m.  Doxita, Cirillo's traveling shorts program, is in its second season and the films she's showcasing tonight are little-gem discoveries she's culled over the years at festivals and in her other circumambulations around the globe, making her a long-time member of the Poverty Jet Set.  (Is that in the dictionary yet, Mark?)

Tonight, she brings to New York audiences a fine program of short documentaries called All In A Day's Work.  (Cirillo's criteria for a film to qualify as a short is a running time of under 40 minutes.)  The featured films are China's Wild West, Urszula Pontikos, Breadmakers, Yasmin Fedda, Wood (film still, pictured), David Fenster, Shika Shika, Stephen Hyde, and The Tailor, Oscar Perez.  They are all high recommends in my book.  The show's from 8:00 - 10:00 and tickets are $12.50; $8.50 for seniors.

It's Independent Film Week Time Again

Hard to believe, but IFP's Independent Film Week conference has rolled around again.  Beginning next Saturday, September 19th and going through Thursday the 24th, emerging and seasoned filmmakers, indie producers, programmers, funders and other various and sundry creative folk will come together to take a look-back gander at this past year and a look forward to what the future holds in store for us all in dozens of panels, meetings and networking events.  Running concurrently, will be the 31st Annual Project Forum where narrative and nonfiction filmmakers will get to showcase their works-in-progress.

IFP is expanding its strategic relationship with the Sundance Institute, and has formed a new partnership with B-Side.  The Good Pitch, produced by Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, will also stage its unique forum, bringing together makers of social-purpose film projects with a group of participants from various charities, foundations, and government and media entities interested in forming alliances for their causes around feature documentary productions.

It's a pretty key spot to be, especially for US filmmakers, since it's the oldest and largest forum in this country, the best opportunity for filmmakers to connect with industry professionals.  It's also the only domestic forum where the focus is on connecting projects still in development with financing and sales opportunities.  Saturday and Sunday's focus will be on Making Your First Feature; Monday's theme will be Filmmaking 2.0 (we're evolving!); Tuesday's panels and workshops will explore the Global Marketplace; and Wednesday will uncover The Truth About Nonfiction.  For a full list of all 116 projects chosen to participate in the Forum--Emerging Narratives, No Borders International Co-production Market, and Spotlight on Documentaries--visit the IFP site. 

I also want to give a mention to two free screenings that will happen on opening weekend co-hosted by the IFP and Rooftop Films.  Rooftop just finished up their '09 summer series last night with a wonderful program of nonfiction shorts celebrating the borough of Brooklyn--all under clear skies, a minor miracle.  Saturday night, the documentary Burning in the Sun will world-premiere on the pier at Solar One, and on Sunday, they will present the IFP Independent Filmmaker Labs Sneak Preview Showcase at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park.  For more info on these screenings, visit the Rooftop site.

Once again, I will be reporting on-site throughout the week on the FILMMAKER Magazine blog and then look for my wrap-up piece on the whole shebang in the magazine's next issue.

Where Can I See CITY OF CRANES?

Several readers responding to an old post have asked me where they can watch Eva Weber's award-winning short film, City of Cranes.  You can still watch it on the P.O.V. site here.  You can also visit Odd Girl Out's website and see where her films are currently playing and/or order them online.  Click here for more info.  She's based in the UK, so if you're having problems finding where else the films might be distributed, drop them a line and they can direct you to your local distributor.

Teen Angst: A Style War

With the recent tragic passing of filmmaker John Hughes (dubbed the "bard of teen angst" in one obit headline), I thought this an optimum time to write about a film I saw at SILVERDOCS back in June.  I haven't quite figured out why this is so, but certain films, like this one, that affect me very deeply and profoundly with their beauty and truth--well, it takes me forever and a day to write about them.  While one part of me wants to shout to the skies and tell everyone and their mom about it, another part wants to savor it privately, clandestinely, like a delicious secret.

But then, seemingly, everything else I see and read and take in makes the experience resonate even more and, eventually, helps me to form coherent thoughts about why this small nonfiction piece called Let's Be Together by Danish filmmaker (the Danes!!) Nanna Frank Møller, thrilled me so much.  Maybe it's my own particular version of a film reviewer's angst, I guess, since I don't believe in the excuse of writer's block--much.

Clinically speaking, angst can be a kind of free-floating anxiety, often accompanied by depression or a profound disorientation in the face of a meaningless existence.  Our teen years are rife with that kind of stuff--at least mine were.  Instead of waking up as a cockroach one morning, 14-year-old Hairon, the main subject of Møller's fine film, seems to be morphing into a being entirely of his own making--not fully boy, not fully girl, not fully child, not fully adult, not fully Brazilian, not fully Danish, and entirely uncertain about how he wants to present himself to the world.  The only thing he's certain of is his searing need for 250 euro Dior sunglasses and Baby Phat mules with rhinestones.  Typical teenager. 

The biggest problem for the family that loves and cherishes and accepts this capricious cross-dressing creature, of course, is that he is well on his way to being a target of sadistic bullies and perpetrators of hate crimes, people who would take one look at him and lash-out mostly out of sheer terror that another human being is wearing his insides on the outside--outrageous and unacceptable, meant to be destroyed, my god, it might be catching! 

These three parents--his mother, Creuzina Gomes Jensen, his birth father, Marchello Pretti, and stepfather, Jimmy Jensen--adore this boy and want the best life possible for him.  They are also afraid for him, and so do the best they can to go about waking him up a bit to what the real world might have in store for someone like him, despite his crabby, bratty protestations that he can do what he wants and they can all sod off.  Typical teenager.

Hairon is a soon-to-be 15-year-old Brazilian boy who has lived most of his life in Denmark in a small provincial town with his Brazilian mother and Danish stepfather.  But it is only to his birth father, Marchello, whom he goes to visit in Brazil after not seeing him for several years, that he can say, "Now that I've started this, I don't know where to draw the line.  Or when to stop.  I'll have to learn."  And it is Marchello who becomes his teacher and mentor in the ways one can gracefully navigate between inner and outer lives.  For it is Marchello who knows better than most what it is to live a dual existence; for almost his entire life, he is someone who has had to traverse the dicey territory between being true to himself and protecting himself from those who would destroy him if they knew the truth.  It is a harsh, but honest, lesson in self-preservation, rendered in the most gentle and loving way a parent can teach a child something they'd prefer that child never had to face.

I am reticent and slow to reveal all the fascinating layers this film has in store because I think I'm simply trying to mirror the tantalizing and patient way that Møller reveals the details of this family story.  With refined camera work and infinite patience that pays off big, with not one whit of exposition, narration, explanation--not a peep--she gazes from behind her lens and waits for the riches she knows she will be able to mine with her subjects.  It is such a rewarding, exhilarating viewing experience, and sadly, so damn rare in this verbose, tele-crap, play-to-the-dumbest-guy-in-the-room, world.  If you're a human being, you get what's going on.  And I like it when filmmakers make films for human beings.

Western culture seems to be having a problem holding on to the propensity for affinity and empathy for our fellow selves, inner, outer and other.  We are so busy imposing structure and common identity, defining that identity out of some misconstrued imperative for a common experience.  (We're more label-crazy than the worst fashionista.)  Møller's subjects show us beautifully that the parent-child relationship can hold phenomenal empathic qualities, an uncanny ability to see inside the person your child is, to see how they see the world and help them articulate how they see the world, to "be together."  It can give the most confused, bereft being hope that they can navigate successfully in a world that is far from welcoming to difference or diversity.  Here is a parent who has lived through much personal pain and his own angst and come out the other side intact enough to give his own child faith in himself, the belief that there are possibilities in his life.  Hairon knows how hard life is--of course he already knows that, all of us do by the time we're five.  The kid needs hope.  In her film, Møller captures Hairon's understanding and discovery of the fragile nature of human identity.  However spoiled and silly and narcissistic and temper-tantrum-y he gets, he's searching desperately for his true self and I admire him greatly for that.  And, ultimately, so does his family.

In his interview with Mary Zournazi in her wonderful book, Hope: New Philosophies for Change (2003, Routledge), Greek/Australian writer, Christos Tsiolkas, says, "One of the tasks of anyone who finds themselves writing or producing film or ideas in our culture at the moment is to describe exactly, as best as we can, what alienation is and to give it a voice, and then turn it into the idea of hope and faith--that is, how to go beyond those experiences of alienation."  The shared commitment and the shared responsibility of every member of Hairon's family ensure that this will be a nurtured human being, someone who will be able to truly believe the words in the song that runs over the final credits as he and Marchello dance together ecstatically under a summer sky:  No beauty is greater than the one we're born with.

142 Iranian Filmmakers Boycott the Cinéma Vérité Festival in Tehran

Shortly before its third iteration, one of Iran's most talented and prolific filmmakers, Mehrdad Oskouei, writes from Iran about a boycott of 142 documentary filmmakers against the Cinéma Vérité International Documentary Film Festival that has taken place in Tehran for the last two years.  This follows closely upon the heels of International Festival Director Massoud Bahkshi's resignation from the nascent festival. 

The Cinéma Vérité festival is the only film event devoted exclusively to documentaries in Iran, its third edition due to be held this October.  In the last two years, the festival has been able to establish itself in the world with the help of both the Iranian and international documentary communities.  I was privileged to be a guest at last year's fest, an impressive event that screened close to 300 films.  The 142 artists (listed below) are asking members of the international community to join and support their boycott.  Here, verbatim, is the letter that Oskouei sent:

Documentary filmmakers in Iran have recorded valuable traces of realities about the contemporary Iranian society in the last century.

This cinema has been able to overcome many obstacles throughout the years. During the times of the revolutions, wars and conflicts and also in the last two decades, Iranian documentaries gave us treasures of social and historical documentations of life in Iran.

Cinéma Vérité is an important festival and has managed in its previous 2 years, to invoke an atmosphere of debate and reflection, which is essential to documentary filmmaking.

Unfortunately, extreme restrictions that have recently been placed on documentary filmmakers, in capturing what is occurring in our turbulent society, are unprecedented.

We can see so many films that potentially could have been made these days, but we are not allowed to make them.  Therefore, due to our commitment and respect for the truth and the reality, we have come to the decision to not take part in the forthcoming festival, either as documentary filmmakers, critics or viewers.

Signatures (142):

Mohsen Abdolvahab - Sepideh Abtahi - Farhang Adamiyat - Mahnaz Afzali – Amir Aghababaiean - Abbas Amini - Hiva Aminnezhad - Mohsen Amiryousfi - Mansoureh Arbabi - Mehdi Asadi - Mehrnaz Asadi - Ehsan Asgharzadeh - Majid Asheghi - Ashkan Ashkani - Houshang Azadivar - Bahram Azimpour - Mostafa Azizi - Milad Bahar - Amir Bahari - Mehdi Bagheri - Reza Bahraminezhad - Hasan Bahramzadeh - Rakhshan Banietemad - Misagh Banimahd – Habib Bavi Sajed - Ali Dadras - Reza Dorostkar - Esmaeil Emami - Homayoun Emami - Farshad Fadaieyan - Farshid Faraji - Mohammad Reza Fartosi - Kourosh Farzanegan - Bayram Fazli - Farshad Fereshteh Hekmat - Mehdi Ganji - Amin Ghadami - Mohsen Ghaderi - Rokhsare Ghaem Maghami - Alireza Ghasemkhan - Mehdi Ghorbanpour - Reza Haeri - Maryam Haghpanah - Khatreh Hanachi - Sirous Hesari - Amirhosein Hojat - Mahboubeh Honarian - Elham Hosinzadeh - jila Ipakchi - Hamid Jafari - Mehdi Jafari - Mohammad Jafari – Parviz Jahed - Farnaz Jamshidi moghadam - Ali Kalantari - Pirooz Kalantari - Mitra Karagah - Mehdi Karampour - Behfar Karimi - Mahmoud Karimi - Mahmoud Kazemi - Mina Keshavarz – Loghman Khaledi - Majid Khaleghi Soroush - Mostafa Kherghepoush - Banafshe Khoshnoudi – Firouzeh Khosravani - Keyvan Kiani - Bahman Kiarostami - Parviz Kimiavi - Mehdi Koohiyan - Ramtin Lavafipour - Ali Loghmani - Arastoo Madahi Givi - Mitra Mansouri - Anoushirvan Masoudi - Azar Mehrabi - Farhad Mehranfar - Makan Mehrpouya - Ahmad Mirehsan  - Mojtaba Mirtahmasb - Lida Moeini - Mahnaz Mohammadi - Ala Mohseni - Soudabeh Mojaveri - Ebrahim Mokhtari - Esmaeil Monsef - Mohammad Reza Moghadasian - Mahmoud Moghadas Jafari  - Majid Movaseghi - Soudabeh Moradian  - Soudabeh Mortazaie - Saeed Naderi - Nasim Najafi - Javad Najmedin - Mohammad Nami - Parivash Nazariyeh  - Majed Neysi - Mehrdad Oskoui - Mohsen Ostadali Makhmalbaf - Mehdi Parizad - Vahid Parsa - Maani Petgar - Morteza Poursamadi - Arash Raeisian - Mahmoud Rahmani - Mohamad Rasoulof - Shadmehr Rastin - Mohammad Razdasht - Nahid Rezaie - Panahbarkhoda Rezaie - Fariba Rostami - Ebrahim Saeedi - Naser Safarian - Babak Salek - Saman Salour - Amirhosein Sanaie - Ahmadreza Sedghi Vaziri - Katayoun Shahabi - Pouyan Shahrokhi -  Vahid Sheiykhlar - Mahvash Sheiykholeslami - Kamran Shirdel - Mohammad Shirvani – Ahmad Soleymani – Behrouz Soleymani - Abdolkhalegh Taheri - Ahmad Talebinezhad - Saeed Tarazi - Javad Tavana - Shahrouz Tavakol - Reza Teymori - Farzad Tohidi - Yasaman Tourang - Farhad Varahram - Ahmad Zahedi - Mehrdad Zahedian - Orod Zand - Mona Zandi - Hamid Zargarnezhad - Mohsen Zarifipour - Mehran Zinatbakhsh.

 

Newfest Comes to BAM

The last weekend of August, 29th and 30th, will bring a special program to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, courtesy of Newfest.  The LGBT festival, which made a splash in June at the new SVA Theatre in Chelsea, is bringing its "best of the fest" selection to the BK as part of this summer's BAMcinématek series. 

Films will include the Johnny Weir crowd-pleaser, Pop Star on Ice (I know several people that are absolutely obsessed with this film), to another John Hurt-inspired tour-de-force performance reprising his portrayal of Quentin Crisp in An Englishman in New York.  There will also be top festival award-winners and a fantastic shorts program.  Don't miss Kimberly Reed's Prodigal Sons (which took the prize for Best Feature Documentary), playing at 6:50 p.m. on Sunday evening the 30th.  It's your chance to catch it before its imminent theatrical launch. 

Click here to preview the entire Newfest@BAM program and to purchase advance tickets.

PaleyDocFest Annual Pitch Panel

Call for entries is now open for the '09 PaleyDocFest pitch workshop / competition in New York.  Five preselected emerging nonfiction filmmakers will get to pitch their story ideas to a panel of top documentary producers.  They, in turn, will give feedback on not only the concept, but the presentation, as well.  How you present and pitch your idea is just as important to commissioning editors and other funders as the idea itself, so even if you don't get a shot at one of the five slots, you should attend this pitch session (actually, as many as you can) and watch, listen and learn.  It's nerve-wracking and scary but mastering the pitch is a key component to successfully getting your project funded in this very competitive (and flooded) marketplace.  There is an art to it. 

The panel this year will be Rick Allen, CEO, SnagFilms, Diana Holtzberg, VP-US Operations Acquisitions, Films Transit International, Charlie Maday, Senior VP of Programming for The History Channel, Molly Thompson, Programming Director for A&E IndieFilms, and an executive from PBS' P.O.V. series.  This is an amazing opportunity to pitch in front of people of this caliber.

The best pitch will win a $5,000 grant, sponsored by SnagFilms, the Paley Center for Media's online distribution collaborator.  The grant money is to be used toward the completion of the pitched film.  The entry deadline is September 25th and the workshop will take place on Saturday, October 17th.  Visit the Paley's site for more information, official entry rules and the entry form and submission agreement.

Happy 30th Birthday to First Run Features

Since 1979, First Run Features has built an amazing catalog by working with some of the world's greatest filmmakers to bring groundbreaking and provocative cinema to the masses.  As part of the celebration of this significant anniversary, FRF is putting thirty of their classics on sale for 30% off through the end of the month.  Titles include Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg's Before Stonewall, Anthony Giaccchino's The Camden 28, Daniel G. Karslake's For the Bible Tells Me So, Weijun Chen's Please Vote For Me, and Ross McElwee's Sherman's March, among others.  Click here to see the rest of the titles on sale. 

Founded by a group of filmmakers, led by the late Fran Spielman, to advance the distribution of independent film, First Run quickly gained a reputation for its controversial catalog of daring fiction and nonfiction titles and, today, remains one of the largest independent theatrical and home video distributors in the US, releasing twelve to fifteen films annually in theaters nationwide and between forty and fifty DVDs per year.  They have also formed a non-theatrical division that sells directly to the educational market.  If you're a filmmaker lucky enough to have a film picked up by FRF, you are surely in good (and experienced) hands and you will join the ranks of such auteurs as Spike Lee, Michael Apted, Sven Nykvist, Jane Campion, Michael Winterbottom, Barbara Kopple, Peter Jackson, Lizzie Borden, Claude Chabrol, Claire Denis, Victor Nunez, The Brothers Quay and Satyajit Ray.  Not too shabby a group.

Another component of the anniversary celebration will bring "Keeping the Independent Flame: Thirty Years of First Run Features" at the Film Society of Lincoln Center from August 26 through September 4, a specially curated tribute to FRF and its founder, Seymour Wishman, with special guest appearances throughout the run.  Visit the Film Society's site to see the entire program and to purchase advance tickets. 

Here's to at least thirty more years.  Salut!

CARNIVALESQUE Distributes Raw and Inspiring Cinema

For its ’09 – ’10 release slate, new distribution company, Carnivalesque Films, announces the availability of ten great modern classics, representing some of the most outstanding and distinctive independent narrative and nonfiction films made in the recent past. The collection brings together stories united by a "raw, startling sensibility of disruption and celebration, where excess and transgression percolate in everyday life."  This small independent start-up created by filmmakers, David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, curates stories "united by the raw and startling sensibilities of transgression, spectacle, and variations of truth and falseness.  Named for Carnival, a celebration where societal norms are turned on their heads and excess and transgression rule the day, Carnivalesque Films seeks to disrupt a viewer’s most cherished beliefs in unexpected ways.  . . . In real life, people behave irrationally, succumbing to madness or self-destruction in pursuit of dreams and desires. Carnivalesque Films acknowledges these dreams and desires by exploring them as literature from the characters’ points of view."

These seven titles are currently available on DVD:

*  Mardi Gras: Made in China directed by David Redmon.  Winner of twenty-one national and international awards, this multi-layered documentary follows the path of Mardi Gras beads from the streets of New Orleans during Carnival—where revelers party and exchange beads for nudity—to the disciplined factories in Fuzhou, China where teenaged girls live and sew beads together all day and night.  Blending curiosity with comedy, director Redmon explores how the toxic products directly affect the people who both make and consume them. The Los Angeles Times says Mardi Gras: Made in China “cleverly juxtaposes the apex of American bacchanalian excess with the sweatshop-like conditions that facilitate the fun.”  Stuart Klawans of The Nation says, “This is one of the best films I know about real (as opposed to op-ed) globalization.  Please welcome it.”  You can read my review from this blog by clicking here.

*  Orphans by Ry Russo-Young.  Winner of a Special Jury Award at the SXSW Film Festival, Russo-Young’s eloquent feature début tells the story of two estranged sisters who reunite five years after the death of their parents at the isolated farmhouse where they spent childhood summers and holidays.  As the two revisit their past and catch up on their present, tensions flare, threatening to end what’s left of a family already ravaged by death, jealousy, and secrets.  Andrew O’Heir of Salon.com says that, “Orphans is a striking first film that simultaneously summons the spirit of Bergman’s Cries and Whispers and Brian De Palma’s Sisters. Scott Macaulay, editor of FILMMAKER Magazine as a member of the SXSW jury praised it for its “personally crafted visual aesthetic.”

*  The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose by Sam Douglas and Paul Lovelace.  From their origins in New York’s Greenwich Village folk scene and their involvement in the Easy Rider soundtrack, to the lost years of constant drugging, endless touring and a final shot at redemption, Douglas and Lovelace’s film recounts the unique forty-year history of these true American originals.  With startling intimacy, the film also documents the band’s arduous, amusing, and sometimes heartbreaking struggle to capitalize on their recent resurgence in popularity, culminating in an unpredictable 40th anniversary concert in Portland, Oregon.  The New York Times calls it “rollicking and poignant,” and filmmaker, Bruce Sinofsky, co-director of such nonfiction classics as Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, says, “Bound to Lose is a hidden treasure!  A surprisingly moving and funny look at a dysfunctional musical family.  You can’t take your eyes off it.”

*  Manhattan, Kansas by Tara Wray.  For her filmmaking début, Tara Wray travels to rural Kansas in an attempt to reconnect with her mother, Evie, for the first time since Evie’s psychotic breakdown five years earlier.  She finds a parent still chasing her demons, both real and imagined, struggling to make a career for herself as an abstract artist and searching for the “Geodetic Center of the United States,” the finding of which will bring about world peace.  When Tara decides to aid her mother’s search, it sets into motion a surprising chain of events.  The Film Society of Lincoln Center says of this SXSW Audience Award winner: “Emotionally blunt and affecting, . . . acknowledging that love abides, even when forgiveness is not always easy or possible.”  Marrit Ingman of the Austin Chronicle says that Wray’s film is “everything a personal documentary should be.”

*  Invisible Girlfriend by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin.  Charles goes in search of his love, Joan of Arc, the invisible girlfriend of the title of this story of a 400-mile journey on a big red bicycle from rural Monroe, Louisiana to the Big Easy.  Along the way, he encounters a farmer, a witch, a tin man, and an ex-soldier who honors the dead.  This hybrid piece, which Michael Tully of Hammer to Nail calls a film “that transcends the realms of fiction and non-fiction to reach a new state of truth,” won the Ron Tibbett Award for Excellence in Film at the Magnolia Film Festival and garnered rave reviews from the likes of Joe Leydon of Variety—“a textbook example of what can result when savvy documentarians fortuitously connect (or, in this case, reconnect) with an interesting subject at precisely the right moment;” and Ty Burr of The Boston Globe—“A surprising and profoundly compassionate road trip about an America struggling to get back on its feet, . . . filmmakers Sabin and Redmon work at the intersection of Flannery O’Connor Avenue and Werner Herzog Boulevard.”

*  Kamp Katrina by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin.  Kamp Katrina is a multiple award-winning cinéma vérité jewel.  Shot shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated wide swaths of the American South, Redmon and Sabin document a small group of people who have taken refuge in a garden transformed into a tent city by an extraordinary New Orleans couple, Ms. Pearl and her husband, David.  Winner of a SXSW Emerging Voices award, a Special Jury Prize from the Independent Film Festival in Boston, Best Documentary at the Magnolia Film Festival, a Special Jury Award at the Nashville Film Festival, a special screening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, top of Booklist’s Best of Editors’ Choice and a selection of the Southern Film Circuit, Kamp Katrina, in the words of New York Magazine, “captures (beautifully and unflinchingly) a harrowing breakdown of social order.  The result is a slight little film with a remarkable generosity of spirit.”  Matt Zoller Seitz of the New York Times:  “The movie is a portrait of New Orleans after the flood, a debris-strewn ghost town where human kindness is overflowing.”

*  Intimidad by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin.  “Romance is where Intimidad soars, turning it into a documentary fairytale of truly humbling proportions,” says Michael Tully of Hammer to Nail. Intimidad is an original Mexican love story about family relationships and the meaning of home.  Cecy and Camilo, both 21 years old, have recently moved to the border in Reynosa, Mexico from Santa Maria, Puebla with a dream of saving money to build a home on the land that they’ve purchased.  One year later, they return to their hometown to reunite with their two-year-old daughter, Loida (pictured).  Shot by Redmon and Sabin and Cecy and Camilo, the film documents their lives over the course of five years mixing digital vérité with Super 8 and 16mm film.  The piece played as part of “The Contenders” series at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, won Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Latino Film Festival, Best Documentary at the Sidewalk Film Festival, Best International Film at the Connecticut Film Festival, the Human Rights Award at the River Run Film Festival and the Ron Tibbet Award for Excellence in Film at the Magnolia Film Festival.

Soon to be released this summer and fall will be Redmon and Sabin’s Darlings, Alex Karpovsky’s Woodpecker and Tom Quinn’s The New Year Parade, as well as other yet-to-be-announced films.  You can watch trailers and purchase DVDs for both home and educational/institutional use on the Carnivalesque site and titles can also be purchased on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, BestBuy.com, Borders.com, Netflix.com and Blockbuster.com.

Independent Lens Unveils Its 2009-2010 Season

If you click over to the ITVS Beyond the Box Blog, you can read all about the exciting and diverse selection of documentaries that PBS' Independent Lens series has on offer for its new season which starts on Tuesday, October 13. 

Some of my faves from this past festival and theatrical season include Mai Iskander's directorial début, Garbage Dreams (also currently qualifying for Oscar consideration as part of IDA's Docuweeks); Michel Orion Scott's The Horse Boy (formerly called Over the Hills and Far Away); Steven Walker's box office hit Young@Heart; Gabriel Noble's P-Star Rising; and Senain Kheshgi and Geeta V. Patel's Project Kashmir.

You can also visit the Independent Lens website for more info.