Still in Motion

Global Watch 2007: Doc Series at JBFC

For most of the month of November (1 - 21), the Jacob Burns Film Center in Westchester County (NY) brings its Global Watch 2007: Crisis, Culture and Human Rights documentary festival to its beautiful theater in downtown Pleasantville.  I've seen many a first-run doc there, usually followed by an enthusiastic filmmaker Q&A or discussion.  Lot of movie folk around these parts.

This program includes some of the year's hottest docs, such as Nanking, War/Dance, 9 Star Hotel, Meeting Resistance, Banished and Taxi to the Darkside--most fresh off the festival circuit and/or currently in theatrical release for Oscar shortlisting and qualification.  Filmmaker, Jason Kohn, will be there with his operatic and hypnotic Manda Bala, one of the strongest, most imaginative nonfiction films I've seen in recent memory.  And, Mr. Kohn, can be mighty entertaining, too.

Interestingly, they've chosen the same opening nighter as this past year's Silverdocs, the story of celebrated local boy Pete Seeger.  Here's the rest of the program, films, times, dates and special guest appearances.  If you're in that neck of the woods this month, buy a ticket to a show there--you won't be disappointed.

In fact, you New Yorkers can make a weekend of it--take the train up Friday afternoon out of Grand Central, check in to a charming local B&B, buy some movie tickets, eat at one of the many lovely local eateries (you might even spot Bill and Hil) and make your own damn festival.  It'll be like Woodstock without all the tie-dye and slow service.

Stone's Throw

I've been meaning to write about Robert Stone's Oswald's Ghost, the last doc I caught at Woodstock.  And I'm excited to report that I will soon have an interview here with director, Cynthia Wade .  Her latest film is extraordinary and it's had itself quite a journey this year.

Stone's searing documentary not only relives the post-Kennedy assassination state of our country, but the whys and wherefores of who Lee Harvey Oswald was as a man, and as a citizen, and the way in which his legacy haunts us still.  I watched this in a theater with people, by the looks of the crowd, who remembered that moment viscerally.

In fact, perhaps we can say that we have, in this country, those of the population that were alive to witness that event, and cognizant of what it meant, to those of us who were wee ones or not even born, and don't think of it necessarily, as "modern" politics.  But it very much is.  That was the first inkling we had, oh poor little lambs, that we might be in big trouble because we elected what amounted to a bunch of serial killers to the White House.  And, as we've also seen in the role our CIA has played, killing can happen emotionally, mentally--you don't just see the corpses lying on the ground, they're walking amongst us.

At the Q&A afterwards, Stone held court and used a call-and-response method to get people to think for themselves.  Challenges, questions, queries were made, certainly.  But more than that, the audience members wanted to be heard, as one by one, each told their story, the personal one about their theories on the Kennedy assassination.  Just as the participants in Stone's film, each wanted to hold forth on their own views of our country.  Stone would just breach these in his acerbic way: "And did you have a question?"  (So  much to say, so few people to listen to your sorry ass.)

Stone talked about the major influence Oliver Stone's JFK had on his narrative arc and a method-to-the-madness way of handling so many,  seemingly, conflicting versions of what exactly occurred on that god-damned grassy knoll.  Visually, Stone (Robert) does some really beautiful things with his non-visual material.  Not since seeing Kurt Cobain About a Son, have I seen sound and vision do such an intricate dance and move so well together the first time out on the dance floor. 

In an interesting side note, I read an article in New York Magazine that was a conversation between Norman Mailer and his literary executor, Michael Lennon about "Mailerism," the author's thoughts and beliefs on God, the Devil and us.  It's an interesting read, but what's more interesting is that the interviews for which he sits for Stone's film encompass a lot of what he talks about as he's forming his theories from the World According to Norman. And like Garp, he's not joking around.

You could tell watching it that this was such a personal film for Robert Stone, as O. Stone's  JFK was for him.  In age and temperament and the way they see the world, they are brothers on a deep level.  And those echoes of "truth being stranger than fiction" have never rung more true than watching three great leaders, three, get gunned down in the span of six years.  By the time Bobby Kennedy died in Los Angeles, I was six years old.  When John Kennedy was shot, I was six months old.  One more six and we got the Devil, don't we?

So the question is, is there really a Devil and what's he have planned next?  And the answer, of course, is that the Devil is us.  I just heard Albert Maysles say the other night that the television commercial is the most "dehumanizing thing in existence."  Those are pretty strong words, Al.  We've stood by and watched so much shit happen and done absolutely nothing, like stunned sheep.  When it's time to go back and revisit something like this, filmmakers would be wise to check out the work of Stone and Stone when thinking about this pivotal, horrible moment in our collective history.  Because, you better believe that when the US changes so drastically, the rest of the world doth follow or else, "We will bomb your ass."  Think about it and get back to me.

I have seen the footage, I have heard the story, I have seen the movies, read the books.  We all have.  But it takes a film like this, and living in explosive times (literally) like these, that hones in on what we really should be thinking about moving forward.  It's really that time and yes, it's bloody hard, but the alternative is just too nasty to consider.  Having watched a Holocaust movie the day before seeing this (with the survivors of that madness sitting in the audience right beside us), it was a nasty reminder that our overseers are looking right over us into a sphere where our opinion is like our existence---perfunctory.

More on Woodstock Fest

As promised in my first Woodstock post, here are more thoughts on some of the docs I saw there.  Unfortunately, due to an overwhelming amount of work right now on various and sundry things, it doesn't look like I'll be popping over to the Hamptons fest this coming weekend.  However, I'm sure there will be extensive coverage from the folks at indieWIRE and the seven million other places on the web you can read about film festivals right now.

And speaking of "Attack of the Blogs":  I don't know who's responsible for this but I have a feeling the Dexter audience will be sorely disappointed when they visit this blog, if they bother--in my mind, it's one of the more innocuous things out there, but hey, early Halloween present or a perverse  kind of PR, I think it's pretty damn funny.  Although, I won't be paying any visits to Miami anytime soon, I can assure you.

Okay, back to our regularly-scheduled programming:

At Woodstock, there were some really fine panels, but I only got to see one.  The more festivals I go to, the more I realize that one does need some kind of strategy to see everything one wants to see and talk to everyone one wants to talk to.  The only thing about Woodstock that was a pain was that the venues are very far away from one another, and while the shuttle service was unbelievably accommodating, travel time severely cut into spectator time.  So, if you visit The Panel Notetaker's site, you can get good downloads from the panels there.

I did attend the panel called "Where Journalism Ends, and Filmmaking Begins."  The subject matter intrigued me and it's something I think about a lot since I tend to really like "journalistic-type" docs, and I think it's an extremely important discussion right now as we all try to find depth and substance in the "stories" we're told by our news media, and find them sorely lacking in those qualities.  And the panelists were a stellar group: nonfiction filmmaker, Michele Ohayon (her film Steal a Pencil For Me played at Woodstock and it was gorgeous and moving; I will have an extensive interview with her here soon); critic turned filmmaker, Godfrey Cheshire (his Moving Midway also played at the fest, but I, unfortunately, didn't catch it there); Bill Siegel, co-director with Sam Green of the excellent The Weather Underground; Molly Thompson of A&E Indie Films; Robert Stone, director of Oswald's Ghost (I did manage to catch this right before leaving town on Sunday--brilliant guy, brilliant filmmaker); and David D'Arcy, film critic and art journalist, was the very capable moderator, if a bit long-winded, stepping in for the slated Agnes Varnum (but she skedaddled to Austin right before the fest).

At some future date, I will transcribe and share the panel discussion which covered many of the key ethical and philosophical issues that both journalists and documentarians encounter on a regular basis, particularly when their works are pieces that do involve an "investigatory" slant and rely on the trust they build with their subjects to get to the heart of the matter.  Access does not a film make, said more than one panelist.  Unless the journey goes pretty deep, whether a personal, family story like Cheshire's (and he states that some members of his family are still not speaking to one another because of his film), or an event that changed the world we live in (Stone's precisely and stunningly executed investigation into the JFK assassination in Dallas, or Ohayon's heart-wrenching journey with Jaap and Ina Polak through the Holocaust, or Green and Siegel's fragile dance with the subjects of their film), each filmmaker stated unequivocally that they rely on a finely-honed personal code of ethics--the rubric by which they work, no matter the consequences.   And that consequence can sometimes be an aborted film.

This, my friends, is why it sometimes takes years to craft a doc.

(And yes, I realize I used a hell of a lot of parentheses in those last couple of graphs.)

Which leads me to the next film I saw, Nina Davenport's Operation Filmmaker.  Ironically (or maybe not), before I popped into this screening, I visited the Center for Photography at Woodstock on Tinker Street where there was an exhibition of photographs by Iraqi Civilians from 2004--"By now it is a truism that the first casualty of war is truth."  Yeah, the truth gets blurry, don't it?  The Daylight Community Arts Foundation, a group "committed to new forms of documentary, had the idea of providing Iraqi civilians with disposable cameras to get another point of view on the war."  These are the truly "embedded" people.  Except when things get really hairy, they have no network to pull them out.  The photographs were beautiful, haunting and very specific to the experience of what it must be like to watch your neighborhood, your street, your home, turn into a war zone.

I like Nina Davenport's films.  I think she has incredible finesse in developing intimate relationships with her subjects and I relate to her very much on a personal level.  And I, ultimately, liked Operation Filmmaker and appreciate the title's irony.   While the young Muthad Mohmed may not have been the most endearing of characters, he was by far the most sympathetic.  His treatment at the hands of the producers and crew of Liev Schreiber's Everything is Illuminated was revolting and their "beneficence" comes with quite a price tag as they humiliate and denigrate this young man who's left his war-torn country for "greener pastures," only to find he's landed on another planet--and an unwelcoming one, at that.   The insensitivity and ignorance on the part of the Americans, in particular, and on the part of the film's producers, more particularly, is really disgusting.  They never, for a second, treat this guy like a human being--he's the fodder for their "DVD extras" material.  Granted, Muthad's decisions are not the wisest in terms of endearing himself to the people who brought him to The Czech Republic to "work" on their film, but his disappointment, disillusionment and confusion are understandable, and from the beginning, you know this guy is in for a wild ride.

What was the relationship between Davenport and Mohmed?  I heard some very interesting theories about what kind of involvement there was between the young filmmaker and her subject.  It makes for fascinating filmmaking but I couldn't help but walk away with more puzzlement than anything else about what kind of trust was breached, because a trust was definitely breached.  This speaks to so much of what the panel I'm mentioning above is speaking to: when you jump into the fray like Davenport did (it was an assignment; she was a hired gun), the chances for misunderstanding and false intimacy are rife.  I speak from personal experience about this.  I was commissioned to document a Nigerian doctor's visit to the US--Southern California, in particular.  Also, never having been out of his own country, away from his wife and children for two long months and relying solely on his hosts for his well-being, money, transportation, housing, food--everything--conflict soon arose for exactly the same reasons.  It was interesting to observe, but simultaneously I was torn between the people who were paying me to follow this man, while I was simultaneously developing a friendship and trust with the doctor so that he could live with being followed around with a camera almost every waking moment, on top of everything else that was expected of him.  And like in Davenport's film, my subject started cracking, "misbehaving," telling me how unhappy and confused and out-of-sorts he was and how badly he wanted to go home.  It made me question my motives (besides the work itself) and what kind of role I needed to play in all this.  As a fairly inexperienced filmmaker, it was troubling, but like all troubling experiences, it helped me form my own code of ethics about telling "real life" stories. 

Boy, did I digress.  Long day, longer one tomorrow and there's the serial killer on my ass to consider.  Be safe out there.

Woodstock Video: For Your Viewing Pleasure

The Godfather of (Documentary) Soul

Sumner Glimcher, Professor Emeritus from New York University, and author of Movie Making: A Guide to Film Production, is hosting a "Meet the Filmmaker" series at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences here in New York.  Last night there was a reception, screening and chat with Albert Maysles, someone I've never had the privilege of seeing in person.  The film Mr. Maysles came to show us was Gimme Shelter, the incredible film he and his brother, David, made in 1969, culminating in the Rolling Stones' free concert at Altamont that ended in tragedy.  I saw this film many moons ago, long before I became a filmmaker and before, I think, I really could appreciate what I was seeing.

It was quite an intimate gathering, held in a small screening room with just about 40 people in attendance--people of all ages and persuasions who came to hear the venerated filmmaker talk about this film and his thoughts on documentary filmmaking, past and present.  Maysles told us that he was currently cutting a whole other film from the Madison Square Garden Stones' concert footage, and also is working on an expansion of a 10-minute film he has on the director, Orson Welles, among many other projects.  The man does not seem to indulge in a lot of downtime.

Said Maysles, "Documentary is coming into its full blossom.  There can be no excuses anymore for making [nonfiction] films the way they should be made.  We have to know the things that are happening in the world better."  He feels that the imperative of trust and intimacy a filmmaker has with his or her subject(s) is more important than ever, and to use the form in any other way is a breach of that trust, not only to the subjects of the film, but to the audience, as well.

"The most de-humanizing thing in existence is the television commercial.  Buying and selling cannot continue to be the only way human beings connect."

There is still a bright light emanating from his eyes and an excited quaver in his voice when he speaks about his subjects from Paul Brennan from Salesman to Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton to the Beales of Grey Gardens to his continuing relationships with the all the other great artists he's encountered over the years--these people are still his friends, his family.

Continuing to mentor young filmmakers, Maysles is not only a treasure to filmmakers, but to humankind.  I don't know one filmmaker or documentary watcher who doesn't hold him in the highest regard.  As I say, it was a privilege.

And thank you to the lovely Ingrid Kopp for the iPhone shot!

8th Annual Woodstock Fest

Just returned from the film festival up in Woodstock late last night and, in the next few days, will be posting news, impressions, filmmaker interviews, and tidbits of the general craziness that accompanies all fests--at least the stuff I can write about. 

Also fresh off my fingertips: please pop over to Renew to read my interview with the excellent Brent Hoff, exec producer of Wholphin DVD Magazine.

WFF 2007 (October 10 - 14) featured almost 150 films, panels and events.  You can read about the winners and special honorees on the site, but the five days were really a celebration of independent film by the folks who make it and by those that watch and support it.

It was an excellent program curated by IFC's Ryan Werner, Michael Lerman, Tom Quinn and Meira Blaustein.  From those who have attended in the past, I heard that this year's fest was really special for many reasons and the gods certainly blessed us with exquisite weather.  When the weekend rolled around, the fest people had to share the charming little town with busloads of "leafers" coming up to see the first of the gorgeous fall foliage.

Early Friday morning, I joined up with the esteemed Reeler, S.T. Van  Airsdale, for a shared ride headed two hours due north of the Big Apple.  Gabbing the whole way about movies and gossiping about everyone we know (and some we don't), we arrived mid-day and checked in for our press badges and took a quick look around before hitting the theaters.

I started my day with Doug Pray's documentary, Surfwise.  I really liked the movie very much despite my issues with the film being co-produced by a family member.  Artfully directed by Pray, with unmitigated access to everyone involved, the first three-quarters of it were, by turns, entertaining, shocking and quite moving.  The ending, however, was a contrived, very orchestrated Oprah-esque family reunion and it seemed  that this was ultimately a vanity project for the Paskowitz family to air very dirty laundry in public.  It was also very interesting that, as the credits roll, we learn that all but one of the Paskowitz offspring (the sole female among eight brothers) is in the film business.  I don't know why this made me squeamish, but it did.

Next up was another doc, Cynthia Wade's Freeheld.  A multiple award-winning film (and rightfully so) since its debut at Sundance, the film has been shortlisted for an Academy Award for best documentary short.  The whole film was shot in the last 10 weeks of Lieutenant Laurel Hester's life and packs a wallop in just 38 emotionally-intense minutes.  Approached by many filmmakers wanting to tell their story, Wade was handpicked by its animal-loving subjects after they watched her film Shelter Dogs. 

This is one of those extremely intimate films that tells a much larger story about us and our relationship with our lawmakers--those puzzling bureaucrats who decide people's fates "by the books," come hell or high water.  (I really don't know how some people sleep at night.)  Lacking any artifice or false sentiment whatsoever, we are at turns outraged, puzzled, shocked and deeply moved as we watch a small community band together for one woman's right to pass on her hard-earned pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree.  Associate producer, Robin Honan, did a great Q&A afterwards to a very appreciative, teary audience.  Wade was delayed by her teaching schedule, unfortunately, and couldn't make her first screening.  I did get a chance to speak with her later that afternoon and will have an interview with her in the next few weeks on this blog.

Grabbed a quick bite at the Bearsville Theater's bar and lounge and chatted a bit with producer, Jim Brown, before heading into  the theater to see a narrative in competition.  For the first time, the fest launched a screening venue dedicated exclusively to high definition films--everything I saw there looked and sounded amazing!

I'm such a doc geek that it's rare for me to catch a narrative at a fest, but man, am I glad I got to see  The Living Wake.  It's headed to AFI in L.A. in a couple of weeks, so don't miss it, Los Angelenos.  One of the funniest, weirdest, most entertaining films I've seen in a long time, it reminded me of early Mel Brooks--brilliant writing, characters bursting into crazy song and dance routines, strange tangential stories and bizarro plot twists, it's a comedy, it's a melodrama, it's a musical, it's a cartoon--shot lovingly and beautifully in his home state of Maine by first-time feature director, Sol Tryon.  Good call on Jesse Eisenberg's part--the wonderful young actor read the script and attached himself to the project immediately.  Winner of an Audience Award at Woodstock, I'm hoping "more sophisticated" audiences will embrace it for the gem it is.

And then, ho hum, party time, courtesy of festival sponsor, Indiepix.  Held at The Emerson restaurant, the place was filled to the brim--honestly, you could barely move--with filmmakers, family, friends, press, and other guests of the fest.  I had a lovely, and very twisted, conversation with Brett Morgen about Internet dating (his excellent Chicago 10 was playing at the fest and was, oddly, listed as a narrative???), talked to some locals who dove into the fray, and was a bit taken aback when I saw a very large man dressed as an Hasid covered in blood enter the room around 1:00 a.m.  He was there to gather folks to come to the HEEB-sponsored party in celebration of the short horror film called Night of the Living Jews.  Hopping in the car with the intrepid Ryan Harrington behind the wheel and, the equally intrepid, Liz Ogilvie of Documama, riding shotgun, and not wanting to experience any kind of "Blair Witch"-type episode, we closely followed a local to a very dark and mysterious place called The Barn where conspicuously non-Kosher food was being served for our post-midnight repast--think bacon cheeseburgers, hot dogs and the most heinous-tasting thing I've ever eaten out of a bag, Latke chips.  Oh, and there were kegs and Diana Ross blasting from the speakers--everyone on the dance floor!

Stumbling in the pitch dark (but oh, what an amazing night sky), a few of us dropped into the Woodstock lounge for some more drunken revelry, an encounter with a snarling bartender and Billy the Kid producer, Chiemi Karasawa, taking the piss out of the boys at the pool table.

Last stop, "home"--the Indiepix house where I found myself a spot for the weekend due to the good graces and hospitality of my lovely friend, Danielle.  3:00 a.m. and the joint was jumpin'.  So I took off my shoes and socks, kicked back and watched all the beautiful people go stumbling by.  More to come from Woodstock.

All photos courtesy of *dandig* (all rights reversed and upside down)

   

                             

Traversing the Lens

The issues inherent in making nonfiction film have always been rife with controversy for the filmmaker, now more than ever.  Depending on the project, it is an essential decision as to whether the director will appear in front of the camera interacting with his/her subjects, becoming, in essence, characters in his/her own documentary.  This interests me greatly, now more than ever, since I'm noticing that this propensity is growing--and not always to the best results of the film.

I saw two very different documentaries this past week, both with the directors behind, and in front of, the lens.  It's an overtly self-conscious move and essentially breaks down all barriers as we listen to them narrate the story and watch them appear on screen as they become emotionally involved with the events and subjects they're filming, essentially making what becomes an external personal diary about their journey.

In Italian filmmaker, Agostino Ferrente's, documentary The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio, we are told at the beginning that this is, indeed, a "film diary."  Organized and financed by Ferrente, the project began shortly after 9/11 and was completed last year.  Those five years are bookended by the Italian Prime Minister, in 2001, speaking of "inferior civilizations" (referring to the growing immigrant population in Italy) and a cabinet minister appearing on television, in 2006, wearing a T-shirt depicting an anti-Muslim cartoon and the president of the Senate declaring that a "defense from half-breeds" be a national imperative.  (See, other countries have boneheads in office, too.)

Using political and social stances like these as fodder for telling the story of the creation of an all-immigrant orchestra in Rome, Ferrente joins musician, Mario Tronco, a resident of Rome's predominantly immigrant neighborhood of Piazza Vittorio and other artists and musicians in a campaign to save the historic Apollo Theater.  All are outraged that this beautiful crumbling place will be turned into a bingo parlor.  And so begins a wacky journey with Ferrente and Tronco trolling around Rome on a motorino looking for musicians from across the globe--the requisite Nanni Moretti/Caro Diario-type footage. 

The film played in this past spring's Tribeca Film Festival and currently, Red Envelope Entertainment (Netflix) is funding a special tour that will take the orchestra to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Cruz to perform live after each screening.  On October 23rd, the film will be available at Netflix.com on DVD or to download to a PC.

I caught the screening at the IFC Center this past week and sat with Ferrente for an interview (in Italian!) before the sound check.  Actor Willem Dafoe, a huge fan of the film, was there and had musicians Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed in tow.  There were rumors (false ones) that Reed would be jamming with the orchestra, but instead he sat quietly captivated with the rest of the packed house as musicians from Tunisia, Brazil, Cuba, Hungary, Ecuador, Senegal and Italy took the stage and made beautiful music together.  There really isn't much to say about the aesthetics of the film--it's pretty rough filmmaking and no one has bothered to enhance the footage in any way to make it look and sound better.  This is not a first film or a piece done by amateurs, so I don't quite understand why more effort wasn't put into making a more artful film.  There were some beautiful sequences, my favorite being a shot of a Chinese couple dancing an exquisite Argentine tango in an empty piazza while a solo trumpet is played on the soundtrack by a Cuban musician--that seemed to capture the essence of the idea of what they were trying to do, sans narration, sans exposition of any kind.  I wish there had been more of that.

In this instance, it was fairly innocuous that the filmmakers were such a strong on-camera presence since it was very much their story of perseverance and surmounting obstacles to put something like this together.  (And they are incredibly charming.)  They lose hope, they worry, they fret, but ultimately, life in the balance really isn't affected too much.  And the happy fact that they have, indeed, succeeded and that this orchestra exists today and is flourishing is grand.  Whether this changes the mood of the government or creates social change in Italy remains to be seen, but it's important artistically and culturally to push back against that nasty propensity to marginalize people because they speak a different language, their skin is a different color and they eat and drink exotic things.  They are also becoming business owners and tax payers in their adopted country, and this, of course, is what bothers people the most.   I will have more on Ferrente and our talk in a future post.

I will continue this discussion in my next post about a Katrina documentary  (a growing oeuvre) called The Axe in the Attic which I saw at its debut at the New York Film Festival and which had one of the more heated Q&As I've heard in  a while.  The collective guilt we all feel rises to the fore like a bubbling brew after seeing a film like this.

For the most part, filmmakers Ed Pincus and Lucia Small have been pilloried a bit in reviews due to their own portrayal in the film.  The issues of jumping the lens have much stickier consequences in this instance.

Come Play in Evil City

This weekend brings more film fest madness to our fair city.  The East Village hosts the 3rd Annual Evil City Film Festival.  With a jam-packed schedule of stellar independent shorts, animation, music videos and features–and, of course, plenty of parties–you can dive in and see what’s been raging on the international festival scene lately. There are lots of premieres here, as well. This year, the Anthology Film Archives is the official venue, located right in the heart of Evil City at 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street.

There are also some great panels with some very cool folks–today at 2:00 p.m., there’s one called “Scoring School: Music in Film” with Craig Wedren, Randy Woolf, Paul Brill and Joe McGinty. Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m., there are panels on film blogging and indie distribution. “Blog Till You Bleed” (love that title!) features Stu Van Airsdale of The Reeler, Mike Tully of Boredom at Its Boredest and indieWIRE, Karina Longworth of Spout and Cinematical and, moi!  indieWIRE founder, Mark Rabinowitz (The Rabbi), will moderate.

Following the blogging panel, Ingrid Kopp of Shooting People and Danielle DiGiacomo of Indiepix will host “Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Almost Famous: Indie Filmmakers Tell All,” a conversation with Susan Buice and Arin Crumley of Four-Eyed Monsters, Jerry Rapp of Mojave Phone Booth and Leah Meyerhoff of Team Queen and Twitch.

Admission for the panels is free, so come out to Fontana’s Bar at 105 Eldridge Street if you can–it should be great fun.  (Lots of booze, as well, if that appeals.)

On Monday the 8th at The Blender Theater, there’ll be a Rock & Roll Awards show attended by filmmakers, local luminaries (hmm, who could those people be?) and industry professionals for a “debauchery-filled” evening. “Skullie” Awards and prizes will be presented to the winners in the Feature, Short, Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Student, Music Video, and Horror categories.

AFI DigiFest, November 8 - 9, Hollywood, CA

As a featured component of Los Angeles’ International AFI Film Festival, AFI DigiFest is presenting two interactive media showcases highlighting the latest innovations in digital media and their real-world applications. Presented at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ beautiful Linwood-Dunn Theater, the two days of presentations and seminars will be filled with some pretty dazzling stuff.  Here’s the program:

Day One (November 8): AFI hosts a series of curated presentations that highlight noteworthy digital productions from around the world. Among the presentations, Marshall Herskovitz, creator of “Thirty Something,” “My So-Called Life,” and Blood Diamond, will preview “Quarterlife,” a new dramatic broadband series that premieres on myspace on November 11. Presentations rounding out the day feature the best in new digital thinking from the worlds of film, television, games and mobile.

Day Two (November 9):  AFI presents five new prototypes incubated in the AFI Digital Content Lab: an online video platform and citizen journalist toolkit for NOW, PBS’ weekly investigative news program; a strategy for retaining viewer interest during ads in a DVR environment for Bravo; a social network tailored for Players, a documentary about video game fans being produced by MTV, EA, and Mekanism; a pilot for an original dramatic machinima series created within a 3D game engine; and, finally, a unique user-generated film contest, Filmocracy, for ITVS.

All five prototypes were conceived and produced by the Lab in collaboration with mentors drawn from top-tier interactive design and production companies.

You can contact marketing and events manager, Chris Denson, at [email protected] or 323.856.7825, to find out more and to get on the list to receive an official invitation.