Still in Motion

Films in Competition at Britdoc

One week from this Wednesday, the annual festival called Britdoc, fast becoming one of the premiere documentary festivals on the international scene, will welcome filmmakers, producers, commissioning editors, and other industry folk to Keble College at Oxford for its third iteration.  The themes this year are Comedy and Music, and they've announced their competition lineup, special guest appearances, and other programs.  I will be covering the festival this year and am very excited to attend.  (The fest's programmer, Maxyne Franklin, is also a member of the esteemed nominating committee for the Cinema Eye Honors.)  An initiative of the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation, the Britdoc festival brings together filmmakers and funders in an intimate setting and, currently, stages the only international pitching forum in the UK.

In honor of the comedy theme, The Yes Men (one of the funniest and most brilliant duos to appear in  film, fiction or non- I've seen) will be showing a work-in-progress.  And as part of the special music program, the fest will be presenting Robert Flaherty's seminal Nanook of the North (this man has been a big part of my life this year!) with a live soundtrack from the Shine Synchro System.  This sounds just as cool as the screening I saw in L.A. a couple of years ago of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, accompanied by a score from Sparklehorse.

The ten British documentaries in the feature competition this year are:  Blood Trail by Richard Parry; Chosen by Brian Woods; Day After Peace by Jeremy Gilley; Heavy Load by Jerry Rothwell (we played this at the Brooklyn Fest, but no one came, alas; his Britdoc pitch from '06 where he found his American funding for this feature is actually in the film); Life After the Fall by Kasim Abid; Man On Wire by James Marsh (already a multiple-prize winner); Starstruck aka Son of Eurovision by Jamie J. Johnson; The End by Nicola Collins; Thriller in Manilla by John Dower (as a rabid boxing fan, I will not miss this); and the well-loved Young@Heart by Stephen Walker, which has already had a very successful theatrical run in the States. 

There will also be a Best of Fests strand where programmers from the major international fests bring a prize-winner, i.e., Trouble the Water from Sundance; Up the Yangtze from the IDFA; Heavy Metal in Baghdad from Berlin; Obscene from Toronto; and At the Death House Door from SXSW.  Lastly, there's the Fourdocs British Short Doc Competition featuring five stellar short-form nonfiction pieces:  The Solitary Life of Cranes by Eva Weber; My Name is Karl by Moritz Siebert; Made in Queens by Nicolas Randall; Valley of the Goats by Leon Dean; and Sanctuary by Lovejit K. Dhaliwal. 

And, an exciting side note for moi:  This week, I will have an opportunity to interview one of the most prolific and intelligent documentary filmmakers around, the UK's own Kim Longinotto.  Her voice is an important one to add to my growing canon of female doc voices, and I'm thrilled that I'll be able to speak to her in person while here in London.  Thank you to my lovely friend, Sandra W., from More4! 

More about Britdoc in the coming days. . .

Tribeca '08 Fellow, Hugo Perez

As I've mentioned here before, I'm doing a series of interviews for the newly launched Re:Frame Collection of several of the 2008 Tribeca Film Institute Fellows.  Hugo Perez received an Emerging Artist nod, and my interview with him is now posted here.  Perez (pictured with actress, Patricia Clarkson, narrator of his gorgeous Neither Memory Nor Magic) has produced an impressive body of work over the course of the past five years, both fiction and nonfiction, and the project he submitted to Tribeca is a feature script he wrote called Immaculate Conception--I've read it; it's wonderful.  This project will be his narrative feature directorial debut.

There'll be a bit of a lull in interviews over there for most of the summer since I'm about to skedaddle out of town to the Flaherty.  Hot on the heels of that, I have a month's worth of adventures out of the country--first in Dubai, UAE, and then I'll be hanging in London for a bit, ending my sojourn at Britdoc.  I know.  Don't cry for me, Argentina.

And I want to give a big shout-out to my blogger friend and mentor, Agnes Varnum, aka Aggie V (Mr. Schnack's moniker for this little spitfire that's taking Austin by storm).  She's celebrating the two year anniversary of her excellent blog, Doc It Out.  Right on, sister; a big happy anniversary to you!

Latest News from Britdoc

This year's international program brings the "Best of Fests" to the UK, Keble College at Oxford, to be exact.  Five programmers have been invited to come from Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, the IDFA and SXSW and bring their favorite films from the '07-'08 season.  I'll be posting updates to the program as news is released.

This year's theme is COMEDY where participants will explore the link between "truth and taking the piss, the difference between laughing and crying and asking the question, should documentaries be serious?"  Larry Charles (pictured) is the star comedy guest and the director of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Borat.  He's coming to Britdoc with his new film Religulous, which I'm really looking forward to seeing--I'm a huge Bill Maher fan.  He looks good on toast.

The lovely Ingrid Kopp will be running the film "surgeries" this year and they've just announced some of the industry folk signed up to conduct one-on-one meetings with attending delegates.  Filmmakers can get advisory meetings with Passion Pictures' John Battsek and post production advice from the experts at Molinare, two of the sponsors of this year's fest.  They will be joined by Cara Mertes of the Sundance Institute, John Courier of the Sundance Festival, Cynthia Kane of the ITVS Fund, Ryan Harrington of the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, Danielle DiGiacomo of Indiepix Films, Esther van Messel of First Hand Films, Jo McClellan of FilmFour and Himesh Kar of the UK Film Council.  More experts in funding, distribution, HD, marketing and online will be announced shortly.  Quite a stellar line-up.

Closing dates for the pitching forums are coming up.  The Big Pitch for feature-length nonfiction and the Short Pitch for innovative short-form docs are closing next Friday (the 13th!).  The Good Pitch, partnering with One World Broadcasting Trust, closes tomorrow, the 6th.  Click here for more info and applications.  Every project that's entered goes into the Online Pitch where funders, sales agents, distributors and filmmakers can browse through all the submitted goodies.

Lastly, Current TV and Britdoc are partnering to offer a chance to be part of this year's festival.  Send Current TV your idea for a short documentary (3 - 10 minutes) by the 4th of July.  If your pitch is selected, you'll be one of five filmmakers to receive a one-day pass to Britdoc, which includes a chance to meet with Current execs and pitch your idea in person.  Click here to download the form.