Still in Motion

The Cold Calculus of Journalism and the Perils of Bearing Witness

The True/False Film Festival is not an overtly "themed" festival in any way, but one topic that did emerge in quite a strong way, at least for me, in this year's program, reflected in both the workshops and films, was that of journalists bearing witness to world events through the camera lens, and the moral issues inherent in that activity.

Friday afternoon, I joined filmmaker Ian Olds (Occupation Dreamland), video journalist and filmmaker Richard Parry, and his documentary subject, photojournalist Robert King in a discussion called "The Frontline Club: Lessons on Shooting and Being Shot At."  (Unfortunately, Vaughn Smith, the slated panel moderator and founder of the Frontline Club in London, didn't make it on time.)  All three men have been in combat zones armed only with a camera.  Parry and King have been doing it for decades and have documented many of those journeys in an incredible film called Blood Trail, which was exhibited at the fest.  Why a theatrical distributor (or any other kind, for that matter) hasn't grabbed this piece is beyond me, for it is a viscerally potent document of what it is to be a witness to war, knee-deep in blood and body parts and dodging mortar fire, trying to capture on film the atrocities happening in every corner of the world.  Are these men who go willingly into battle zones to get the story incredibly brave or incredibly foolhardy?  King, a sensitive and profoundly introspective man, says that, "You never come away untouched."  He also says, simply, "This is what I do."  (Photo above courtesy of Robert King.)

Photojournalists are our safeguard against historical revisionism.  Once the shutter is snapped, the film (most of the time clandestinely) shuttled to an editor and the images printed in the paper, it is irrevocable, events branded upon the collective consciousness in a way that dozens of stories written by Nicholas Kristof could never convey (more about this in a moment).  Yet Olds expressed quite strongly that he would probably never put himself in that situation ever again, his moral confusion and "profound unease" as that kind of witness forever irreconcilable with his desire to document an important story, no matter how compelling.  Parry's film explores this harrowing issue through King's narrative, the constant grappling and coming to terms with the strange kind of passivity inherent in the job, the weighty decision of whether to continue to document or to put down the camera and do something always hanging in the balance.  What we learn is that in most cases that would be foolhardy, at best, deadly for all involved, at worst.  King explains that after doing this for so many years, his world becomes finely honed to what he has framed in his lens; the only other thing he listens for is a shell or bullet headed his way--everything else goes away, the screaming, the smell of burning flesh, the carnage he steps over.  It's only until he's somewhere safe that those senses come alive in his memory.

The audience was made up of mostly local people, many of them young journalism students (the event was held in the gorgeous Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia).  What is top of mind for them is how journalism needs to be reinvented, or more accurately, how journalistic ethics must change to meet the challenges of the 21st century. While it is infinitely easier to get digital files sent out of a war zone versus rolls of film, the issues about working in a war zone only seem to thicken and congeal into ever-expanding quandaries, for now we know too much about what goes on.  Or do we?

This is one of the questions Eric Metzgar's new film Reporter grapples with, the irrefutable fact that journalism, as we've come to know it, has profoundly changed.  Newspapers and other printed sources are shrinking, foreign bureaus scaling way back or closing altogether.  With the loss of objective and in-depth reporting rampant in our news organizations, the fear is that there will be a huge loss of the kind of comprehensive knowledge and understanding we've come to rely upon from our most intrepid journalists.  Reporter focuses on the work of New York Times' columnist, Nicholas Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who almost single-handedly put the crisis in Darfur on the world's radar.

Metzgar, who directed, shot and edited the film, accompanies Kristof to Congo.  As he does in all of his films, he shares his own story and his own insights about his experience accompanying someone on a complex journey through his sensitive, but forthright, narration, although this time he experiences a kind of fear he's never encountered before, for he visits a place that instinctively scares everyone, including the man who has led him there.  For over a decade, a brutal war has been waged in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Over 5 million people have died as a result and despite interventions of floods of money and peacekeeping missions by the international community, including the UN, the fighting that is taking place there now is the most destructive since 2005.

But the long, bloody and intricate history of the place and the staggering statistics reported from there are, let's face it, a surefire way to completely deaden any interest.  There is a wall of pain and suffering too tall and wide and deep to penetrate with any kind of compassion, and feeling not just helpless, but numbed in the face of all this, we turn away to other things that are much easier to digest over a bowl of cornflakes.  Kristof knows this and so he's learned that the unwieldy story needs to be writ very small, the larger narrative told through a singular one.  The two stories he chooses to tell (and Metzgar documents) are of Yohanita (pictured above), a 41-year-old, 60-pound woman dying of infection, displaced from her village by the warring lords of the region; and the story of one of those warlords, Laurent Nkunda, "sent by God" to protect the people, sporting a "Rebels for Chirst" button.  What Kristof and Metzgar know about him, as well, is that he spends most of his time overseeing a great number of troops that are busy raping and killing hundreds of innocent villagers.  After explaining this heady "mission" of his, he invites them to stay for dinner.  It is a surreal nightmare along the lines of Coppola's Apocalypse Now.  But this is very real and very strange, really no place for white men with cameras and laptops to try and document and understand the terrain.  It is a brash and reckless and heady task.  But no one else is doing it, now are they?

In my next post, I'll talk about Burma VJ, Reporting From a Closed Country, another extraordinary film I got to see at T/F in which a filmmaker decides to use the artifice of cinema to protect his subjects and ends up creating a collective experience beyond politics, beyond belief.  As Ari Folman did with his animated masterpiece, Waltz with Bashir, Anders Østergaard has created a magnificent nonfiction thriller and a true testament to the courage of journalists.

The Truth Is the Truth!

So states Marc McKerrow, emphatically, unequivocally, to his brother, filmmaker Kimberly Reed, towards the end of her intimate family-portrait film, Prodigal Sons. 

Did I just mess up my pronouns?  No.

For this is a story of two brothers still working out the psychic traumas each has experienced individually, and have also unwittingly inflicted upon one another throughout their childhoods, adolescences, and on into adulthood.  These traumas persist, in part, because Kim transitioned from male to female as a young adult and still hasn't really dealt with the abandoned identity she's left behind; and, in part, because Marc has sustained a severe head injury and concomitant mental illness due to a car crash he was in as a young adult that resulted in having part of his brain removed. 

But the story goes back long before these seminal events in each of their lives occurred, and Reed, in this deeply moving investigation of her family legacy, intrepidly sets out to uncover and reveal, layer by layer, the dark heart of sibling rivalry.  The film received an emotional standing ovation for several minutes at the morning screening I attended at True/False, so it speaks in a mighty profound way, obviously, to all the ways in which every single one of us "covers up" from those closest to us and, especially, from ourselves.

Let's get the short synopsis out of the way so we can get to the essence of what this film means to say, because the story's a doozy and would have any novelist or screenwriter drooling with envy:   "Prodigal Sons follows three siblings — a trans-gender woman [Reed], a gay man [little brother, Todd], and their adopted brother [Marc] who also discovers he’s the grandson of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth (!) — back to their Montana hometown, where a powerful story of an entire family’s transformation unfolds."  (Marc's grandma and grandpa, pictured above, starring together in The Lady from Shanghai, 1947.)  Only from the bosom of Middle America. . .

This film mirrors Reed's uncertainty when she realizes that her own story of transition will have to be an essential ingredient in the story she wants to tell about Marc's legacy.  Because of Marc's unresolved issues, Kim cannot help but be pulled into the vortex of his anger and resentment which has much to do with her.  (The recurring image she uses of herself as a young high school athlete on the basketball court covering his face when he notices the camera on him is resonant and deeply affecting, speaking to her own experience of discomfort and dissonance throughout her life, even though to the outside world, she was a superstar in every way.) 

Because of Marc's  seizures and constant struggle to stay on his meds, his rage erupts so explosively that the family soon comes to realize that intervention is the only solution to make sure that something irreversibly tragic doesn't occur.  Reed captures a man both transformed through music (the mystery of his prodigious musical talent is solved during the course of the film, for he doesn't read a note of music but has always been able to play the piano beautifully), and a man so filled with rage, his tantrums are truly frightening, as he threatens physical harm on Kim and on himself.  His self-hatred is so virulent and deadly that in one episode at a family Christmas dinner, things tip over the edge for everyone as they all realize that if they don't do something to help him, he will end his own life, possibly taking someone with him.

Several members of the audience praised Reed for her bravery in wading into the deep and painful terrain of this Cain and Abel story but she gives most of the kudos to their mother, a quiet but steely widow who handles her children with plenty of acceptance and love but with hard and fast boundaries about what she expects them to outgrow at this juncture, all but demanding that old, useless rivalries be left behind for good.  For she knows that what needs to be dealt with is Marc's illness; she wants so much to help him find himself at last, for that is the only way the rest of them can find peace individually, and as a family.

I love the way the film floats back and forth between the nostalgic, innocent world of childhood, the way we remember ourselves in home movies, everyone looking happy and acting goofy, and the raw footage of capturing the emotionally painful and violent moments of dealing with an adult child's rage and illness that will bring everything he holds dear down with him.  The final shot of Marc staring out into the middle distance, deep in thought, makes us hopeful that he can finally find solace within himself and within the family who loves him, a family that stubbornly pushes away their own fears and confusion to stay by him.  Interestingly, Reed gives Marc top billing with a music credit, followed by her own name.  A name she is thinking about changing back to McKerrow. 

Still without any traditional distribution deal, there are so many different audiences that this film can speak to outside of festival ones.  (Prodigal Sons will next appear at the 11th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece this month).  Like most independent filmmakers, Reed is now strategizing on how to reach those various audiences with a film that shows a family in the throes of leaving behind all the coerced conformity they've lived with all their lives.  It's a beauty of a film.

Also see:  Brooke Sebold's, Benita Sills' and Todd Sills' deeply moving Red Without Blue and Lisa Leeman's ground-breaking Metamorphosis: Man into Woman.

 

A Smart Movie Now Playing Near You

Astra Taylor's latest documentary, Examined Life, is rolling out its theatrical release.  I saw this film at the last Woodstock Film Festival in October and loved, loved, loved it.  I also got a chance to sit down with its director here in New York this past fall to talk about the unusual subject matter she covers in her cinematic work.  If so inclined, you can read our talk here.  Or you can read Dennis Lim's New York Times article here. 

Examined Life opens Wednesday the 25th (day after tomorrow) in New York City at the IFC Center, and will also play San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Portland, New Orleans, and other cities in the coming months.

As always, opening weeks are crucial, so go support!  As an extra treat, some of the subjects in the film, our current day's most brilliant minds, will be on hand to join Taylor for post-screening Q&As at some of the evening screenings.  Avital Ronell will be at the IFC on opening night and on Tuesday, March 3.  Kwame Anthony Appiah will appear Thursday, February 26, and the exuberant Cornel West will appear Thursday, March 5.  Keep checking the website for updated schedules and director / special guest appearances.

A Different Way to Think About Creative Genius

 

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

I Love Holland Cotter

Required reading this week, kids:  Holland Cotter's February 15 New York Times' article, "The Boom Is Over.  Long Live the Art!" 

In trying to build an artist-centric media project, we've been deep in R&D, so are looking at everything currently being written on why and how artists can thrive in a shitty economy, aka, the way things stand now.  And, as always, Cotter holds forth eloquently, profoundly and intelligently on why that might be the case.  Here's the link to the article and to whet your appetite for more, here are some of my favorite passages from said article:

". . ., if the example of past crises holds true, artists can also take over the factory, make the art industry their own.  Collectively and individually they can customize the machinery, alter the modes of distribution, adjust the rate of production to allow for organic growth, for shifts in purpose and direction.  They can daydream and concentrate.  They can make nothing for a while, or make something and make it wrong, and fail in peace, and start again.

"Art schools can change too.  The present goal of studio programs (and of ever more specialized art history programs) seems to be to narrow talent to a sharp point that can push its way aggressively into the competitive arena.  But with markets uncertain, possibly nonexistent, why not relax the mode, open up education?

"Why not make studio training an interdisciplinary experience, crossing over into sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, poetry and theology?  Why not build into your graduate program a work-study semester that takes students out of the art world entirely and places them in hospitals, schools and prisons, sometimes in-extremis environments, i.e., real life?  My guess is that if you did, American art would look very different than it does today.

"Such changes would require new ways of thinking and writing about art, so critics will need to go back to school, miss a few parties and hit the books and the Internet. . . . "

"A globally minded learning curve that started to grow in the 1980s and 90s seems to have withered away once multiculturalism fell out of fashion.  Some New York critics, with a sigh of relief, one sensed, have gone back to following every twitch of the cozy local scene, which also happens to constitute their social life."

". . . . The 21st century will almost certainly see consciousness-altering changes in digital access to knowledge and in the shaping of visual culture.  What will artists do with this?"

What will we do, indeed?

Flaherty Film Seminar '09

The Flaherty is currently accepting fellowship grant applications for its June film seminar.  I attended last year on a Professional Development grant and it was one of the richest professional and personal experiences I had last year.  I highly recommend attending if you've never experienced the Seminar, whether you're an industry professional, filmmaker, media maker, producer, student, academician, curator, programmer, archivist.  The Flaherty actually offers three types of Fellowships which provide a bit of financial support to attend, a professional development grant, a student grant and a Philadelphia Foundation grant.  Preference is given to first-time applicants (you can attend the Seminar twice as a Fellow in nonconsecutive years).  The deadline is March 13.  For more info, click here.  [A shot of last year's '08 Fellows on the Colgate University campus quad.]

Also, employees of any New York State nonprofit organization focusing on the media arts can apply for a grant through the Experimental Television Center.  On the site, go to the application for the Media Arts Technical Assistance Fund grant.  That deadline is the 27th of March. 

As it did last year, this year's Seminar, the 55th, will take place June 20 - 26 at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.  It's a new home for the Flaherty and it's an ideal spot--beautiful little town, beautiful campus, quiet, serene, green and lovely; attendees can even use the gym, track and swimming pool.  Another huge draw this year is sure to be the amazing program Seminar curator, Irina Leimbacher (last year's Fellows coordinator), will be programming called "Witnesses, Monuments, Ruins."  The accommodations in the dorms are a bit rustic, but trust me, you're rarely in your room.  Fees include accommodations, meals, screenings, discussions and receptions.  Again,  go to the site to get more details on deadlines for registration.

This  Monday, the 9th at 7:30 at the Anthology Film Archives, the Flaherty continues its Flaherty NYC screening series with Jim Finn.  He's bringing his 2008 feature called The Juche Idea.  Translated as "self-reliance," Juche is a mixture of Confucian and Stalinist pseudosocialism, a school of philosophy North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, adapted from his father to apply to propaganda, film and art.  Inspired by the true story of the South Korean director being kidnapped in the 70s to invigorate the North Korean film industry, the film follows Yoon Jung Lee, a young video artist invited to work at a Juche art residency on a North Korean collective farm.  In Variety, Robert Koehler said of the film, "The evidence that current filmmaking is brimming with original, standard-breaking creations has to include the work of Jim Finn, whose brilliant The Juche Idea is the latest in a growing filmography without precedent or category."

Reaching Out and Hooking Up in '09

I'm being approached more and more to consult and help produce nascent documentary projects using new media technologies and alternate platforms for sharing media virally through crowdsourcing (aka, open sourcing).  It's an interesting and challenging variation on the usual pre-pro discussions.  The fact that these discussions are happening pre-pro is an important indicator, in and of itself, I think.

This may be the year when we see the ideas and strategies that gurus like Lance Weiler, Scott Kirsner and Woody Benson have been implementing and sharing in their respective "labs" and projects for the past several years being utilized by more and more filmmakers, now more desperate than ever to realize viable revenue streams for their artistic endeavors.  In fact, the three had a lively convo this past Monday about the year in tech and entertainment and share their thoughts on what's ahead in '09.  You can listen to their conference call off the podcast Weiler has posted on The Workbook Project in his TCIBR series.  (Illustration courtesy of The Institute for the Future of the Book.  I'm writing one now; there better be a future for them.)

The folks over at the wonderful Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) have their deadline coming up (Jan. 30) for their 2009 Producers Initiative for New Media Technologies, the third year they have been given funding to bring eight creative teams to San Francisco to participate in a residency that connects "independent producers and their socially relevant content to emerging models of storytelling and distribution," based on developing and prototyping a multi-platform project inspired by, or based on, a significant documentary project.  For some samples of the kinds of projects they take on and for a good dose of just pure-D(oc) inspiration, you can click here to watch videos of last year's projects.  Great stuff.

I've been working with artists for decades now, producing content in all forms of media from coffee-table art books to funky fashion photo shoots/installations with lots of taxidermy (don't ask), and everything in between, and one thing that hasn't changed is the desire to retain artistic integrity in what's presented to the world in your name.  Despite, or maybe because of, all the razzle-dazzle and excitement over these new media opportunities, the impetus to stay true to that artistic vision is more important than ever.  This week's report from Worldchanging highlights an article on The Canary Project, and while it's more an off-the-grid/Internet project, meaning more physically than digitally representational, I think it speaks beautifully to this artistic/social relevancy issue that crops up for many media makers that are struggling with how their work can fit into all these various scenarios right now and still maintain artistic integrity and creative heft.

I'm very interested in using this space this year to highlight and celebrate any creative out there working in nonfiction storytelling striving to implement something along these lines, so drop a line and share what you're working on.  I have a small queue of stories I'll be posting about, but there's a lot of movement out there and I'd like to know all about it.  Share, share.

Watch FULL BATTLE RATTLE on NatGeo

At 9:00 p.m. on Monday, January 12, Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber will have their TV broadcast debut on the National Geographic Channel with their award-winning nonfiction film Full Battle Rattle.  FBR is a doc about life inside the US Army's "Iraq Simulation" in California's Mojave Desert.  The film tells the story of a very real war, but before soldiers go overseas to that war, they go through a rotation in a virtual Iraqi town that the US Army has spent a billion dollars building for the purpose of feeling what it's really like over there.  This fictional place is populated with hundreds of Iraqi role-players hired to live there and in three week rotations, they encounter groups of enlisted men and women before they deploy to the real McCoy.  Moss and Gerber follow one of these battalions through a complete rotation and it's a wild ride.

David Edelstein of New York Magazine calls it, "An indelible vision of modern war.  Altmanesque tragicomedy," a very fine and brilliantly concise take on what these filmmakers meant to do.   Also this from Richard Woodward from the Wall Street Journal:  "No documentary I have seen better portrays the mutual suspicions and resentments of Americans and Iraqis.  I still don't know whether to laugh or cry."  I actually laughed a lot--the film is hilarious in the most surreal way.  As well, I shed a tear watching young soldiers board a plane, leaving frightened families behind as they go off to battle.  It's an artfully done film in every way.

Moss and Gerber had their festival debut last February at the Berlin International Film Festival, won the Special Jury Prize at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin last March and released theatrically at New York's Film Forum in July.  Their latest festival appearances have been in Amsterdam at the IDFA, at Sheffield in the UK and at the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba last month.  Quite a year, guys, wow. 

Check back on their web site for more festival screenings and news of an impending DVD release some time this year.  Read my in-depth interview with the filmmakers on the Shooting People site by clicking here.  And be sure to tune in to NatGeo on Monday!

Goodbye to All That

David Mogdigliani's wonderful debut documentary, Crawford, is an award-winning film about a small town thrust into the spotlight when George W. Bush moved into the 'hood, several months after announcing his candidacy bid to run for president.   (Pictured, GW clearing cedar at his ranch in August of '02, courtesy of the White House web site).  The film chronicles the impact of Bush's political stagecraft in making Crawford his de facto hometown.  The doc debuted on Hulu in October as its  movie premiere and was the most watched film on the site for over two weeks.

Today, from Austin, Texas, B-Side Entertainment announced the launch of a nationwide screening for fans to host their own "Farewell to W" party from January 1st through the 19th.  This nationwide Screening Party is modeled on the program B-Side developed for Netflix's Red Envelope Entertainment with the film Super High Me, where fans were invited to a "Roll Your Own" screening.  In just a month's time, close to 1,100 venues in 850 markets across the country booked screenings for a nationwide event, marking the widest single-date release ever for a nonfiction film.  B-Side, itself, booked close to 1,600 screenings in about a thousand markets garnering an audience of over 40,000 with a total marketing budget that cost less than what a two inch ad in the New York Times would run.

Similarly, this campaign for Crawford will allow fans, organizations, indie theaters and other groups to watch the film as a collective event (you know, the way movies are supposed to be watched), allowing viewers to fondly look back on the Bush era through the particular point of view of the citizens of Crawford, Texas who were lucky enough to call GW their neighbor.

B-Side is waiving their normal screening fee for exhibitors and asking screening hosts to pre-purchase five DVDs for $50.  Those DVDs can be re-sold at their event for whatever they want to charge and they're also free to charge whatever admission fee they want, keeping all of the proceeds.  The campaign will be driven from a community web site for the film built with B-Side technology which allows self-serve screenings, automatic event signups, event listings and an interactive screening map off the film's site www.crawfordmovie.com.  See you at the movies, ya'll.

You Know You Want to Order This in Time for Christmas

And there's even a discount, so there's no excuse to not find this in your "stocking."

Alive Mind is currently offering Sacred Love-Making.  "Discover the Ancient Asian [?] Secrets of Sexual and Spiritual Satisfaction Available on DVD."  Now I know all you want to know is where to buy it.  Click here and use the coupon code SACLOVE15 (yea, baby!) during checkout.

Happy holidays and please do try this at home.  Merry, merry.

THE END OF AMERICA Comes to New York

A new nonfiction piece from dynamic filmmaking duo, Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern (pictured), is playing at the IFC Center starting tonight, December 3, through Tuesday the 9th.  Based on the New York Times' bestseller by Naomi Wolf, The End of America, A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, the film captures Wolf in a live presentation, a la Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, as she passionately argues her case for immediate and unconstrained action on the part of the American people to take back our country, to come together as a nation and recommit ourselves to not ever again allowing a serving president, whether Democrat or Republican, to possess the unchecked power (and resultant corruption) that the Bush administration has enjoyed for the past eight years.  Yes, we'll have Obama in the White House now, thanks to a collective shaking-off of complacency and massive indifference (and not a moment too soon).  But, Wolf's urgent message makes clear that we are living in a time where that kind of negligence on the part of the citizenry of this country cannot happen again--not without even more dire circumstances than already exist. 

Wolf will be there at selected screenings throughout the week along with Sundberg and Stern for discussion and Q&A sessions.  Each evening after the 6:30 screenings, Wolf will be there with legal specialists from the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other guests.  Information on other theatrical showings outside of New York and a place to buy the DVD can be found by clicking here.

River of Shadows

Today, the Friday after Thanksgiving, an American holiday which sees the unnecessary slaughter of gazillions of poor turkeys; a particular day, like today, when a well-organized group of killers is continuing to slaughter people in Mumbai, India out of fear and hatred of our country; when we are poised equidistantly on the annual calendar between an historic election and an equally historic presidential inauguration, I'd like to recommend a book to read instead of a film to watch, for a change--Rebecca Solnit's River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West.

Even though the book is about five years old, going on six, I think it's the absolutely perfect thing to read right now as we enter another year and think about the possibilities of launching ourselves into this "brave new world" we've been meaning to realize for a while now, but, somehow, keep fucking up. 

Solnit, a crackling, sparkling prose artist won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism for River.  She celebrates the life and work of Eadweard Muybridge, a modern visionary and singular spirit.  In Solnit's estimation, Muybridge had much to do with the world as we know it today.  She weaves together biography, history, art, technology, the worlds of landscape and photography, and creates an original portrait of the world on the threshold of modernity, always circling back to Muybridge and his substantive contributions in high-speed motion photography, an advancement that made the motion picture possible.  (See?  No worries; we always come back to film.)  She revisits the global histories of mass transportation, mass communication and mass migration, in the context of the unrelenting industrialization of our everyday lives.  She draws distinct and thrilling conclusions about our tenure on this planet, thus far, and how we've intereacted with it and with one another through space and time.

Luc Sante, one of my literary soulmates (meaning the man speaks to me deeply with his words, not that we're literary equals!), writing for Bookforum, said, "Extraordinary. . . it is hard to do justice to Solnit's far-reaching perspective.  We observe the shadowy Muybridge walking, as if in his motion studies, against a continuously unspooling panorama of nineteenth-century America, so that Solnit is able to link, say, Sitting Bull's pipe-smoking break during a pitched battle in 1872 with the Great Strike that nearly changed the country's course five years later, and both events with Muybridge's bridging of space and time, her prose, terse and poetic, makes the book a pleasurably dizzying page-turner."  Click on the Amazon box to order it for yourself or to gift it to a friend.

Alive Mind Media

Richard Lorber has been an executive and educator in the media industry for decades, always maintaining an innovative and fresh approach to the various entities he helms.  He doesn't just keep up; he stays well ahead of the curve, keeping his finger on the pulse of what's relevant and innovative in the international distribution landscape.  His latest venture called Alive Mind is an offshoot of his Lorber HT Digital company, launched in 2007.

Elizabeth Sheldon, vice president of Lorber HT Digital, is responsible for pioneering digital initiatives and content acquisitions and implementing online distribution strategies.  She's heading up this new DVD label and online content component of the company.  Its mission, in Lorber's words, is to deliver "smart and stimulating work with the 'aha' factor of a transformative experience," releasing nonfiction programming specifically in the areas of enlightened consciousness, secular spirituality and cultural change.

Some of the films on their docket include Jennifer Fox's wonderful six-part series Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman; FLicKeR by Nik Sheehan, recipient of this past year's Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs; Beth Murphy's beautiful piece about two 9/11 widows who travel to Afghanistan, Beyond Belief; Jessica Yu's deeply moving and innovative Protagonist (one of my favorite films of the recent past); and several others. 

The web site is quite substantive, containing a screening room to watch clips of their releases; an education section with weekly highlights geared specifically to high schools and universities; a "filmmaker direct" section where you can find out where films might be playing in your area; and a host of contributors blogging on an array of topics to advance discussion on the issues related to their library of films.  The current slate includes writer Ariel Gore, feminist spiritualist and activist Starhawk, filmmakers Jennifer Fox and Beth Murphy, and philosophers Daniel Dennett and Colin McGinn.  They even have a resident sex advice columnist on hand to administer words of wisdom on sacred goings-on in the bedroom.  For more of the latest news on what's doing at Alive Mind, click here.

One of their newest titles on offer is HAIR: Let the Sun Shine In, a documentary by writer/director, Pola Rapaport and DP, Wolfgang Held.  Clocking in at an economical 55 minutes, the film reignited my long-forgotten obsession and love for the brilliant music and lyrics created forty years ago by James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt MacDermot.  Sadly, Ragni is no longer with us having succumbed to cancer in 1991, but Rado and MacDermot and a host of others tell the story of the inception and international phenomenon of this groundbreaking anti-war musical.  Along with archival footage of Rado and Ragni performing the show live on stage from its off-Broadway debut at the Public in 1967 to appearances on live television throughout the seventies and eighties, Rapaport conducts lively interviews with the likes of Milos Forman (who directed a fantastic film adaptation of the show in 1979 starring John Savage, Treat Williams and Beverly D'Angelo, and choreographed by the brilliant Twyla Tharp), Keith Carradine, Melba Moore, Ben Vereen and the charming, Bertrand Castelli, the executive producer of the original Broadway production and of several international productions which  performed the play in different languages all over the world.  Intercut with all this are scenes from 2007 of Rado rehearsing a troupe of young performers for a new production to celebrate HAIR's fortieth anniversary. 

The vibrant energy of everyone involved in the show from the beginning and on through its continuing legacy is contagious.  However, interestingly, about three quarters of the way through, the film takes on a more somber mood, takes a bit of a darker turn, when the discussion turns to the shocking and heinous acts perpetrated on those involved in the show from various fundamentalist quarters, including a fire started by an arsonist that ended up killing family members of some of the cast during one production.  What's also discussed is the obvious fact that decades after the war in Vietnam, our country is once again involved in a prolonged and unpopular invasion of a foreign country, and points up how startlingly (and depressingly) relevant HAIR's message still is.  As the reviewer from Télérama puts it, "We are still waiting for the idyllic Age of Aquarius."  Click here to order the DVD and see what else is on offer at Alive Mind.

CAPTURED Plays at the Maysles Cinema

Tomorrow, November 12th, at 7:30, the Maysles Cinema will be screening a wonderful and vital documentary called Captured, directed by Ben Solomon, Dan Levin and Jenner Furst.  I saw it this past summer at its Rooftop Films' premiere along with close to 2,000 people who turned out to watch the story of extraordinary photographer, documentarian, archivist and activist, Clayton Patterson (pictured, getting arrested for about the eight hundredth time in his career) and the history of Manhattan's Lower East Side, from its rough and tumble beginnings to its recent gentrification.  Click here to go to the Maysles Cinema's site to read more about the film and to see what else this new Harlem-based theater has on hand this month.  The directors and Clayton Patterson will be there for a post-screening Q&A.

The World Celebrates With Us

At Obama's former school in Jakarta, Indonesia

Athens, Greece

Jerusalem, Israel

Dakar, Senegal

Barack Obama's step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, in Kogelo, Kenya

American Documentary Filmmaker Imprisoned in Iran

An American in Tehran

Just winged in from Iran last night on my '08 Poverty Jet Set tour.  It's hard to believe that Tehran is just a bit over 6,000 miles from New York because it feels like the other end of the world.  So I'm jet-lagged and am finding writing about my experience there attending the incredible 2nd annual Cinema Vérité Iran International Documentary Film Festival almost as overwhelming as the actual trip turned out to be.  Suffice to say, that it was a distinct privilege, as an American, to get to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Like the United States of America, it is rife with contradictions, has incredible beauty and diversity in its people and its land, and contains gazillions of human beings just trying to live happy, productive, meaningful lives while jockeying for their place in a very chaotic and trying world thanks to traditionalist governments (that's the most diplomatic word I can come up with right now).  It ain't easy.  (For the record, I do have several rolls of film that are now being developed.  I am still that dweeb that shoots film stills instead of digital; I know it's antiquated, but that's the way it is, so you'll just have to be patient.)

I could do a whole essay just on experiencing Iran as a woman--and I probably will, but will save that for another time.  I have major stories.  In the next couple of posts, I will talk about the festival itself, the films, the special guests that attended, the people I spent time with, new friends and discovered talents, and will share part of a post-mortem conversation I had with festival director, Massoud Bakhshi, and a few others to access how it went, the issues and problems as well as the triumphs and accomplishments, and a look forward to next year and years to come.  It was a loose advisory panel, but it was very exciting to be a part of a nascent international film event that will, no doubt, become hugely significant on the world stage.  They are strong out of the gate and mean to go the distance.  In Bakhshi's words, "The festival is here to answer all the demand that exists in this country."

"This country" has many stories to tell and they are telling them in floods of films--not all of them up to snuff in terms of quality, to be sure.  Due to the country's imposed isolation, the filmmakers rely on the dribs and drabs that come in through the veil of censorship (or those that are able to leave the country and return).  So their sense of what makes good cinema is sort of akin to "naive" art. And like d'art naif, it has a fierce but clumsy beauty and a very distinct sense of the world that doesn't easily gibe with, or translate into, what is considered great cinema.  I, for one, appreciate that enormously when so much of what we see and taste and smell and hear is generic garbage.  Because of this dearth of "information" (and we know how dubious that can be), they use their imagination, their emotional intensity, their creativity and their wondrous humor to tell their stories.  It may be sloppy sometimes, but it's so alive.  A gallery owner I was introduced to said to us, "Oppression does wonders for the arts and literature."  (The cover of this year's film catalog, pictured.)

What was really interesting is that the gentlemen that were being feted this year (Richard Leacock, Peter Wintonick and Jorgen Leth--all of whom could save the world with their charm), the invited guests, and the special strands of Finnish and Polish and American films and other programs were also not your run-of-the-mill fare.  It was a very peculiar mélange, a type I've never quite experienced before.  It was really weird and wonderful.  And I felt very much at home.  (Despite nearly choking to death on the pollution of Tehran; let's get with the emissions standards, people!).

And the brilliant James Longley is there filming his next project.  He arrived the day after we did having finally been granted his visa (which he had expected to get seven months ago).  We chatted a bit at a party and he also appeared at the cinemas a couple of days later; they had slipped in his films for exhibition at the last minute, a wonderful treat for the festival attendees which reached tens of thousands in number over the course of the five days--all local to Tehran and its environs.

This festival has astounding statistics:  it's received 1,300 national applications since its inception and the Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC), the folks who put on the festival, co-finance and co-produce a lot of these films (300 documentaries a year!) with other local independent film companies.  And they are truly independent since a lot are not state-funded.  This is an option they themselves choose, so they're ready to say what they want to say and there are consequences for that.  These films that get made may still not be able to publicly exhibit in Iran.  That's the price one pays--your own countrymen don't get to see your wares in a theater or on TV (sound familiar??); however, there is an enormous DVD market, both above- and below ground, and a very large and very hungry audience.  On the plus side, the negative labs are subsidized by the state.  And while the government does have its hand in absolutely everything, it is invested in the film industry financially and makes it possible for someone like Bakhshi, who wanted to shoot his film, Tehran Has No More Pomegranates! in 35mm, to do so for about $100K.

There are 200 theaters in Tehran.  (That's a lot; but until you've been there, you cannot imagine the size of this city.  I come from Los Angeles.  I know from big, unwieldy cities with urban growth challenges.  But this city is the Godzilla of cities.  You have to be tough to hang in that burg.)  But another similar situation with which the film industry there deals, as do we, is the content/distribution quandary.  (The DEFC is also a major distributor.)  How to get it out there; how to get it seen once it makes it out there.  And what to do with it after it's been publicly exhibited.  On the DVD black market there, one can buy both Iranian, American and other foreign fare for a buck.  A "legal" DVD is still only three to four dollars.  But the major, major difference between here and there is that a cinema ticket there is about $1.20.  One can actually afford to go to the movies!  It's actually encouraged!!  Is someone paying attention?  Maybe it's time to bridge the gap between what it's costing to make movies these days and what it costs to see one, eh?  And "free" really shouldn't be an option, in my opinion.  We pay for the crappy PEOPLE magazine at the checkout; we can certainly pay for a good flick, even on the Internet.

There are a lot of self-organized festivals in Iran from very small, specifically-themed ones to larger, regional ones, but the Cinema Vérité festival is the only international festival in the country.  They experienced a 30% increase in international submissions from last year, receiving close to a thousand films from abroad, mostly from Europe and South America.  For the last three years, Bakhshi has been staging an "images from the east" strand at the festival in Sao Paulo, laying some expert groundwork for international exchange.  They've also started a doc fund that encourages Iranian filmmakers to go outside the country first before coming to shill for funding in their own country--that's truly revolutionary, I think.  Bakhshi really wants to open things up, including the average Iranian artist's scope of things.  He also courted the amazing Nisi Masa group, and for the first time, a festival outside of Europe had a wonderful daily magazine with interviews, person-on-the-street photos and comments, reviews and festival highlights.  Impressed?  We were.

Okay, now for the drawbacks:  because many of the Iranian-made films come sliding in at the last minute with no regard to a submission deadline, a lot that were exhibited in the cinemas hadn't had a chance to be subtitled.  That's a problem if you truly want to court an international audience.  The other issue is, when they are subtitled, the idioms used and other language boo-boos sometimes make them nearly incomprehensible or garner laughs when something distinctly unfunny is happening on the screen.

The viewing schedule was packed to the gills.  Tehranis are used to glut, but for visitors, it was untenable to try and get everything in.  (Admittedly, this was due to just sheer exhaustion and confusion.)  This is fairly normal for a festival where you're working, and those that traverse them regularly know this.  So we lucky few can retreat to a viewing library.  This is another area that will need a lot of organization and work.  The viewing library only contained DEFC-produced fare and even then, a lot was not available.  It was particularly important to at least have all of the national competition films.  Again, I think this was just due to the time crunch they faced getting a festival of this magnitude up on its legs.  But, all in all, it was a challenge to see films for visitors or non-Farsi speaking people. 

The cinema complex was always packed and there was a lot of foot traffic on all three levels.  However, the cinema space itself could be used to much better effect.  There were just gobs of people everywhere with no sense of organization or where to go to ask for what you needed, whether you were a filmmaker looking to meet a particular producer or film executive, or a press person wanting to chat with a particular filmmaker.  They did their best by having this absolutely amazing team of coordinators helping to connect people, but if this group hadn't been so sharp and on it (Bakhshi admitted this was an issue last year), it would have been utter chaos with missed opportunities for meetings and other important encounters one relies on having at an event like this.  There weren't even any parties with filmmakers.  The guests were fed, watered and squired around like we were royalty which was fab, but we never really got to mingle en masse with filmmakers and this was a shame.  We came there to meet them and they came there to meet us.  There should be more of a meet market approach, the kind that Heather Croall is praised with creating at Sheffield. 

The space where the actual market was could have been better conceived.  It was a bit too exclusionary and a very static and unwieldy space to navigate, even though it was housed in a beautiful gallery conveniently across the street from the cinemas. 

Having said all that, the tribute sessions and panels were very well-attended with Maestro Wintonick giving a five-hour session to a small group of filmmakers (that's including translation time, but still!).  Everyone worked hard, audience included, to make this event all it could be.  It was quite easy to connect once you figured out who you wanted to connect with--it just took a bit of time, that's all.  But a bit more organization and forethought will come with experience, I've no doubt about that.

In my next post, I'd like to share a 100-second film by an Iranian woman who made her extraordinary piece for $110 (and impressed the hell out of me with her sales skills), and to also talk about another (already accomplished) Iranian filmmaker that many of us are certain has a long and solid career in front of him for as long as he desires.  These and a few others will be coming to our shores soon, inshallah.  More in a bit.

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE To Air on HBO

Academy Award and Cinema Eye Honor recipient Alex Gibney's searing and important film airs on HBO on Monday.

In the year following 9/11, the Bush Administration's promise to root out terrorists abroad took a perverse, unsettling turn, with the U.S. military embarking on a policy of humiliation and deprivation designed to get political prisoners to talk. The appallingly inhumane tactics used by military prison guards in Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay flaunted the Geneva Conventions, while killing untold numbers of prisoners, including innocent people like Dilawar, a young Afghan taxi driver whose only "crime" was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This film portrays America's loss of dignity in its zeal to win the "War on Terrorism."  Taxi to the Dark Side premieres Monday, September 29 at 9:00 pm EST.  Don't miss it.

At the Edge of the World

Thom Powers opened his '09 Fall STF season last night with a film called At the Edge of the World.  Dazzling and cinematic, with lithe and fluid shooting in the wildest of circumstances, the film is a testament to the sheer tenacity and lunacy a small group of human beings can display, especially in close quarters.  It makes for a rich tapestry of emotions in the viewer since the cameramen are going through the same thing their subjects are, while simultaneously recording everything, up close and personal.  These are the "pirates" we come to know and love/hate as they play their game of Battleship! writ large, ramming one another's vessels and chucking tear gas bombs onto the deck one minute, and asking if everyone on the attacked ship was okay and did they need anything, the next.  Hilarious chaos, offset by heart-melting cheers and laughter when these same characters spot a penguin or a dolphin or a whale cavorting in the near distance--the very creatures they are there to protect with their own lives.  And the more bumblingly they do it, the more you're moved by the whole crazy thing.

As we've seen in many another caper film, the small band of merry troublemakers accept the onus, willingly and passionately, of being the self-appointed police force of the sea, showing up the guys who are supposed to be doing it.  Not only are they not aided physically by anyone, but when they attempt to make a "citizen's arrest" on the Japanese research vessel (whaling ship) they've been pursuing, all the countries that purportedly support the treaty that protects the whale sanctuary ignore them.  I'm sorry, I thought the whole purpose of setting up a sanctuary was so that the creatures living in it wouldn't have to worry about being harpooned and slaughtered so they can be served up in a sushi bar in Tokyo.  After the scientists finish with their "research," of course.

Director Dan Stone's story doesn't shy away from the messy bits of being a young anarchist let loose on the Antarctic Ocean.  The hefty centerpiece of all this is embodied by a modern-day Captain Ahab (except he hunts the hunters, not the prey) named Paul Watson (pictured with his ship and media center, the Farley Mowat, photo courtesy of The New Yorker) .  A few filmmakers were quite hungry to film his story, especially after The New Yorker did an extensive piece on him called "Neptune's Navy" by Raffi Khatchadourian in November of '07.  You can read it here.

But the Stones (Dan and his brother and producer, Craig Stone) got there first with, apparently, pretty deep pockets, deeper than most nonfiction filmmakers have these days, anyway.  But passion is as passion does so, gentlemen, bless you for making an important and riveting nonfiction story with your money.  It was well-spent.  In one of the oddest Q&As I've ever witnessed, Dan Stone did say that he thought it was absolute bullshit that the "documentary is dead," as some hyperbolic headlines read these days when other news is slow and the world likes to beat up on the little guy.  I hope the film gets the theatrical exhibition it deserves.

Next week, STF will feature What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann by Steven Cantor (who will be in the house) with filmmaker Hugo Perez as stand-in host for Powers who will return the week after just in time to celebrate his birthday with a screening of Blood Trail, a flick I saw at Britdoc this summer before its debut at Toronto.  It's fabulous; come out and see it and meet the film's director, Richard Parry, and his subject, the heroic Robert King.

This weekend closes out the bachelor portion of Thom's life as he and his betrothed tie the knot in Toronto this weekend.  Congrats Thom and Rafaela--mazel tov.

The Robert Drew Kennedy Films Collection

Today, Docurama has announced a tremendously exciting release: three seminal and historic documentaries of JFK, made by the legendary, Robert Drew.  In one two-disc set, they are offering Primary (1960), Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963) and Faces of November (1964).  The street date is the 29th of this month, but you can click on that big, fat yellow box to your lower right to order your own copy now.

Three of the most intimate and candid films about a US President ever captured on celluloid, Primary, Crisis and Faces portray John F. Kennedy's life from his time as a young senator from Massachusetts to his challenging years in the White House, to the aftermath of his assassination in November of '63.  Drew is one of the godfathers of modern cinema verité, and this is a must for anyone's collection.

I also want to mention here another staggering and intelligent piece of nonfiction cinema on the ramifications of Kennedy's death by director, Robert Stone, called Oswald's Ghost--you can read my thoughts here and order it through Amazon, another click to the right.

Reflections of a Former (and Future) Film Critic

Thanks to Jennifer Merin of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists for sending this along.  Click here to read Mary Pols' article.

You Won't Believe What's Happening in the California Desert . . .

You also won't believe what's happening in the deserts in and around Dubai, but that's another story.  With which I will regale you as soon as I can talk about it coherently.  In the meantime, I've just reached London this afternoon from that crazy place, and even though it's pissing down rain, I'm glad to be here!

Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber's Full Battle Rattle is having its theatrical rollout at Film Forum today.  Please go see this in the theater--not only to support these talented guys and their amazingly accomplished and exciting nonfiction film, but because the film should be seen on the big screen.

I got to interview Moss and Gerber for Shooting People and our extensive conversation is up on their site right now.  Please enjoy by clicking here.  Bring a snack; it's long.  But it's well worth reading about their experience making this prize-winning piece.  You can also read my review about the film after seeing it in Toronto at Hot Docs here.  Yes, war is that weird.

Mardi Gras: Made in China

Indie filmmakers have a hard row to hoe these days.  This is not a news flash.  A lot of us bitch and gripe and moan about it, and then there are filmmakers like David Redmon and Ashley Sabin who just get on the horse and ride hard across the finish line--and beyond.  Not with just one project or two, but several.  And not just with their own fare.  Starting in the fall, they will be distributing for other filmmakers, as well, who also are the current crop of DIYers to wade into the fray of self-distribution, theatrical releases and all.

I first met Redmon and Sabin (pictured) when they curated an evening at the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series at Barbes in the Slope last year.  They brought a stunning short called Deconfliction that haunts me still, and Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project, another nonfiction flick that left me gobsmacked.  When I met them again at True/False in February, I mostly saw the back of David's head as he crouched over his computer screen editing his film, polite and friendly to all, but mainly oblivious to the chaos around him as he hunkered down and kept on working.

Redmon's latest film Mardi Gras: Made in China will distribute nationally on July 29 through Netflix, Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble, and other physical and virtual commercial outlets.  But right now, you can order the film through their new production and distribution company, Carnivalesque Films.  A nominee for the Grand Jury Award at Sundance, winner of some 20 national and international awards, theatrically released, curated by the Sundance Channel as a "Classical Festival Moment," and a Critic's Pick by Stephen Holden of the New York Times, this documentary is a personal essay writ large, as Redmon whipsaws us back and forth between the bacchanal of Mardi Gras in New Orleans and a factory in China, where thousands upon thousands of young people, some as young as fourteen, work for 10 cents an hour for 14-16 hour days breathing in toxic fumes to make the beads that are exchanged by very drunk people on Fat Tuesday, who then proceed to flash one another their privates, throw up at the end of the evening, discard their necklaces with the rest of the party flotsam, and go home to their Wal-Mart lives, having no idea (and most of them not caring a whit, either) where those shiny, multi-colored beads come from.  But hey! some of those jewels are also "recycled" and sent to soldiers in Iraq so they can celebrate Mardi Gras, too.  Oy vey.

The film is edited beautifully by Redmon, illustrating, in the best direct cinema style, the cultural divide that touches off some huge global issues, such as international trade, worker exploitation, sexism, economic stratification, and lithely, but blisteringly, touches off the collective consciousness of some of the revelers in the Big Easy.  The  duo formed a company whose ethos and main goal is to "explore how personal stories relate to complex social issues."  Redmon and Sabin co-directed two other films in that spirit, both award-winners, as well--Kamp Katrina (Ms. Pearl also stars in this film--and coming soon: Ms. Pearl the Musical!) and the lovely Intimidad: A True Mexican Love Story.

The DVD, through Carnivalesque, is really nicely packaged and showcases such bonus features like the PG version for schools and other educational markets (with a shorter running time and no boobies or erect men in nighties--blech), deleted scenes, clips from upcoming films, and a 16-year-old girl's diary, a new worker just arrived to the Tai Kuen Bead Factory in Fuzhou, China run by a bossman named Roger who wouldn't break a sweat in front of Mike Wallace, let alone the ever-respectful Redmon, as he lies through his teeth about his workers' happiness and satisfaction.  He's got an American name (he's Chinese) to match his American-style corporate greed.  "I feel so confident when I sit here!" he crows from his big leather office chair.  He's a very wealthy man; of course, he feels confident.  It's a wonderful film that elicits chuckles even as you're becoming increasingly depressed.  Not an easy thing to pull off.

Carnivalesque will also be releasing Ry Russo-Young's Orphans, Paul Lovelace and Sam Douglas' The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose, and an incredibly moving film out of post-Katrina New Orleans, Zach Godshall's Low and Behold, one of my favorite films from last year.  Visit and support Carnivalesque, an indie production and distribution company that self-supports these indie filmmakers so that they can go on to make their next project, and their next one.

Hell, use it as a model, why don't you?

Two Quickies

Just wanted to mention a couple of things before I dash off for the day:

I want to personally congratulate Mark Elijah Rosenberg, artistic director of Rooftop Films, program director, Dan Nuxoll and managing director, Genevieve Delaurier and their entire staff and crew on a stellar opening weekend for their 12th summer season.  I know of other local festivals and annual film events that have been around just as long, or longer, that don't begin to measure up to the professionalism, exciting programming and artistic potency that this organization has in its arsenal.  It's a bitch launching and keeping something going in New York City--finding your audience, keeping your audience and growing your audience is a full-time job.  With partners like Scion, IFC, indieWIRE, Indiepix Films, and others, they are obviously intent on kicking ass well into the next decade, and beyond. 

Last night's event in the East Village, on the rooftop of New Design High aka the "Open Road Rooftop," was fantastic and packed with hundreds of people, including downtown princess, Chloe Sevigny and the astoundingly prolific filmmaker and Academy-Award winner, Alex Gibney, in attendance, as well as the star of the evening, Mr. Clayton Patterson, photo and video documentarian, historian and keeper of the flame for the Lower East Side of our fair city, a place that is quite rapidly becoming monetized, corporatized and Disneyfied at an alarming rate.  A.R.E. Weapons opened with a blistering set, followed by the world premiere of Captured.  Big kudos to filmmakers Ben Solomon, Dan Levin and Jenner Furst for crafting a superb and riveting documentary.

Tonight, the special season opening weekend continues.  Click here for more info on the entire summer program.

Item Two:  On Wednesday, June 25, there will be a special downtown reception and screening during the 2008 Human Rights Watch Film Festival at 7:30 at Room Studio.  Cinereach, a supporter of the festival, will present the 2008 Cinereach Award, a $5,000 prize, to (the awesome) Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath for their amazing film, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), the story of one family's epic journey from war-torn Laos to New York City, 23 years in the making.  Cinereach is an up-and-coming non-profit funded by a group of young filmmakers and philanthropists dedicated to promoting socially-conscious film.  We  will be hearing a lot more from this organization in the very near future.  There will be a conversation with Kuras and Phrasavath after the screening.

Special Flaherty Events in NYC

The 54th Annual Robert Flaherty Film Seminar is only a couple of weeks away and, I'm happy to report that they're booked to the gills.  Fortunately, many of the works being shown at this year's seminar will be available to view for NYC audiences immediately following the seminar at the end of this month.  There will also be a Flaherty at BAM program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, September 12 - 14, right before IFP's Independent Film Week commences.

The Flaherty is bringing a special program to the MoMA featuring the films of Bahman Ghobadi (pictured).  His distinctive film works (a really fascinating, quite poetic, amalgam of narrative and documentary) explore the culture of the Kurdish people living in the border areas of Iran and Iraq.  His films will screen from June 23 through July 7 and include Turtles Can Fly, A Time for Drunken Horses, Half Moon, Life in Fog (which we're also exhibiting at Documentary Voices in Dubai in July), Daf (Tambourine), War is Over and Marooned in Iraq.  Click here for program details.

CEC ArtsLink, in conjunction with the Flaherty, will present new nonfiction works from Russia.  This is a free program of shorts screening at the Anthology Film Archives on July 1 at 7:30 p.m.  The program includes Children of the Great Lake by Anastasia Tarasova, Phantom of Europe by Igor Morozov and Beslan. The Right to Live. by Olga Stefanova.  All filmmakers will be present for a discussion following the screening.  An RSVP is needed to [email protected].  Click here for more info on the complete program.