After the intense (and enjoyable) experience of sitting through at least 15 documentary feature films over 4 days at the just concluded AFI-Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, the question organically arose: do documentaries really matter? As someone who trained in documentary filmmaking techniques (and who made a few, best to be forgotten non-fiction nothings) and an admirer of the stamina, grit and determination of the documentary filmmaker, my answer appeared more hopeful than det...
At a film festival devoted to non-fiction works from around the world, the presence of a true documentary master is cause for celebration. Such was the atmosphere on Wednesday evening at the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival, which honored documentary pioneer Frederick Wiseman with its annual Guggenheim Symposium (the Festival's equivalent of a career achievement award).
Wiseman, who has been making controversial and thought-provoking films since the 1960s, is...
The Italian Festival dei Popoli arranged at the Anthology Film Archives in New York from May 26 -30 a documentary film festival and presented a selection of Italian productions. Guided by 'The Feeling of Being There' theme the program included influential classic international documentaries produced during the 1958-1965 period which had a strong impact on documentary film making. An additional focus was an Italian Chronicles section with the work of Alessandro Rossetto and a Special Events pa...
The AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland is now in full swing, with industry movers and shakers in town to exchange information and view the latest documentary offerings from around the world. While the completed films get the lion's share of attention from visiting distributors, programmers and an enthusiastic public, many producers are here to try and secure funding that has become increasingly difficult in a stunted indie film market...
Documentaries screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival tended to be superior to the feature films in its program an assessment not disputed by its creative director Geoff Gilmore. In one of the seminars Gilmore admitted that the Sundance festival which he had directed before coming to New York experienced a similar discrepancy. Similar to the US market position of foreign language films, documentaries play a minor role at the US box office. In the 2009 U.S. total box office of $10.6 billio...
Documentaries screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival tended to be superior to the feature films in its program an assessment not disputed by its creative director Geoff Gilmore. In one of the seminars Gilmore admitted that the Sundance festival which he had directed before coming to New York experienced a similar discrepancy. Similar to the US market position of foreign language films, documentaries play a minor role at the US box office. In the 2009 U.S. total box office of $10.6 billion,...
A great film festival, like a great film, raises questions. The New York Documentary Film Festival- Festival dei Popoli, from its opening film tonight, has posed a controversial one;
Why has one of Italy's most awarded auteur films, 'Below Sea Level', (winner of 10 prestigious international awards including Best Documentary Venice Film Festival 2008, Grand Prix Cinema Du Reel 2008 & European Film Academy Awards 2009) not yet premiered in the United States?
As Director Gianfranco Ro...
A great film festival, like a great film, raises questions. The New York Documentary Film Festival- Festival dei Popoli, from its opening film tonight, has posed a controversial one;Why has one of Italy's most awarded auteur films, 'Below Sea Level', (winner of 10 prestigious international awards including Best Documentary Venice Film Festival 2008, Grand Prix Cinema Du Reel 2008 & European Film Academy Awards 2009) not yet premiered in the United States?As Director Gianfranco Rosi addressed the...
Documenta 10 has a unique web cycle. Rock, Paper, Scissors: The collage in the documentary. 2.0 Board proposes an approach to documentary collage, an irreverent and subversive world exclusive viewing on our website.
In this documentary collage includes avant-garde as Dziga Vertov's Kino Glaz; some essays as Critique de la séparation, of Guy Debord; Latin American documentary collage works with LBJ and Ilha das Flores de Santiago Alvarez and Jorge Furtado; the Fotage Found offers by Josep...
East Silver is not only a specialised market focused on central and eastern European countries, but also helps to promote high quality documentary films from those regions throughout the world. For that two unique tools were designed that runs during the year, East Silver Caravan and East Silver TV Focus. Caravan represents the best from the current East Silver Market catalogue. Special selection of films is submitted to various documentary film festivals for programme pre-selectio...
Just Talking is a side event organized by the 12th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century, which brings together film-makers and documentary professionals from different parts of the world. This event invites its guests to an open, relaxed discussion, giving documentary professionals the opportunity to know one another on a personal level, to exchange views, and share experiences. The sessions are held in a friendly and informal environment and revo...
How can short documentaries be produced and packaged in a compelling way? What are the challenges and advantages when working with international co-productions of short documentaries? Will the digital future bring a bigger need for short formats? These are some of the issues explored in this master class focusing on the German -Czech co-production Breathless. This project consists of five short creative documentaries on the theme Breathless - Dominance of the Moment. During the masterc...
DOCUMENTA MADRID 10 will be screening,for the first time in Spain,The Cove, the controversial and widely acclaimed winner of the Oscar Award for Best Documentary. The director of The Cove, Louie Psihoyos, has won numerous awards; Audience Award at Sundance, Hot Docs, Silver Docs and the Documentary Festival of Amsterdam are just a few examples. The Cove tells the story of a team of divers,activists, special effects experts, and the dolphin trainer Richard O’Barry, who leads the team into a ...
by Richard Traubner
The Retrospektive at the Berlinale usually excites all types of film historians, curators, museum personnel, and other interested parties--especially when it's a German subject. This year, a restored version of Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis trumped the Retrospektive itself, which was a look-back at significant and sometimes controversial films shown at the film festival since it began in 1951--in far warmer June weather.
Many of these films...
For many Americans, "terrorism" is an anthropological term meaning dark foreigners. They might be surprised to learn that it was how a U.S. Senate committee once described corporate America's tactics to crush labor unions. Social documentarian Leo Hurwitz reenacted findings from that official body — the La Follette Senate Civil Liberties Committee — in his 1942 feature film, Native Land. The hybrid documentary raised the specter of fascism and called exploited workers to action....
X anniversary International Documentary Film Festival “Flahertiana” is open for entries. Deadline for entries – 1 June, 2010
The festival is held from 14 to 20 October, 2010, in Perm, Russia.
The festival program includes documentaries that develop the cinematography aesthetics first introduced by Robert Flaherty in his masterpiece “Nanook of the North”, portraying the human character’s real life on film and structuring it on the screen according to the laws of drama...
After winning the top prize at the IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the world’s most prestigious showcase for non-fiction film, the Canadian/UK co-production LAST TRAIN HOME is making a splash at its International Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Now the clear favorite for awards recognition in the World Cinema Documentary competition here, the film seems poised for a distribution deal.
LAST TRAIN HOME by director Lixin Fan is a beautif...
The X International Documentary Film Festival “Flahertiana” taking place from 14-20 October, 2010, in Perm, Russia, has launched call for entries. The festival accepts documentaries that develop the cinematography aesthetics first introduced by Robert Flaherty in his masterpiece Nanook of the North. Please, check festival regulations page for more details on entry conditions at http://flahertiana.ru/eng/2010/regulations/.
Deadline for entries is 1 June, 2010.
Official web-...
Director: Jan-Eje Ferling.
Bernt 59 and Cissi 27 meet in AA. She is yearning her lost alcoholic father. Bernt is missing his lost family and his youth. They cannot respond to each other needs. Bernt comes into life crises, but gets hope when finally hear from his lost daughter in USA. Cissi goes further searching for another father figure.
DocsBarcelona, February 2nd to 7th
Once more, February is the month for documentaries in Barcelona. The month for DocsBarcelona, the International Documentary Film Festival. The festival for the general audience and professionals. The one that screens the best national and international films....
The festival is dedicated to films which show a character that lives on the screen a part of his life directed by the author according to the laws of dramatic art. The first film of this genre, Nanook from the North, was made by Robert Flaherty in 1922. The film became the aesthetical manifest for the subsequent generations of cinema-makers.
by Marla Lewin
Photo credit Jerry Schatzberg The French filmmaker Pierre Rissient appears in Todd McCarthy's documentary 'Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema.'
Pierre Rissient was originally a publicist. He has gone on to produce and direct films. He is most known for his auteur discoveries, and he has shared with me, his joy most recently, about spending time at a film festival in Lyon, France, where he has so many fond memories from his youth. It was there that he supporte...
The Global Film Village: Pierre Rissient: the silent connoisseur, and maker of stars, speaks out about the film “SILENT ARMY”by Marla Lewin Photo credit Jerry Schatzberg The French filmmaker Pierre Rissient appears in Todd McCarthy's documentary 'Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema.' Pierre Rissient was originally a publicist. He has gone on to produce and direct films. He is most known for his auteur discoveries, and he has shared with me, his joy most recently, about spending time at a film fes...
Asian and European films dominated the top awards at IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival, which held its awards gala yesterday afternoon at the historic art nouveau movie palace, the Tuschinski. The audience, made up of filmmakers, professionals and doc film buffs, loudly applauded the winners and the overall excellence of this year's program. The VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (with a cash prize of €12,500) went to Lixin Fan for Last Train Home, about the he...
