Calling all documentarians! Funding proposals will be accepted from Nov. 1 to Dec. 2, 2011 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Media, Culture, and Special Initiatives program. It supports the production and distribution of social-issue documentary films made by experienced filmmakers based in the U.S. with a track record of completing feature-length films that have been broadcast nationally and internationally.   Projects must address significant social cha...

April is the Cruellest Month, or, Genocide African style, and a Shadowy Russian View of Emperor HirohitoAs the Berlin festival enters the home stretch political films and political biopics continue to score strongly. "The Sun"(‘Solntze’) by Alexander Sukorov provides a very dark Russian view of Japanese Emperor Hirohito during the crucial final days of the war and the immediate postwar days during which the descendant of the Sun God had to come to grips with his essential non-Godhood and wa...