The AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival Audience Award Winners were announced on Sunday evening as the seven-day doc fest came to an end after screening more than 100 films from over 50 countries. More than 25,000 attendees and 1000 film and media professionals participated in the week-long doc love fest.
The Audience Award for a feature goes to MEN WHO SWIM directed by Dylan Williams. The film follows a British man living in Sweden on the brink of turn...
The AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival announced its award winners at a typically low-key awards ceremony on Saturday afternoon, culminating the weeklong festival activities that included the screening of 102 films representing 54 countries, a free outdoor screening, live performances, and a five-day concurrent International Documentary Conference.
This year's Sterling Award for Best US Feature was won by WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU, MOMMY) directed by Stephanie...
This year's AFI-Discovery Channel Documentary Festival boasted a strong showing of new European documentaries. The non-fiction tradition continues to expand with the arrival of new documentary voices from the "first world".
The Sterling World Competition section boasted strong films from Europe. THE ARRIVALS by French co-directors Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard examined the tensions in French society as more and more immigrants arrive to realize the "French d...
STEAM OF LIFE (Finland)
I am not sure if it was completely intentional or just one of those alchemic side effects of working with what was available, but one of the unintentional strands of this year’s AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival can only be described as “Nordic angst”, a unique kind of melancholy only found in the sun-starved nations of Scandinavia and northern Europe. A group of films from the region, of diverse subjects and filmic s...
What one of the great benefits (and joys) of an event like the AFI-Discovery Channel Documentary Festival is the presentation of films that go behind the news headlines and offer a portrait of the complexity and urgency of political and social events. The simple idea behind many of the films here is that the more we know, the more we understand, the more we can do.
In the case of finding solutions to some of the world's most complicated issues, none is more pressing than the need t...
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...
While it is undeniably fun (and instructive) to view the completed films at this year's SILVERDOCS, much of the meat of the 7 day program is in its annual professional conference. Held parallel to the film screenings at the AFI Silver Theater and other venues, the concurrent International Documentary Conference is a must for professionals in the non-fiction field.
The Conference brings together leading filmmakers, educators, broadcasters, business leaders, distributors, private a...
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...
The focus returns to documentaries from the US and around the world as the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival kicked off on Monday evening, June 21. The Festival and International Documentary Conference are the largest events of their kind in the United States, bringing together non-fiction producers, distributors, television executives, film festival programmers and a bevvy of other industry professionals who are passionate about documentaries. Add to that the moti...
