Docs in the Big D
AFI Dallas International Film Festival, whose third edition bows March 26 and runs through April 2, just announced its full slate. Here are the documentaries:
Target Documentary Feature Competition
Americana (Dir.: Topaz Adizes)
The Eyes of Me (Dir.: Keith Maitland)
Houston We Have a Problem (Dir.: Nicole Torre)
Prom Night in Mississippi (Dir: Paul Saltzman)
Rough Aunties (Dir.: Kim Longinotto)
Whatever It Takes (Dir.: Christopher Wong)
Documentary Showcase
Art & Copy (Dir.: Doug Pray)
Dungeon Masters (Dir: Keven McAlester)
Food Inc. (Dir.: Robert Kenner)
The Garden (Dir: Scott Hamilton Kennedy)
Tyson (Dir: James Toback)
Deep Ellum Sounds
Rip: A Remix Manifesto (Dir.: Brett Gaylor)
Rock Prophecies (Dir.: John Chester)
Say My Name (Dir.: Nirit Peled)
Soul Power (Dir.: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte)
Dallas Premiere Series
Valentino: The Last Emperor (Dir.: Matt Tynauer)
Texas Competition
One Nation (Dir.: Justin Wilson)
St. Nick (Dir.: David Lowery)
Tattooed Under Fire (Dir: Nancy Schiesari)
Environmental Visions Competition
At The Edge of the World (Dir.: Dan Stone)
Crude (Dir.: Joe Berlinger)
Sundance Channel: Eco Trip: Cotton Shirt (Dir.: Remy Webber)/Addicted To Plastic (Dir.: Ian Connacher)
Upstream Battle (Dir.: Ben Kempas)
World Cinema
Kassim The Dream (Dir.: Kief Davidson)
Midnight Specials
Not Quite Hollywood (Dir: Mark Hartley)
San Francisco International Film Festival Announces Doc Competition Slate
The 52nd edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 23 to May 7. Here are the documentaries in competition for the Golden Gate Awards:
The Age of Stupid (Dir.: Franny Armstrong)
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country (Dir.:Anders Østergaard)
California Company Town (Dir.: Lee Anne Schmitt)
City of Borders (Dir.: Yun Suh)
Crude (Dir.: Joe Berlinger)
D tour (Dir.: Jim Granato)
Kimjongilia (Dir.: N.C. Heikin)
My Neighbor, My Killer (Dir.: Anne Aghion)
New Muslim Cool (Dir.: Jennifer Maytorena Taylor)
Nomad's Land (Dir.: Gaël Métroz)
The Reckoning (Dir.: Pamela Yates)
Speaking in Tongues (Dir.: Marcia Jarmel, Ken Schneider)
Z32 (Dir.: Avi Mograbi)
SXSW to Teams Up with SnagFilms, IndiePix and Cinema Guild on Doc Premiere
The upcoming South by Southwest Film Festival, which runs March 13 to 21 in Austin, Texas, is partnering with SnagFilms, IndiePix, and Cinema Guild on a unique distribution deal, simultaneously premiering Clark Lyda and Jesse Lyda's documentary The Least of These at the festival and online via SnagFilms, and then online and on DVD and in theaters through IndiePix and Cinema Guild.
The film, which premieres March 16, takes a penetrating look at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security prison that re-opened in 2006 as a prototype family detention center. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings. As information about troubling conditions at the facility began to leak out, three activist attorneys sought to investigate and address the issues. In telling the story of their quest, the film explores the role (and limits) of community activism in bringing about change.
"This is a groundbreaking distribution effort to bring attention to an important question of human rights and public policy," said Rick Allen, CEO of SnagFilms, in a statement. "We are building on relationships we have forged with the festival, with IndiePix and with the filmmakers to open up channels of distribution for this particular film." SnagFilms and IndiePix collaborated with great success on simultaneous launch events with the Hamptons Festival last fall, he noted. "By combining the broad national reach of SnagFilms with the DVD distribution capability of IndiePix and the library and educational marketing of The Cinema Guild, we can ensure that this film and this topic have maximum visibility," he said.
Janet Pierson, producer of the SXSW Film Festival and Conference, said: "We are pleased to be part of the groundbreaking premiere and distribution launch of The Least of These. Our festival can provide a powerful launching platform for the film upon which SnagFilms and IndiePix can build their distribution strategies. We are committed to supporting new distribution models for SXSW premiere filmmakers."
Brooklyn's in the House: BAMCinemaFEST Set for Summer Premiere
Elsewhere on the festival circuit, there's a new game in town-BAMCinemaFEST, which debuts this June at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York City. The new festival is an outgrowth of BAM's Cinematek, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year of providing dynamic programming to Brooklyn and beyond. As reported in indieWIRE, the festival will replace the Sundance at BAM series, which screened selections from the Sundance Film Festival for the past three years.
With the marketing muscle and storied cachet of BAM behind it, BAMcinemaFEST just might emerge as a third major film festival in New York City, alongside Tribeca in the spring and New York Film Festival in the fall. With Peter Scarlet having stepped down as artistic director of the Tribeca Film Festival last week., just ten days after the Twitter-tweaking announcement that Geoff Gilmore would leave his hallowed perch at Sundance to head up Tribeca Enterprises and ten days before Tribeca would announce its line-up, this sets the stage for an intriguing triumvirate.
What resonates for me most about what turned out to be Gilmore's valediction from the podium at the Sundance Awards Ceremony was the point in his address when he raised his voice and exclaimed, "The independent arena needs to change. There are too many good films that need to be seen by audiences everywhere." I thought Sundance at BAM was a good start in getting the Sundance brand out, given the fact that a fair number of films come out of Sundance festooned with awards and accolades and promise, only to fall short of expectations in finding a significant audience. So, in taking the helm as Chief Creative Officer at Tribeca Enterprises, the for-profit media company that runs the festival and Tribeca Cinemas, Gilmore may well be taking the lead in transforming what a festival ought to be. The aforementioned SnagFilms/SXSW initiative is one means of changing the role of a festival; the Tribeca model of a festival as a component of a multi-platform synergy is another.
As the new kid on the block, BAMcinemaFEST takes a bold step planting its pole in the New York cultural arena-and going head to head in the festival calendar with the Los Angeles Film Festival. BAM thinks big and acts globally; its 25-year-old Next Wave Festival is a testament to that (Full disclosure: I worked at BAM in the 1980s). With BAM having partnered with Sundance for three years, and with Tribeca having lured the Sundance impresario eastward, it'll be interesting to see just where the festival paradigm will go.
And what about the New York Film Festival? A smaller festival in terms of number of films, and a grizzled veteran at 40+ years, this showcase has the misfortune of following on the heels of Telluride, Toronto and Venice. And the dearth of docs-sometimes as few as two or three-is lamentable. But the festival ushers in the fall cultural season in New York; cineastes set their watches by it; and for those who couldn't get to Cannes, they can check out a lot of what screened there, here. And Cannes is a little snooty about docs too.
As a footnote, True/False, which just concluded, has, in just seven years, rocked the doc world with its innovation, audacity and sheer sense of fun. I wasn't able to go, but ace blogger Pamela Cohn was, and she offers this well-considered take on the Missouri-based festival and why the doc community reveres it.