Richard "Ricky" Leacock, who, with Robert Drew, Albert Maysles and DA Pennebaker, helped revolutionize documentary filmmaking with a dynamic, transformational style known as cinema vérité, passed away on March 23. He was 89, and lived in Paris. Throughout his remarkable career--one that began at age 14 with his first documentary, Canary Bananas, about growing up on his father's banana plantation in the Canary Islands--he strove, as he puts it on his prodigious website ( www.richardleacock.com) "to give my viewers a sense of ‘being there.'" He graduated from Harvard University, with a degree in
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The Los Angeles Film Festival returned to its downtown digs last month, with its parent company, Film Independent, in a bit of a flux with the departure of its longtime executive director, Dawn Hudson, for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. But with Rebecca Yeldham and David Ansen helming the festival once again, Angelinos had much cinematic food for thought amid a very crowded month of festivals. To the east there was SilverDocs, Human Rights Watch Festival and Shefield Doc/Fest, and to the north, Frameline and Banff World Media Festival. In addition, there were high-profile
Wrapping up the Games for Change symposium.
What happens to the narrative DNA of a movie once it's in your mind? Does it get decoded? Does it get cloned in the stories you tell? Or in the narrative structure of your own life story? If you were engineering the marketing for Errol Morris' new documentary--or "anti-documentary," as he calls it-- Tabloid, you might, not unlike the film's star, Joyce McKinney, once did, think that you were living a fairy tale in light of the media climate these days: The scandal-fueled death of 168-year-old British tabloid giant News of the World is making international headlines, while a recent Newsweek
'Life in a Day' opens July 24 in the US.
What do Elmo, former gang members, gypsy Romanian school children, bullies, a horse whisperer and crowdsourcing all have in common? They were the big hits at the 9th annual AFI/Discovery Channel SilverDocs Film Festival and Conference in Silver Spring, Maryland, this past June. As always, there was far too much to do in one day, or five days; the offerings were so diverse. This year over 100 films from 60 countries were selected from the 2,200 submitted. But, says festival director Sky Sitney, "I would rather have people overscheduled than sitting around for hours." If that was the goal
Extensive Research Underscores Impact beyond the Box Office
To get a sense of just how intensive and comprehensive the Sheffield Doc/Fest has become, take a look at a single time slot. At 5:00 p.m. on Friday, right in the middle of the five-day festival, you had your choice of no fewer than 13 options of where to turn your attention. You could be in a hub of the Sheffield Hallam University student union, taking a critical look at the inevitably complicated relationship between filmmakers and charities when they partner to make films. In a former chapel up the road, you could witness that same relationship up close, in the Wellcome Trust Broadcast
The True/False Film Festival (T/F) in Columbia, Missouri enjoyed its third incarnation this past February. Already hailed as a haven for nonfiction makers from across the world, T/F continues to amaze and delight. Not that any is necessarily needed, but this festival is more proof that the popularity of documentary films is on the rise. But it is also evident that there is much more to a festival than merely screening films. The creation of David Wilson and Paul Sturtz, T/F is pushing the boundaries of what a documentary film festival can be. "It's a playful name for us," quips Sturtz. "The
indieWIRE was born as a free daily e-mail publication in 1996, and over the past 10 years has been honored with a "Webby" Award for best film website, called a "must read" by Variety , branded the "online heartbeat of the world's independent film community" by Forbes , and dubbed "best indie crossroads" by film critic Roger Ebert. Documentary interviewed co-founder and editor-in-chief Eugene Hernandez to reflect on indieWIRE 's beginnings, how it bloomed and where it's headed in the future. When you started indieWIRE in 1996, did you have grand thoughts? Or did you just think it would be fun