As reported in The New York Times, filmmaker Ed Pincus, one of the pioneers in the personal documentary genre, died last week at home in Vermont, at age 75, of complications from leukemia. Pincus was best known for Diaries, which documented five years of his life, from 1971 to 1976, with his wife, Jane, their two children—and a number of women with whom he had affairs. In an essay he wrote for Documentary magazine back in 2001, filmmaker Ross McElwee described Diaries as a "portrait of a particular era—the early 1970s—a time in which a willingness to experiment in life, love and political
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Though it doesn't feel like winter at the IDA headquarters here in sunny Los Angeles, the season is definitely upon us, which means it's time for more grant opportunities! Okay, that might not be what the season is all about. But for documentary filmmakers, the fundraising brain never rests. We've put together a list of grants and other opportunities with upcoming deadlines that we think might be of interest to you. As you sort through the list and go about conducting your grant research and learning the requirements of each organization—they're all different—you'll find that many require you
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The unassuming title of this documentary belies what is one of the most remarkable nonfiction films ever made. From 1971 through 1976, Ed Pincus recorded on 16mm film episodes of his life with his wife Jane, their two young children and the several women with whom Ed had love affairs. It's also a portrait of a particular era—the early 1970s—a time in which a willingness to experiment in life, love and political expression was still present, but on the wane. That title— Diaries—is as unadorned, direct and honest, as is the film itself. What I experienced when I first saw Diaries was not a sense
'JFK' airs November 11 and 12 on PBS.
The 7th Annual Old Dominion University (ODU) Film and Video Festival, "Stranger than Fiction: Framing Reality in Film and Television," took place last March in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Festival spectators saw a rich array of documentary movies and TV programs, from classics such as Drew Associates' Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963), to postmodern works like Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control (1997), to social activist films such as Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine (2002), to a healthy variety of productions by local filmmakers. Professor Gary Edgerton, the
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The 29th Annual IDA Awards will take place on Friday, December 6th at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles.
People sometimes ask me what my all-time favorite documentary film is. Many documentaries have moved me, or seem important or have influenced my own work—films like Holy Ghost People by Peter Adair, Nobody's Business by Alan Berliner and The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris. Somewhere near the top of this list is dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, a feature-length experimental documentary made by the Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez in 1997. On the surface, the film sounds pretty straightforward: it traces the history of the hijacking phenomenon during the 20th Century. I first saw the film late one night in