June is a jam-packed month on the festival circuit. Just check out the nonfiction fare alone: Sheffield Doc/Fest, Silverdocs, The Flaherty Seminar, Sunny Side of the Doc and the young and frisky Open City Docs Fest. Then there's BAM CinemaFest and Games 4 Change in New York, Frameline in San Francisco, and six hours due south, the Los Angeles Film Festival. Throw in graduations, weddings, the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals, Father's Day and Summer Solstice, and you have one hyper-combustible calendar. The Los Angeles Film Festival, with Stephanie Allain having taken the reins this year from
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Catch Holy Man starting August 10 in New York and August 17 in Los Angeles!
The London-based Open City Docs Fest kicked off its second edition in June, exhibiting more than just a film festival, with offerings of interactive screenings and live events, performances, workshops and panels, and 132 films spread over four days-right on the heels of the higher profile showcase to the north, Sheffield Doc/Fest. Conversation, collaboration and community building, all in support of the next generation of filmmakers, proved to be the dominant themes that shaped Open City. Documentary sat down with founder/director Michael Stewart, in the festival hub at University College
When Silverdocs launched in 2003, Ann Richards and George Plimpton were still alive, Journey was just another '80s rock band, and a small Moroccan village nestled in the mountains did not yet have any electricity. This year, which marks the 10th edition of the AFI Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival, all of the above were subjects of captivating documentaries here. The films capped off a decade of growth; Silverdocs, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, is now the largest documentary film festival in the US, and is seen as one of the best showcases to premiere a new project, or
Submit by August 27 for your chance at a $10,000 prize.
'Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry' opens in theaters July 27 through Sundance Selects.
During Gay Pride Month in June, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival celebrated its 36th year as the world's longest-running film festival presenting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender programming. Its home is the beloved 1,400-seat Castro Theatre, a 1922 movie palace whose neon façade lures cineastes of every variety. This year's Frameline, as it's known from the name of its parent media-arts nonprofit organization, boasted nearly 50 documentaries, feature-length and short, including its Opening Night and Centerpiece films. This review of only eight of those films, chosen
Editor's Note: The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Programs and Fund is the receipient of the IDA Pioneer Award; this article appeared in the Summer 2012 issue in commemoration of the DFP's 10th anniversary. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund (DFP), a key source of support for some of the best documentaries to come out over the past decade. Some recent grantees include The Oath (Dir.: Laura Poitras), Gasland (Dir.: Josh Fox), Trouble the Water (Dirs.: Tia Lessin and Carl Deal), Bully (Dir.: Lee Hirsch) and The Island President
'The Imposter' opens July 13 in New York City.
No one in the documentary community can stop talking about what a great time it is to be working in the world of nonfiction. Docs are booming in theaters, on public television and cable and are literally exploding in the home video/DVD market. Docurama is the only label dedicated exclusively to bringing critically acclaimed and cutting-edge documentary films to the home entertainment marketplace. Founded in 1999 by parent company New Video, Docurama has released over 100 award-winning and highly acclaimed documentaries. In January 2005 Docurama released a White Paper detailing this surge for