Our last Doc U seminar of the year focused on the art of the interview.
Latest Posts
Swaying palms, oversized sunglasses and Blackberrys galore... You guessed it: I was at the Los Angeles Film Festival, held in June and organized by the newly baptized FIND (Film Independent, formerly IFP West). Audiences were treated to a muscular line-up of over 20 feature docs, many riveting and thought-provoking. Mark Becker's Romantico is an intimate portrait of a Mexican troubadour returning home to the impoverished border town of Salvatierra, after years of playing love songs for tips in San Francisco 's hip dive bars. Gorgeously shot on film, with luminous, immaculate images, Romntico
After scoring a hit with Grizzly Man and garnering a standing ovation at the Toronto Film Festival screening of Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, Lions Gate Films hopes to continue its documentary success with the recently announced The U.S. Vs. John Lennon, a co-production between Lions Gate and LSL Productions that began pre-production in September. The film covers the period in Lennon's life from 1966 to 1976, examining his evolution from musical superstar to peace activist, and the US government's efforts to silence him. Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, has pledged her support and cooperation to the
Some great feedback from our Doc U on the Road stops in New York and Washington, DC.
AFI Fest commemorated its 25th anniversary last month, and in the past quarter-century the festival has taken on as many different incarnations as positions in the calendar and locations in Los Angeles. Its seeds were planted much earlier-in 1971, in fact, as FILMEX, the sprawling, much venerated showcase for international cinema. The American Film Institute took over that festival and reconstituted, rebranded and relaunched it in 1987 as AFI Fest. Its first decade or so saw some growing pains, with locations shifting from Santa Monica in the spring to West Hollywood in the summer to Hollywood
Please review our official comments submitted to the US Copyright Office along with Kartemquin Educational Films Inc and others.
Documentary magazine hasn't covered the New York Film Festival (NYFF) since 2000, when a whopping two (2!) documentaries screened there. Despite the rise of the genre over the past decade or so, and the special attention that such tent-pole festivals as Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca and Toronto have accorded the genre, the New York Film Festival has just not programmed that many documentaries-until now. This year, under some new management, the NYFF programmers seem to have opened their hearts and minds to more documentaries than ever before. We counted 14, including several gems. What prompted this
Unlike any other film festival in the world, the Bydgoszcz, Poland-based Plus Camerimage, which ran from November 26 to December 3, celebrates the art of cinematography. Over the years, relocating from Torun to Lodz to Bydgoszcz, the festival has expanded in size and numbers, attracting thousands of filmmakers and film-lovers from around the world who come to meet and learn from cinematographers who rank as the finest masters of visual storytelling in our time. Originally conceived to nurture students from the Polish and other international film schools, Camerimage presents film screenings
Special Correspondent Deepthi Welaratna covered this Doc U seminar at POV in Brooklyn
One could have spent all 12 days of the 24th International Documentary FilmFestival Amsterdam (IDFA) covering any one of its programs. Eighty-eight world premieres screened across competition and non-competition sections, while other docs enjoyed their International or European premieres. Steve James was the subject of a retrospective, and he also curated his own Top 10 program. Finally, there were off-screen activities such as the IDFA talk shows, industry panels and the IDFAcademy. In a festival of over 300 films, no two experiences were the same. But almost everyone had something to say