Looking at the backgrounds of accomplished filmmakers is a most interesting exercise, and to study the emergence of Florentine Films--now 30 years old--means learning about some of the most interesting and creative individuals of the documentary film. Ken Burns, Roger Sherman and Buddy Squires met and worked together as students at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Larry Hott, who did not actually matriculate at Hampshire, worked on films and learned much of his art there, although he began his career as an attorney, having attended nearby Western New England Law School. The four
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As an 11-year old in 1958, I watched the Disney film White Wilderness. We see a cute little bear cub lose its footing on a steep, snow-covered mountainside and fall faster and faster until it's tumbling down totally out of control. It eventually stops falling after banging hard into rocks. The audience laughs because we assume it is totally natural and authentic and it's funny in a slapstick kind of way–at least at first. In fact, it is totally staged top to bottom, including the use of a man-made artificial mountain and captive bear cubs. When I was a teenager growing up in England, Life
Why Can’t Factual and Nature Filmmakers Find Common Ground?
Jerome Foundation Accepting New York City Film and Video Program Applications The Saint Paul-based Jerome Foundation is now accepting applications for its New York City Film and Video Program on an ongoing basis. In addition, the program no longer limits applicants' budgets to $200,000 or less. Budgets of any size are allowed and will be given the same consideration. Applicants with small budgets are welcome and encouraged to apply. The film and video grant program is open to individual film and video artists who reside within the five boroughs of New York City and who work in the genres of
IDA announces screening dates for 15th Annual DocuWeeks™
From Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscape, which won the Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival Mirroring the strong gusts and chilly rain that greeted audiences at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival (TIFF), the winds of change blowing through the nonfiction programming were equally robust (and decidedly warmer). The festival's Real to Reel programmer Sean Farnel moved on to Hot Docs and was succeeded by author/filmmaker/teacher/programmer Thom Powers, who introduced a slew of new initiatives, large and small, designed to shine the
Dispatch from Toronto's Hot Docs Fest.
The Red Chapel shown with The Frustrated Fascist Auteurism of Kim Jong-il. A trio of Danes go to North Korea as the theater group Red Chapel, ostensibly as regime sympathizers participating in a variety show in Pyongyang, but actually to collect footage of the regime from the inside.
May 16 Join Doug Block and Marjan Safinia to discuss the personal documentary process