Ten years since it was founded to revitalize the Lower Manhattan area after 9/11, the Tribeca Film Festival expanded into Midtown-and broadened its programming accordingly. This year's lineup, with films from 32 countries, featured 45 world premieres, 91 features and more than 40 documentaries works. The project of seeing half of the documentaries was an exhausting feat unto itself. My trial began in earnest on the second day of the festival, while I was subsisting on Cliff Bars waiting for a documentary about the greatest sushi on earth. Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a strong debut from director
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The Buenos Aires Lab in held in conjunction with the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Film.
Big personalities and big issues dominated the documentaries at this year's San Francisco International Film Festival. Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway's Better This World, the story of two naïve and idealistic young Texans who fall under the spell of a charismatic FBI informant and are prosecuted for domestic terrorism during the 2008 Republican National Convention, earned two Golden Gate Awards, for Documentary Feature and for Bay Area Documentary. The film is as gripping as any fictional drama, with two thoughtful and articulate protagonists. The drama in Yoav Potash's
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was launched in 1997 as the Double Take Documentary Film Festival, sponsored by the Documentary Studies Program at Duke University. In 2002 the festival parted with the Duke program and adopted its current name. Led for 10 years by founder Nancy Buirski, the event grew, prospered and became internationally known. Buirski stepped aside in 2008 to pursue filmmaking, and the resourceful Peg Palmer provided two years of interim leadership. Deirdre Haj was named director just prior to the 2010 festival. Through 2011 Haj has guided the festival's return to
"Louder Than a Bomb" launches its nationwide theatrical rollout with a run at the IFC Center in NYC from May 18-26. Co-directors Greg Jacobs & Jon Siskel will be in attendance at the evening screenings May 18-21, along with two of the film's stars—Nate Marshall & Nova Venerable. Tickets and showtimes available on Monday, May 16 after 6:00 pm. "Louder Than a Bomb" was part of IDA's 14th Annual DocuWeeks program in 2010 and was one of the audience favorites. The 15th Annual DocuWeeks Theatrical Documentary Showcase is set for Los Angeles: August 19 - September 8 at Sunset 5 and New York: August
The 21st-century marriage of the digital revolution with China's drive toward First World status, and the resulting collateral damage, have been auspicious for nonfiction filmgoers outside China. Cheap, portable digital technology has seeded a flowering of uncensored documentaries about this country that sadly will remain unseen by ordinary Chinese, given scant venues and their outspoken criticism of authorities' mistreatment of minorities, victims of tragedy and artists. Shot with low budgets and under the radar of government surveillance--but not without a fair share of confrontations with
When watching The King's Speech, a warm, if plastic, British biopic about King George VI's stutter and his friendship with an Australian speech therapist, my father made an odd comment: "That King accomplished a lot," he said. "He had a good wife." It's worth noting that my mother passed away in 2002 and, as such, the consequences of widowerhood matter to him. Before you tell me this is not relevant to the field of documentary filmmaking, I'll beg your patience. You see, the film we were watching was based on historical fact--the element some would say lends documentary its most basic value
atlas (noun): a bound collection of maps, sometimes with supplementary illustrations or graphic analyses; a volume of tables, charts or plates that systematically illustrates a particular subject. If one could take all of the features of an atlas and adapt them for the digital age, you'd end up with the new Discovery Channel series Discovery Atlas. The brainchild of Discovery Communications, Inc. founder and chairman John S. Hendricks, Atlas aims to create portraits of the great nations of the world, highlighting their people, places, culture and history in a variety of formats. The
From Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth IDA/ABC NEWS VIDEOSOURCE AWARD Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples TempleDirector/Producer/Executive Producer: Stanley NelsonExecutive Producer: Mark SamelsWriters: Noland Walker, Marcia SmithCinematographer: Michael ChinEditors: Lewis Erskine, Aliernon TunsilComposer: Tom PhillipsFirelight Media, Seventh Art Releasing, WGBH, PBS In the 1960s and '70s, Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of Peoples Temple, offered for some the perfect balance of spiritual fulfillment and political commitment. But in a 1977 magazine article, defectors and family