Lt. Robert Drew and war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Poster for Robert Drew's From Two Men and a War. Photo: Drew Associates Almost 50 years after Robert Drew produced Primary, whichpioneered a new form of filmmaking called cinma vrit, or Direct Cinema,the documentary filmmaker will be honored with a five-filmretrospective by the Tampere Film Festival in Helsinki, Finland fromMarch 8 to 12. His most recent film, From Two Men and a War--whichhe and Anne Drew, his wife and filmmaking partner of 35 years,produced--will lead off the program. The documentary is a very personalself-portrait, based on
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Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani's 'The Devil's Miner.'
From Adan Aliaga's My Grandmother's House, which won the VPRO Joris Ivens Award for best feature at the 2005 IDFA Last November, as Americans were preparing for Thanksgiving Day, across the Atlantic the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA; www.idfa.nl) was getting underway. A cornucopia of a different kind, this was the beginning of a ten-day feast of nonfiction fare that included more than 800 documentaries from over 50 countries. Social activism was on the screen and in the air as films, panel discussions and informal conversations tackled difficult issues. From the inside of
A report from the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival.
What is "The Long Tail?" In the world of content makers and distributors, it's a new buzz word that's making the rounds.Now, before you start getting images of a surgically enhanced pet, let me put your mind at ease. The Long Tail refers to the shelf life of content. And it's based on an article in a recent issue of Wired magazine, written by Chris Anderson.The idea is simply that old media marketing is a based on squeezing dollars from a handful of big hits at the top of the charts: best-selling books, blockbuster movies, Top 40 pop singles. But there's evidence that the future of content isn
Copyright clearance seems like the weather. You can complain about it, but you can't do anything about it. Or can you? When we did some research at American University (with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation) on the problems documentary filmmakers have with copyright clearance, we discovered some weather patterns that are worth paying attention to—and doing something about. We wanted to know how the current restrictive interpretations of copyright law—especially those that ignore the longstanding right of "fair use" without licensing of material under some limited circumstances—affect
The sit-down strike of 27 prisoners at the Presidio Army Stockade following the killing of a prisioner by a guard. From Zeiger's Sir! No Sir!. Courtesy of National Archives "You find out that it's all lies; they are just lying to the American people. And your silence just means you are a part of keeping that lie going...I couldn't be quiet. I felt I had a responsibility to my friends, and the country in general. And to advocate for the Vietnamese fighting for their country." -GI activist David Cline From David Zeiger's Sir, No Sir! "It is the same shit, all over again," observes Kyle, a US
Cianna Stewart weighs the options of forming a nonprofit or for-profit production company--or freelancing.
Editor's note: This article was revised for the Winter 2019 issue, adapted from the session Getting Real '18. Since then, a second revision was published in December 2024. A well thought-out budget is a clear plan for making a film. And a good budget reveals a lot about how a film is going to be made, what kind of story you'll be telling, what kind of crew you plan to use and what sort of equipment you've selected. But how do you prepare a budget that fits your documentary? This article provides a nuts-and-bolts primer on documentary budgeting. Preparing to Create a Budget It is often said