Political conventions are a natural subject for documentarians. High stakes, inherent drama and charismatic characters are just a few of the attractions these events offer. While it can be tempting to simply grab a camera and show up, there is an overwhelming amount of action unfolding at a national political convention. Careful planning and focus are necessary to ensure getting a cohesive story. Filmmaker Robert Bahar ( Made in L.A.) spent a whole summer filming at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in 2000. He says, "The thing about conventions is that they seem incredibly important
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A look back at The Man from Hope
Bruce Conner, the San Francisco-based artist best known for his experimental films such as A Movie, passed away Monday at age 74. During the heyday of the San Francisco Bay Area counter-cultural scene—from the West Coast chapter of the Beat Generation in the 1950s to the Haight-Asbury Summer of Love era to the San Francisco punk rock scene—Connor was a mainstay, venturing into different artistic disciplines, and blending them together. While he probably wouldn’t have categorized himself as a documentary filmmaker, he did utilize documentary and newsreel footage in works such as A Movie (1958)
Seven Up! By Stella Bruzzi BFI TV Classics 126 pages black & white and color photos The British Film Institute once again proves itself to be an invaluable institution with the publication of Seven Up!, Stella Bruzzi’s book-length analysis of Michael Apted’s landmark British television documentary, The Up Series. This small volume is part of the collection TV Classics, a new counterpart (the first volume was published in 2006) to the BFI’s longstanding Film Classics group. The intent of both collections is to take an individual title, or in the case of television, a series, and subject it to a
The 14th edition of the Los Angeles Film Festival was bracketed, first, by Mark Gill’s Cassandra-like keynote address about the dire state of independent film, then by an evening with Sheila Nevins, in which the HBO doc doyenne reaffirmed the primacy of television as the go-to venue for nonfiction (I was not able to attend either event). And in between, THINKFilm was teetering on the brink of solvency, if not respectability; YouTube opened its Screening Room for more artful fare; and Nevins was finally invited, after 15 years, to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. And LAFF
When Ingrid Betancourt was among 15 hostages rescued last week after six years in captivity at the jungles of Colombia at the hands of FARC guerillas, the documentary community must have been thinking about The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt, the 2003 film by Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes. The filmmakers had originally planned to document Betancourt’s campaign for president of Colombia, following her eight years in Congress during which she spoke out against Columbian politicians who had been linked to drug cartels. Then, on February 23, 2002, she was kidnapped and held hostage, and the
Through footage, clips, stills, on-camera testimonials and staged readings of Dalton Trumbo's writings, Peter Askin's 'Trumbo' tells a story with contemporary poltical resonance.
Katrina Brown's 'Traces of the Trade,' which opens POV's 21st season on PBS, follows the filmmaker and her family to Ghana and Cuba as they trace the route of the slave trade, dominated by their ancestor, James DeWolf.
Writer/director/producer Joe Carnahan takes a walk on the documentary side.
Julie Checkoway talks about her film about an art school graduate who spends eight years on a single drawing, with t5he hope of showing it to renowned artist David Hockney.