Best Documentary Feature Children UndergroundProducer/director: Edet BelzbergExecutive producers: Sheilah Kitt McKinnon and Michel NegroponteCinematographer: Wolfgang HeldEditor: Jonathan OppenheimDistributor: Cinemax Reel Life Today, more than 20,000 children live on the streets of Romania’s cities and towns, a tragic legacy of former President Nicolae Ceaucescu’s regime, during which he outlawed the use of contraception and abortion in an effort to increase the nation’s work force. In Children Underground, Edet Belzberg lets the subjects speak for themselves, telling their own stories of
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Last month’s Academy Awards® telecast featured a first-ever tribute to documentaries. It was considered by many to be another hallmark in an ongoing campaign to increase recognition and respect for the documentary form within the ranks of the Academy. That effort has spanned the better part of a decade, and achieved its greatest success with the formation of an official Documentary Branch in January 2001. In the 15 months since its formation, the Branch has continued to campaign for parity. While the other 13 branches of the Academy have three representatives each on the Board of Governors
Chris Marker’s Le Joli Mai was made in Paris in 1962, as France’s war with Algeria was finally coming to an end. This seminal work was greatly influential in steering me towards the documentary form. Marker, who wrote the film’s eloquent narration, lays out his purpose at the start. He wants to see Paris “as if for the first time, without memories or habits. One would like to track it with a telescope and a microphone.” For the next two hours he does exactly that, plunging the viewer into virtually every aspect of Parisian life. The film has been rightly praised for being an early example of
Dear IDA Members, As I mentioned last issue, this is a particularly banner occasion for the Academy Awards—and for documentary in general. IDA celebrates its 20th anniversary, as does the Sundance Institute, which this year launches the Sundance Documentary Channel. And the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences commemorates 60 years of honoring the documentary form with a special presentation during the telecast. And the Documentary Branch, which has been sought after and fought for over the past few decades, is finally a reality. Speaking of the Sundance Documentary Channel, we are
As Michael Donaldson mentions in his column, the Oscars® telecast spotlighted 60 years of Best Documentary honors with a stellar tribute, produced by filmmaker Penelope Spheeris; in this issue Jason Lyons looks at the new Documentary Branch, formed last year, and former IDA President Chuck Workman, an Academy Award® winner for his short Precious Images, reflects on how the documentary field has evolved over the past 20 years, both in and out of the Academy. As I write this column, in early March, ABC, the longtime broadcaster of the Academy Awards, is mulling over the possibility of
In the past decade, we've undergone a massive change in the world of the documentary. Fiction and nonfiction now live equally side by side in schools, despite the bright lights of Hollywood that glow so seductively there. The Oscar® nomination process seems finally reasonable and equitable, although we've all had favorite films left out, including our own. The creation of a Documentary Branch at the Academy is promising but hopefully will be watched closely for the incestuous problems that occurred in the past. The growth and good will of the IDA is simply staggering. But best of all, so much
Can you believe it's been 20 years? Well, for me it's actually 21. Twenty-one years ago my husband Larry and I were practicing psychotherapists (having formerly worked in documentary for David Wolper and Jacques Cousteau), and we were lured back into "the biz" by fellow Cousteau veteran Tom Horton. "Would we like to go to New Zealand and work on a doc about Sir Edmund Hillary?" he asked. We agonized, but of course we said yes. And now that we were back in "the biz," however temporarily, I thought it would be great to join the professional association for documentarians, so we could get back in
In the midst of vivid reminders that today’s news is tomorrow’s history, 400 filmmakers and broadcasters gathered in Boston last fall for History 2001, the inaugural edition of the World Congress of History Producers. The sponsor, Boston’s own WGBH, and the organizer, Canada’s Banff Television Foundation, trumpeted the conference as an international event exploring “the future of history.” But the audience—as participants were quick to point out—was dominated by documentary-makers from North America, Australia and the UK, making for more insular explorations than some had hoped for
Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl's fetishistic film about Hitler's 1934 Nuremberg rally, is a controversial choice for "Playback," but not a perverse one. We recently sat down to watch it as we were preparing to make The Pink Fuhrer, a documentary about the controversy that Hitler might have been gay. For us, controversy is a critical ingredient for documentaries, whose raison d'etre is to look reality dead in the eye, and not be a hostage to political correctness or consensual thinking. A great documentary should not be afraid to ask the unaskable, even if it doesn't have the answers. Of
Looking back and looking forward have always been linked in my mind. What’s the use of looking behind us if not to see where we might go? These pages are filled with reminisces, reflections and remembrances of many of those who shaped the IDA. As someone who was recruited by Linda Buzzell a few short months after the formation of the IDA, I am proud to say that it is a joy to see the growth that has taken place. We were a very small group at the beginning. The bylaws needed some serious fixing. We soon launched a fiscal sponsorship program that was somewhat groundbreaking at the time. Today