It happens in the documentary world, as it does in any artistic milieu: Two filmmakers, unbeknownst to one another, set out to make likeminded projects. David Zeiger ( The Band) and R.J. Cutler ( The War Room; A Perfect Candidate) spent the last academic year with their respective crews documenting the lives of high school students. Zeiger filmed at his alma mater, Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, while Cutler filmed at Highland Park High School outside of Chicago. Zeiger’s work, Senior Year, is slated to air on PBS in 2001 as a projected six-hour program, while Cutler’s American High has
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Turning their cameras on the problems of American middle-class youth has been a favorite pre-occupation for filmmakers since the word teen-ager was invented. While not focusing on violence and crime, the problems of very poor schools, or the triumph of good teachers over all odds, the films discussed here make some very pithy comments about high school life. How much has actually changed in high school life—and in the way that life is captured in a documentary? In the late 1960s, two widely seen documentaries, which intimately examine the experience of American high school, were made. The
In 1993 film scholars held the first Visible Evidence conference devoted exclusively to “strategies and practices in documentary film and video.” The event at Duke University was so productive that it has been repeated annually at other locations ever since. (This year’s conference took place last month in Utrecht in The Netherlands) The conferences represent an important reconfiguration and redefinition of documentary studies in the academy. They have also given birth to a significant new series of books under the same title from the University of Minnesota Press that seek to challenge
I was recently talking to a manager of a sparse office tucked away in the bowels of Silicon Valley. He wanted to go back to film school and make films. When I suggested documentaries, he replied, "Aren't documentaries like the poor man's idea of filmmaking? Why make documentaries?" It was another widening of an age-old divide between those who create only for money and those who create because of the simple need to create. The former, who possess more will and gall than fail to comprehend that there is no "why." The latter are driven by untold stories, bottom line and “terms of engagement” be
"I don't believe in the objectivity of the filmmaker," Hatem Kraiche asserts as he introduces himself. "l do believe in the honesty of the filmmaker." Hatem, a one-time journalist in Spain and now a first-year student at Cuba's international film school, Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television (EICTV), is meeting—and challenging—his visiting professor, New York-based filmmaker Robert Richter. He has no inkling yet of Richter's reputation for hard-hitting, truth-telling documentaries that have earned two Academy Award nominations, national Emmy Awards and a top prize at the 1998 Havana
Dear IDA Members: For the past eight years, Betsy Mclane served tirelessly as IDA's executive director. With Betsy's departure this past June, an era of tremendous growth, increased visibility and membership in 50 countries drew to a close. We thank Betsy for her years of dedicated service to IDA. Through her future endeavors she will undoubtedly make further contribution: to the doe documentary community. While serving with IDA, Betsy was a constant advocate for documentaries at festivals, on panels and wherever she carried the IDA banner. She enhanced and initiated programs and services that
The Eight Shooting Format: HDTV and Digital VideoDirected by IDA member Mark KornweibelProduced by Andrew Zinnes, Rob Turfe and Sean Coughlin From the filmmakers who brought last year's crowd-pleasing Pop & Me comes this 60-minute documentary following the US Women's rowing team as it trains for and competes in the 2000 Olympics. The struggle on the water is brutal, painful, dramatic, funny, fast-paced and inspirational. Often compared to warfare, it is as much of an emotional and spiritual struggle as it is a physical one. The women of The Eight find out what it means to be a rower, a woman
Go to any indie festival and it's not long before somebody starts talking about money. At the Visual Communications Film Fest 2000's Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival, held May 18-25 in Los Angeles, the issue of money—in this case, corporate sponsorship of the festival—took center stage in record time. Before the screening of the opening night feature, organizers ran a "thank you" spot listing the festival's sponsors, leading off with the most generous "platinum" donors, two Asian American dot-com start-ups that had donated $15,000 to the cause. But as the listing worked
Los Angeles audiences will get the opportunity to view the rarely seen On the Road with Duke Ellington when the IDA presents the legendary Robert Drew documentary under the stars at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre August 6. In addition to the screening of the film in a newly restored print. courtesy of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Academy Film Archive, the evening will also include a live performance of Ellington's music and a tribute to filmmaker Drew. On the Road with Duke Ellington first aired on NBC in 1968 as part of The Bell Telephone Hour, a venerable series devoted
Dear IDA Members: Summer is a great time to enjoy the outdoors. And what could be better than spending a warm summer evening under the stars? Watching a great documentary about a great music legend under the stars and in the company of the filmmaker! IDA has partnered with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy Film Archive to present a newly restored print of an important documentary film as part of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission "Summer Nights at the Ford." The Ford, a 1,200-seat open-air amphitheatre set dramatically in Cahuenga Canyon just across ftom the Hollywood