A wise man once said, "If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere." A year and half ago we embarked on a journey that few would want to travel. It was a journey down a path leading to Death's Door'. Autopsy: Through the Eyes of Death's Detectives documentary that explores the much-maligned character and work of clinical pathologists and forensic experts. It's also an unflinching, uncensored look at autopsy and its role in medicine and society. The documentary is our attempt to demystify subject matter that has forever been taboo, in no small thanks to Hollywood
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Image Properties Dear IDA, I want to thank you for selecting Just a Wedding to participate in the DOCtober Festival. The film is newly released, as you know, so I was happy to see it projected on the big screen. People seem to really like the film—I'm encouraged by that. I'm sure you know already, but let me tell you anyway how hard your special events coordinator, Melissa Disharoon, worked and how helpful she was. Thelma Vickroy's outreach program is a great idea. I must admit, when I saw all of those elementary school children pile into the theater, I was a little alarmed at the possibility
Michael Friend, director of Film Archives at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is working with Les Blank on the archiving and preservation of his film catalogue. “We wanted to preserve all of Les’s films and are fortunate to be able to do this with his participation,” Friend says. “I think Les is one of the most important American documentary filmmakers, and it would be a shame for his work to be lost, damaged or destroyed. In this case, the prints are in pretty good condition, although some of the works had been cut for sales and distribution. We are in the process of restoring
The First Beirut "DocuDays," took place September 28 through October 4 in the capitol of Lebanon. The festival was organized by Marcel and Mohammed Hashem of the Arab Company for Radio Television and Cinema, and was partly sponsored by the Eastman Kodak Company and Paris-based Capa Productions. It was named in honor of IDA’s own DocuDay, and IDA Executive Director Betsy McLane was honored as one of six international jurors who attended as guests of the festival. The majority of the works shown at the festival were produced in Lebanon by Lebanese documentarians. Currently there are four
Dear IDA Members: Filmmakers from around the world gathered in Los Angeles at the end of October to celebrate the 15th Annual IDA Awards. The enthusiastic spirit of the filmmakers pervaded a weekend that included the annual press luncheon at Eastman Kodak in Hollywood, the Awards Gala and DocuFest screenings at the Directors Guild of America Theater. The pinnacle event occurred Friday evening when over 300 people assembled for the Awards Gala in the newly opened Los Angeles Center Studios. The evening began with an exuberant reception followed by the presentation of awards in a brand new state
Les Blank is a prize-winning independent filmmaker, best known for a series of poetic films that led Time Magazine critic Jay Cocks to write, "I can't believe that anyone interested in movies or America...could watch Blank's work without feeling they'd been granted a casual, soft-spoken revelation." John Rockwell, writing in The New York Times, adds, "Blank is a documentarian of folk cultures who transforms anthropology into art." And Vincent Canby, also in The Times, declared that Blank "is a master of movies about the American idiom...one of our most original filmmakers." Major
Czech documentaries seem to be responding to changing times faster than Czech feature films. Documentarists have never lost touch with contemporary life, not even after the political changes in their country in 1989. They know very well what they want to shoot and for whom. True to say, authors of Czech feature films were long accustomed to turning to the past which offered much safer subjects than the present. Under the former Communist regime, films about the past had a better chance of escaping the censor’s attention. Yet, preoccupation with the past seems to have persisted to this day
Les Blank appears and then fades into the hazy Arkansas sunlight. Now you see him, now you don’t. He is like a ghost, an ephemera, a shadow of a soul caught on a summer breeze. He speaks to me in hushed soft-tones. I have to lean my chair in real close just to hear him. It’s tempting to touch him, or poke my finger into his flesh—his presence is immutable, and I want to make sure he is really there. His work speaks for him and through him—and it is clear to anyone watching, that in this instance the axiom is true: Les is really more. Blank is setting up for his next screening and workshop,
Orphans of the Storm (1921)." src="http://www.documentary.org/images/magazine/90s/TheOprhans_Dec1999.jpg" style="width: 647px; height: 411px;"> “The [National Film Preservation] Foundation's primary mission is to save orphan films, films without owners able to pay for their preservation. The films most at-risk are newsreels, silent films, experimental works, films out of copyright protection, significant amateur footage, documentaries, and features made outside the commercial mainstream. Orphan films are the living record of the twentieth century.” —from Title II of the National Film
How Les Blank’s passion for the rich depth of American music—and a bad hand at cards—launches a deeply artistic filmmaking style resembling the very spirit of the music.... I grew up in Tampa, Florida in a white, upper-middle class home and distinctly remember the first live music I ever experienced. It was a neighbor practicing on his trombone. I became transfixed and transported by the deep rich tones of the horn and the beauty of the shiny silver instrument. I later took up playing trumpet in school and was the bugler for the daily raising and lowering ceremonies of the American flag. But