At first glance, the Internet seems to be an impossibly complex jumble of vague electronic resources. For an on-line neophyte, the task of learning where-and how-to start sometimes seems overwhelming. The enormous hype surrounding the Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web, either leads an individual to a nagging feeling of "missing out, "or a deep suspicion that the grand frontier of the so-called "information super-highway" is pure hyperbole. The fact is, the Internet is a great tool - it's a wonderful opportunity to supplement your reach in a number of important areas. If you use
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As I sat down to write this column for the "cyber-doc" issue of ID magazine, I went on-line. Although I am far from expert at using the Internet, I have found a few sites which I find invaluable. I have two sites that I go to in that never-ending search for money. My first stop is often the Foundation Center at fdncenter.org. Without leaving my desk, I can review annual reports, recent grants, search for possible funds, and jump to foundation home pages. If you haven't visited the Foundation Center site, go there now-it saves time and can bring in money. When I'm looking to the corporate world
Happy 40th birthday to the oldest film festival in the Americas. Documentaries at the 1997 San Francisco International Film Festival (April 24-May 8) were a mixed bag in every way but one: quality. From politics to frivolity and philosophy to sex, there were amazingly few bloopers on the screen. That's not to say that I wasn't disconcerted at times, but only because the genres are blurring to the point that some program notes seemed to be inviting me into a documentary that turned out to be fiction, or vice versa. Robert Flaherty would've been amazed! These days, he'd have the option of
POV celebrates its tenth anniversary season this summer, and in an era of frequent attacks on alternative viewpoints, few would have expected the acclaimed documentary showcase to sustain its reputation for programming fresh, provocative works by emerging and established independent filmmakers. But this is also a nation of a plurality of views, of unique voices and visions, of personal stories behind the political issues. And for ten summers, POV has not only brought these stories to America's living rooms, but challenged Americans to participate as viewers and as storytellers. Marc Weiss
This month IDA takes special pride in celebrating our rich heritage and the vitality in our field today. "Documentary" was coined by the revolutionary British figure John Grierson, who marshaled the support necessary to begin the first government-sponsored program of information films for the general public. What Grierson was to Great Britain, Pare Lorentz was to the United States. The inroads, the accomplishments—and the disappointments—of these two filmmakers more than a half century ago paved the path that is tread by us all today. When Lorentz joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture and
If a single word can summarize the theme of the major documentaries at the 47th annual Berlin International Film Festival, last February, that word must be "memory": memories as documents. During thirty years of making documentaries, Johan Yan Der Keuken has shot in worldwide locations, but this is his first about his home town. Amsterdam, Global Village (The Netherlands, 4 hrs.) in effect is his return-to-roots film. He glides along the canals, searches down the side-street, seeking his boyhood neighborhood. And he is amazed that few of the faces he sees are white. "Our lives have global
Pare Lorentz's film Nuremberg, which many of his admirers have never seen (U.S. distribution was long held back on political grounds) is finally taking its place in the spotlight. It has been scheduled for a Los Angeles showing on June 2nd at the Museum of Tolerance, on the occasion of IDA's announcement of its new, endowed IDA/Pare Lorentz Award. And Nuremberg will also be included in the Pare Lorentz Boxed Film Set, also recently announced by IDA. This video collection will contain The Plow That Broke the Plains, The River; The Fight for Life, and Nuremberg, along with an account of Lorentz
Her new film is a shattering reflection on the fragile myths of security and safety, instilled in children during the late '50s, to be permanently overthrown by an adult experience of random sexual assault. For Jan Krawitz, In Harm's Way culminates a twenty-year career as documentary filmmaker and teacher. "I believe in documentary as a form because it's an accessible form: I've chosen it because I'm much more interested in reacting to things around me than in creating stories from my imagination." With an undergraduate education at Cornell University and a Master of Fine Arts from Temple
Meema Spadola, a 27-year-old filmmaker, just returned from Women Make Waves, a Taiwan film festival and the first for her film Breasts, a cable documentary she made for Cinemax that is making a few waves of its own. Breasts aired January 27 of this year and was the highest rated documentary ever shown on Cinemax. It features interviews with 22 women-many topless-ranging in age from 6 to 84-years-old. The women discuss how breasts play a crucial role in a woman's life, from puberty to motherhood, sex, health and aging. What's happening with the film now, and what are you doing? Meema Spadola: I
Politics was in the air last June during the 6th Petersburg Festival, which still bears its original title, "Message to Man." The Festival, once a strictly documentary event that now includes short fiction and animation, coincided with the first round of the Russian Presidential elections , with the incumbent Boris Yeltsin facing a strong challenge from the Communist Gennady Zyuganov. Yeltsin survived and—thanks in great part to overwhelming media support-went on to take the second round as well. My impression was that the Russian film world breathed a sigh of relief. Russian television was