What do you see at a film festival? At Tribeca Film Festival, that would be television programs, online episodes, online video, installations that incorporate virtual reality, 360 video and games. And films—especially the documentary films. The documentary lineup at #Tribeca2018 was rich in handsome, well-produced options and issue films were everywhere. On the environment, you could go for uplift/inspiring, Neil Gelinas' Into the Okavango, which features a National Geographic expedition into the extraordinary Okavango Delta to catalog its native species, and The Serengeti Rules, which with
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The 15th Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (March 23-30) presented 62 films from 36 countries, and brought together over 200 participants to the architecturally eclectic city of Kiev. This was my first trip to Ukraine, and I'll admit, I wasn't expecting a country that had just had a revolution four years prior, and was currently embroiled in a no-end-in-sight war on its border, would prove to be such an inspiring environment to watch and talk docs. Yet after a heady five days of soaking in the surrounding sights, and the festival's engaging panels and strong
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! At The New York Times, Liz Garbus shares the story behind her upcoming Times-centered doc The Fourth Estate. Still, why did The Times open itself to anyone in such a way? There were so many reasons for it not to. It might be that the organization's leaders understood that at a time when journalism was under attack
When filmmaker Dawn Porter was approached to produce and direct a new documentary about Robert F. Kennedy and his 1968 presidential campaign, she thought back to an interview she had done for her first feature documentary, Gideon's Army, with former Attorney General Eric Holder in his office at the Department of Justice. Holder was seated at Kennedy's old desk that he used when he was attorney general; above the desk was a portrait of Kennedy. Holder told Porter that, as a boy growing up in Queens, he was captivated by seeing the Kennedy brothers on television and was drawn to the idea of a
Over the coming days, hundreds of filmmakers and industry professionals from across the globe will land in Toronto, Canada, to participate in the Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival—North America's largest documentary festival, conference and market. Documentary film, widely celebrated as Canada's national art form, has found a welcoming embrace in Toronto, and the upcoming edition, which runs from April 26 to May 6, marks an impressive quarter-century of preeminence in the documentary community. Founded in 1993 by the Documentary Organization of Canada (formerly the Canadian
This year's Full Frame Tribute honoree, Jehane Noujaim, is no stranger to the 21-year-old Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, having brought both her very first film, Startup.com (co-directed with Chris Hegedus, and produced by DA Pennebaker) to Durham over a decade and a half ago, and three years later, 2004's prescient Control Room. Since then, of course, the Harvard-educated, globetrotting director (she splits her time between the US and Egypt) has gone on to be nominated for an Academy Award (for 2013's The Square), as well as winning the TED Prize (which allowed her to create the
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Now streaming at Amazon Prime is Parvez Sharma's A Sinner in Mecca . For a gay filmmaker, filming in Saudi Arabia during the hajj presents two serious challenges -- filming is forbidden and homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is punishable by death. With nothing more than his iPhone, Sharma joins four million fellow Muslims on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Premiering Wednesday, April 25, on KCET Link is the new season of Earth Focus, produced in partnership with Thomson Reuters
Single-use plastic items account for more than 40 percent of plastic waste that ends up in landfills or natural environment. They are non-biodegradable, killing over 100 million marine animals each year. In celebration of Earth Day 2018 and this year’s focus on ending plastic pollution, here are a few documentaries to spur you into action and reduce your impact. BBC Blue Planet II The follow-up to 2001’s documentary series is available in beautiful 4K and narrated, of course, by Sir David Attenborough. The series not only takes the viewers on a journey around the world’s marine ecosystems, but
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! At Filmmaker, Lauren Wissot reports from the #DocsSoWhite "Gatekeepers" panel at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. After Rana explained that Kartemquin primarily funds Chicago and Midwest filmmakers, Walker moved the conversation on to the subject of class. Statistically, she said, documentary filmmakers
The Center for Media at Risk is the brainchild of Barbie Zelizer, Ph.D, professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania. The aim of the Center is to bring together media practitioners and scholars to address the real threats to the journalism profession—ranging from killings and kidnappings to trolling and hacking. The 2016 presidential election spurred Zelizer to think about how the media needs to transform itself in a wholesale fashion. The Center itself officially launches this month, highlighted by a two-day conference this weekend